Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Interview Questions
Six question sets for hiring a CPA at a small business or a small firm: licensure and scope, technical depth, tax and audit work, owner communication, ethics and independence, plus a 1-to-5 scorecard with a verification block. Download as DOCX.
The hard part of hiring a CPA is that the credential does most of the talking. A license tells you the candidate met an education requirement, passed a four-part national exam, and completed supervised experience under a state board. It does not tell you whether they have ever run a close alone, answered a notice, or explained a number to you without a lecture.
At FirstHR, we build for small businesses and small firms that hire without an HR department, where an owner or a partner runs the interview personally between client work. This page gives you six question sets, each paired with what a strong answer sounds like, plus a 1-to-5 scorecard with a verification block, so a non-accountant can run this interview and still decide on evidence.
Two things separate a CPA interview from a general accounting interview, and both are usually skipped. The first is license verification, which is free, public, and takes about five minutes. The second is independence, which quietly limits what a CPA on your payroll is allowed to do for you.
TL;DR
Interview a CPA on five things: licensure and scope, technical accounting, tax and audit work, owner communication, and ethics and independence. Verify the license on the state board lookup before the interview, push every answer from definition to sequence, and score all candidates on the same 1-to-5 rubric. Federal data puts the median for accountants and auditors at $83,680 a year.
What to Assess in a CPA
Assess five things: licensure and scope, technical accounting depth, tax and audit ownership, plain-language communication, and ethics and independence. The license is the entry ticket, not the evaluation. What you are buying is judgment applied to your books, and judgment only shows up in the specifics of work the candidate has personally done.
The most common mistake is stopping once the credential is confirmed. A candidate with three years of audit experience and a clean license can be a poor fit for a seat that needs monthly close and small-business tax, and the interview is where that mismatch is cheap to catch. Write down what the role must do in its first quarter, then interview for exactly that.
If you have not written the role down yet, start with the CPA job description templates, which cover staff, senior, in-house, tax, and audit variants. Scoping the seat first makes the interview shorter and the comparison between candidates far more useful.
Licensure, Credentials, and Scope
Is the license real and relevant?
State, status, renewal, route to licensure, CPE, and the practice history behind the credential. Five minutes of this saves the rest of the process.
Technical Accounting
Can they run a close?
The month-end close in order, how the statements connect, cash versus accrual, and what happens when a reconciliation refuses to tie out.
Tax, Audit, and Compliance
What have they owned?
Returns prepared or reviewed, notice response, audit role, first-audit readiness, and filing obligations as a business crosses state lines.
Owner Communication
Can they explain it to you?
Plain-language explanations, bad news delivered early, and a monthly report an owner will actually read. The set a non-accountant can grade directly.
Ethics and Independence
Where is the floor?
Pressure to record something wrong, what independence means for an employed CPA, confidentiality of payroll data, and self-reported errors.
Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
Score, do not guess
Six scoring areas with evidence lines, a pre-interview verification block, and a red-flag checklist. The asset most question lists leave out.
Do You Actually Need a CPA?
You need a CPA when the work requires attest services, signed representations, or tax and structural judgment that carries real consequences. You do not need one to keep clean books. Plenty of small businesses hire a licensed professional for work a bookkeeper or a staff accountant would have handled at a fraction of the cost.
The practical test is the list of things the role must do in its first quarter. If most of them are recording, reconciling, and reporting, the hire is a bookkeeper or a senior accountant. If most of them require judgment, a signature, or a position you would have to defend, hire the CPA.
Role
Typical scope
Hire when
Bookkeeper
Transactions, reconciliations, payables and receivables, routine reports
The books need to be accurate and current, nothing more
Staff or senior accountant
Month-end close, financial statements, schedules, audit support
You need someone to own the close and the statements
CPA (in house)
Close and statements plus tax positions, audit readiness, advisory
The work needs judgment, positions, and professional standards
CPA firm (outside)
Tax returns, audit and review engagements, year-end advisory
You need attest work or seasonal expertise, not a full seat
A common and sensible answer is both: an in-house bookkeeper or accountant handling the daily work, with an outside firm engaged for tax and year end. If the scope lands on the accountant side, the accountant job description templates scope that seat instead. That structure also means the CPA you hire in house is being hired for judgment rather than volume, which changes which questions matter most.
Verify the License Before the Interview
Verify the license on the state board of accountancy lookup before the candidate walks in, not after the offer. It is free, public, and takes about five minutes, and it converts the credential from a claim into a fact so the interview can be spent on what the person has actually done.
Look the license up before you interview
Every state board of accountancy publishes a free public license lookup, and NASBA runs a national one across participating boards. Search the name, confirm the status reads active, and note the renewal date. It takes about five minutes and it is the single check most small employers skip.
Confirm the state, not just the credential
CPAs are licensed by state boards, not by a federal agency, so a candidate can hold a valid license in one state and none in yours. Mobility rules let many CPAs practice across state lines, but the rules differ by state and by type of work, so confirm the specific state your work sits in.
Read the status word carefully
Active, inactive, retired, and lapsed are different states with different permissions, and a candidate may describe all of them as holding a license. Inactive usually means the CPE requirement is not being met and the person cannot hold out as a practicing CPA. Ask directly rather than inferring.
Ask about board discipline and outside work
Board lookups also show disciplinary history where it exists. Ask the candidate about it before you look, so you learn how they handle a hard disclosure. Ask separately about outside client work, which can compete for exactly the weeks you need most.
One related check sits outside the license entirely. Anyone who prepares federal tax returns for compensation must hold a current preparer tax identification number issued by the IRS. If the role touches returns, confirm it separately, because it is an IRS requirement rather than part of the state license.
An Accounting Degree Is Not a License
The most common credential problem in these interviews is not fraud, it is drift. A candidate with an accounting degree, or one who has passed some exam sections, or one whose license lapsed during a career break, will sometimes describe all three the same way. Ask for the state and the license number as a flat factual question, look it up, and write down what you checked and when. Applying that same step to every finalist keeps the process consistent and gives you a record.
6 Free Question Sets to Download
Download all six as one Word document, or copy individual sets. Each set lists the questions, why those questions are worth asking, what a strong answer sounds like, and space for notes. The sixth file is the scorecard, with a pre-interview verification block and a red-flag checklist.
Download All Question Sets and the Scorecard
Five CPA question sets by competency plus a 1-to-5 scoring rubric with a verification block. All in one DOCX.
Set 1: Licensure, Credentials, and Scope
State, status, renewal, route to licensure, continuing education, and the practice history behind the credential. This set runs first because it decides how the rest of the hour is spent.
Licensure, Credentials, and Scope Questions
CPA INTERVIEW: LICENSURE, CREDENTIALS, AND SCOPE
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK
•Is your CPA license active today, in which state, and when does it renew?
•Which route did you take to licensure, and how long have you practiced since?
•What has your work actually been: tax, audit, monthly close, advisory, a mix?
•Which of those do you want more of, and which do you want less of?
•How do you stay current, and how many CPE hours did your most recent cycle need?
•Do you hold any other credentials, and do you carry outside clients?
•Where does your comfort end, and when do you bring in a specialist?
•What would you need from us in the first month to be useful?
WHY THESE QUESTIONS
The credential is the easiest thing to assume and the easiest thing to check.
These questions establish three facts before you spend the rest of the hour on
skill: the license is active in a state that matters to you, the practice
history matches the seat you are filling, and the candidate knows the edge of
their own competence.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER LOOKS LIKE
A strong candidate answers the license question in one flat sentence with a
state and a renewal month, and offers to send the number without being pushed.
Practice history comes with proportions rather than a job list: mostly tax with
some close work, or three years of audit and then a move in house. The best
answers name a boundary out loud, such as complex multistate work or valuation,
and say who they would call. Weak answers blur the credential (a degree in
accounting described as being a CPA), avoid the renewal question, or claim
depth in every discipline at once.
NOTES
[Record license state, number, status, and renewal date here.]
Set 2: Technical Accounting and Financial Statements
The month-end close described in order, how the statements connect, cash versus accrual for a business your size, and what happens when a reconciliation refuses to tie out.
Technical Accounting and Financial Statement Questions
CPA INTERVIEW: TECHNICAL ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK
•Walk me through a month-end close, from the first task to signed-off statements.
•Explain how the three financial statements connect to each other.
•How would you decide between cash basis and accrual for a business our size?
•A reconciliation is off by a small amount. Walk me through what you do next.
•How do you handle revenue on a contract that is billed up front?
•Describe a technical position you had to research before you were confident.
•What would you want to look at in our books during your first two weeks?
•How do you know the numbers are right before they leave your desk?
WHY THESE QUESTIONS
Every candidate can define accrual accounting. Far fewer can describe a close
they personally ran, in order, with the parts that go wrong. These questions are
built to move the conversation from definitions to sequence and judgment, which
is where the difference between a licensed generalist and a strong hire shows up.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER LOOKS LIKE
Listen for order and ownership. A strong close answer has a real sequence
(cutoff, accruals, reconciliations, review, statements), names what usually
breaks, and gives a timeline in business days. On the reconciliation question,
the answer you want is that a small variance gets chased to its cause, not
plugged, because a small unexplained difference is often a symptom of a
process problem. The best candidates answer the first-two-weeks question with
specifics: bank and credit card reconciliations, the accounts receivable aging,
open payables, and how the prior period was closed. Weak answers stay at
textbook level and never describe work they did themselves.
NOTES
[Capture the actual close sequence described, in the order given.]
Still Using Spreadsheets for Onboarding?
Automate documents, training assignments, task management, and track onboarding progress in real time.
Returns prepared or reviewed, notice response, the role played on an audit, first-audit readiness, and how filing obligations get tracked as a business crosses state lines.
Tax, Audit, and Compliance Questions
CPA INTERVIEW: TAX, AUDIT, AND COMPLIANCE
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK
•Which returns have you prepared or reviewed, and for what entity types?
•Walk me through how you respond to a notice from a taxing authority.
•What has your role been on an audit: preparer, reviewer, or coordinator?
•How would you prepare a company for its first outside audit or review?
•How do you track filing obligations when a business starts crossing state lines?
•What do you check before a year end that most people forget?
•How do you handle a position the owner wants that you would not sign?
•What is your capacity during the filing season, and what slips when it peaks?
WHY THESE QUESTIONS
These questions separate the compliance work a candidate has actually owned
from the compliance work they have been near. They also surface the two things
that hurt small employers most: an unfiled obligation nobody was watching, and
a candidate who says yes to a filing position they should have pushed back on.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER LOOKS LIKE
On the notice question, a strong answer starts by reading the notice and
checking the deadline, then reconstructs what was filed before drafting a
response, and is calm about it. On multistate obligations, look for awareness
that payroll, income, and sales tax registrations follow different triggers, and
that the answer is a tracked calendar rather than memory. The pressure question
is the important one: you want a candidate who describes explaining the risk in
writing, offering an alternative, and declining to sign if it comes to that.
Weak answers treat every deadline as manageable and every position as a
judgment call with no floor.
NOTES
[Note entity types, jurisdictions, and any position the candidate declined.]
Set 4: Owner Communication and Advisory
Plain-language explanations, bad news delivered early, and a monthly report an owner will read. This is the set a non-accountant can grade most confidently.
Owner Communication and Advisory Questions
CPA INTERVIEW: OWNER COMMUNICATION AND ADVISORY
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK
•Explain a deferred tax liability to me as if I have no accounting background.
•How do you deliver bad financial news to an owner or a partner?
•Tell me about a time the numbers changed somebody's decision.
•What belongs in a monthly report to an owner, and what does not?
•How do you work with a bookkeeper whose records are not clean?
•Walk me through how you flag a deadline that is starting to slip.
•What do you need from me for this to work?
•What is the question owners should ask you and usually do not?
WHY THESE QUESTIONS
At a small company the CPA is the finance function, which means the value of
the work depends on whether the owner understands it. A candidate who cannot
explain a technical concept in plain language will produce accurate reports
nobody acts on. The first question here is the most useful in the whole kit,
because you can grade it without any accounting knowledge at all.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER LOOKS LIKE
The plain-language explanation should land in about a minute, use an example
rather than a definition, and check whether it landed. Bad-news answers should
be early and specific: the number, the cause, the options, and a recommendation,
delivered before the deadline rather than at it. On the monthly report question,
strong candidates argue for fewer numbers with commentary attached, not a
twelve-tab pack. Watch for the candidate who corrects your vocabulary instead of
answering, or who retreats into jargon under a follow-up question. That behavior
does not improve after the hire.
NOTES
[Score the plain-language explanation first. It predicts the rest.]
Companies Using FirstHR Onboard 3x Faster
Join hundreds of small businesses who transformed their new hire experience.
Pressure to record something wrong, what independence means for an employed CPA, confidentiality around payroll and owner compensation, and how a self-made error gets disclosed.
Ethics, Independence, and Confidentiality Questions
CPA INTERVIEW: ETHICS, INDEPENDENCE, AND CONFIDENTIALITY
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK
•Tell me about a time you were pushed to record something you disagreed with.
•What does independence mean for a CPA who is employed by the company?
•How do you handle payroll and owner compensation data day to day?
•Do you have outside clients, and how would a conflict get surfaced?
•Walk me through how you protect financial data and system access.
•What would make you refuse to prepare or sign something?
•You find an error you made two months ago. What happens next?
•Who should be able to see the general ledger, and who should not?
WHY THESE QUESTIONS
A CPA sees payroll, owner compensation, bank access, and every number in the
business, and the professional standards behind the license are part of what
you are buying. These questions test whether the candidate treats those
standards as real constraints or as background decoration, and they surface
outside engagements that could compete for the same weeks you need most.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER LOOKS LIKE
A strong candidate has a real pressure story and describes escalating in
writing rather than quietly complying or quitting on the spot. On independence,
the answer you want is that an employed CPA is part of the entity and therefore
cannot provide an independent audit opinion on it, while still preparing the
statements and managing the outside auditor. The self-reported error question is
the best character test in the kit: you want an immediate, unprompted disclosure
with the correction and the control change attached. Hesitation, or an answer
that weighs whether anyone would notice, is disqualifying.
NOTES
[Record outside client commitments and any conflict the candidate raised.]
Set 6: CPA Interview Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
Six scoring areas with an evidence line each, a verification block for license state, number, status, and renewal date, and a red-flag checklist. Pair it with an interview evaluation form if several people are interviewing.
CPA Interview Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
CPA INTERVIEW SCORECARD
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
Score each area from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Write one line of evidence from
the interview next to every score. A score with no evidence does not count.
Status confirmed on the state board lookup: [ ] Yes [ ] No Date: ___
Renewal date: ___
PTIN confirmed (only if the role prepares returns for pay): [ ] Yes [ ] N/A
References contacted: [ ] Yes [ ] No
RED FLAGS OBSERVED
[ ] Vague or shifting answer about license status or state
[ ] Cannot describe a close they personally ran
[ ] Plugs a variance instead of chasing the cause
[ ] Jargon instead of a plain-language explanation under follow-up
[ ] Weighs whether an error would be noticed before disclosing it
[ ] Undisclosed outside client work during your peak weeks
[ ] Claims depth in tax, audit, close, and advisory equally
SUMMARY
Total score: ______ / 30
Overall recommendation: [ ] Strong yes [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Strong no
Key strengths: __
Key concerns: __
Interviewer signature: __
Note: every interviewer scores independently before the group talks, so one
strong impression does not anchor the decision.
How to Judge a Technical Answer
Grade the shape of the answer, not the accounting content. Three patterns carry most of the signal: whether the answer has a sequence, whether a discrepancy gets chased to a cause or plugged, and whether a technical idea survives translation into plain language. None of them require you to know the answer yourself.
Walk me through a month-end close from start to signed-off statements.
Strong answer: A real sequence in order: cutoff, accruals and prepaids, bank and credit card reconciliations, subledger tie-outs, review, then statements, with a business-day timeline and a note on what usually goes wrong. Strong candidates describe work they personally ran and name the step that slips.
Weak answer: A list of close tasks with no order, no timeline, and no mention of review. Or a definition of what a close is, which answers a different question.
A reconciliation is off by a small amount. What do you do?
Strong answer: Chases it to a cause: timing difference, duplicate entry, wrong account, fee posted outside the feed. A strong answer treats a small unexplained variance as a signal about the process, and says explicitly that it does not get plugged to force a balance.
Weak answer: Adjusts an entry so the account balances, or calls the amount immaterial without first finding out what it is.
Explain a deferred tax liability as if I have no accounting background.
Strong answer: About a minute, built on an example rather than a definition, in words you already use, ending with a check that it landed. The point is not the topic. It is whether a technical person can be understood by the person paying for the work.
Weak answer: Recites the textbook definition, uses three more terms that need their own explanation, or corrects your vocabulary instead of answering.
The most useful follow-up in the whole interview is some version of what happened next. A candidate describing work they personally ran has a next step ready. A candidate describing work they were near runs out of detail within two questions, which is the information you wanted.
What to Probe For (and Red Flags)
The questions open the door; the follow-ups decide the hire. Push for the named jurisdiction, the actual entity type, the real timeline, and the specific thing that went wrong. Vagueness is rarely modesty in a technical interview.
Signals worth hiring for
Describes a close they personally owned, in order
Names the edge of their own competence out loud
Explains a technical idea without jargon
Evidence to collect
License state, number, status, renewal date
Entity types and jurisdictions actually filed
Outside client commitments and peak-week capacity
Judgment under pressure
Pushed back in writing on a position
Discloses own errors immediately
Says what would make them refuse to sign
Red flags
Blurs an accounting degree into a license
Plugs a variance instead of chasing it
Claims equal depth in tax, audit, close, and advisory
One red flag deserves its own note. A candidate who claims equal depth in tax, audit, monthly close, and advisory is describing a career that does not exist at most firms, because those tracks diverge early. Ask which one they would want to spend a whole year in, and the honest answer usually appears.
What an Employed CPA Cannot Do for You
A CPA on your payroll cannot issue an independent audit opinion on your own financial statements. Independence rules in the professional code treat an employee as part of the entity, so attest work has to come from an outside firm no matter how qualified the person you hired is.
This matters at the interview stage because owners occasionally hire in house expecting audited statements for a lender or an investor. An employed CPA can prepare the statements, build the schedules, manage the auditor relationship, and get the company ready so the engagement runs quickly and cheaply. They cannot sign the opinion.
Ask the Independence Question Out Loud
Put it in the interview as a direct question: what does independence mean for a CPA employed by the company? The content of the answer matters less than whether the candidate can locate the boundary at all. Someone who explains that an employee is part of the entity, and then describes how they would prepare for an outside audit anyway, is showing you how they think about professional standards in general. Someone who has never considered the question will treat other standards the same way.
How to Run the Interview
Run it as a structured interview: verify first, ask the same core questions of everyone in the same order, follow up until you hear a sequence, then score immediately. The steps below work for a single owner as well as for a two-person panel.
Step
What to do
1. Verify
State board lookup: state, status, license number, renewal date
2. Scope
Write the ten things the role must do in its first quarter
3. Standardize
Same core questions, same order, for every candidate
4. Push for sequence
Follow up until the answer describes work in order, with a timeline
5. Test translation
One technical concept explained as if you have no background
6. Score
All six areas, 1 to 5, one line of evidence per score
7. Decide and offer
Compare written scores, then offer and plan the first 90 days
Score within an hour of the interview, while you can still quote the answers rather than summarize them. If two of you interviewed, score separately first. Where the scores disagree, one of you usually asked a better follow-up, and that is worth finding out before the debate starts.
What a CPA Costs
Benchmark against the federal occupation, then adjust upward for the license. The published category covers every kind of accountant, licensed or not, so a CPA generally sits above the median rather than at it, with public accounting in a major metro higher again.
Median $83,680 a Year for Accountants and Auditors (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), accountants and auditors had a national median wage of $83,680 a year, about $40.23 an hour, with the lowest 10 percent under $56,020 and the highest 10 percent over $144,090. The middle half fell between roughly $67,020 and $109,810 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). There is no separate federal wage category for CPAs, so treat this as the band rather than the target.
Two adjustments matter more than the national figure. Benchmark against comparable local employers with a similar industry or client mix, and state how busy-season overtime or bonus is handled next to base pay instead of saving it for a later conversation. Candidates in this market ask, and a vague answer costs you finalists.
Settle classification before the offer rather than after. A CPA doing professional accounting work generally qualifies for the learned professional exemption under federal law, but the test is duties and salary, not the credential, and some states apply a stricter standard than the federal one. The distinction between exempt and non-exempt is decided by the work itself.
Fair, Legal, and Structured Interviewing
Fair, legal, and structured are the same practice seen from three angles. Asking every candidate the same job-related questions keeps you compliant, reduces bias, and produces better hires, and it matters more than usual when you cannot personally verify the technical content of an answer.
Ask about the work, not the person
Federal anti-discrimination law, enforced by the EEOC, prohibits basing a hiring decision on protected characteristics, and questions that probe them create risk even when they are asked as small talk. Do not ask about age, race, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy or family plans, disability, or genetic information. In an accounting interview the common traps are graduation dates used to estimate age, questions about family commitments framed as a busy-season capacity check, and questions about origin prompted by a name or an accent. Ask about capacity directly instead: what your availability looks like during the filing season, and whether you can meet the deadlines this role carries. This is general information, not legal advice.
Ask every candidate the same core set
A structured interview, where each candidate answers the same questions and is scored against the same rubric, predicts on-the-job performance better than a conversation that goes wherever it goes. It also gives you a defensible record: the same job-related questions, the same criteria, written evidence for each score. For a technical hire this matters more than usual, because rapport with a confident candidate is easy to mistake for competence you cannot personally verify. Write the questions before the first interview, ask them in the same order, and score immediately afterward while the answers are still exact.
Verify the credential, do not infer it
License verification is free, public, and takes minutes, and it belongs in the process before the interview rather than after the offer. Confirm the state, the status, and the renewal date on the board lookup, and record what you checked and when. If the role prepares federal returns for compensation, confirm the preparer tax identification number separately, because that is an IRS requirement and not part of the license. Treat a candidate who is reluctant to give a license number as answering the question. Applying the same verification step to every finalist keeps the process consistent.
Score independently, then discuss
When more than one person interviews, each should complete the scorecard alone before the group talks. Otherwise the most senior voice in the room anchors everyone else, which is how a weak candidate gets talked into a role and a quiet strong one gets talked out. Compare written evidence first, then discuss where the scores disagree, because a disagreement usually means the two of you heard different things and one of you asked a better follow-up. For an owner who is also the hiring manager, the rubric is the discipline that keeps a single good impression from carrying the decision.
Same Questions, Same Rubric, Better Decisions
A structured interview, where every candidate answers the same questions scored against a consistent rubric, predicts on-the-job performance more reliably than an open-ended conversation, and asking the same job-related questions of everyone also keeps you inside the EEOC rules against basing decisions on protected characteristics. Structure is the fairer approach and the more effective one at the same time.
Watch one trap specific to accounting hiring. Busy-season capacity is a legitimate business question, and it becomes a legal problem the moment it is asked through family or caregiving. Ask about availability and deadlines directly instead. This is general information, not legal advice.
Interviewing a CPA Without an HR Department
At a large employer a CPA candidate meets a recruiter, a controller, and a panel, each scoring a slice. At a small business the owner does all of it alone, often while the books that prompted the hire are still open. Here is how to keep that interview rigorous anyway.
You are hiring someone whose core skill you cannot personally grade
Most owners hiring a CPA are not accountants, which makes it hard to tell a genuinely strong technical answer from a fluent one. The fix is not to learn accounting before the interview. It is to ask questions whose answers have a shape you can recognize: a close described in order rather than as a list, a variance chased to a cause rather than plugged, a technical concept explained in a minute without jargon. Each set here pairs the questions with what a strong answer sounds like, so you are grading structure and specificity rather than technical content.
The credential feels like the decision, and it is only the entry ticket
A license means the candidate met an education requirement, passed a four-part national exam, and completed supervised experience under a state board. It says nothing about whether they have run a close alone, answered a notice, or explained a number to a non-accountant. Small employers routinely stop evaluating once the credential is confirmed, then discover that the practice history was audit-only when the seat needs monthly close and tax. Verify the license early, in five minutes, precisely so the rest of the interview can be spent on what the person has actually done.
One hire, no HR, and the paperwork lands on you
At a firm with a recruiting team, someone else collects the credential documents, tracks the renewal date, and chases the signatures. At a small business the owner does all of it while also running the interview. FirstHR handles that people side: built-in e-signature for the offer and the confidentiality acknowledgment, document management that stores the license and renewal date against the employee profile, and task workflows so system access and policy sign-off are not remembered in the wrong order. To be clear on scope, FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not accounting or tax software and not a payroll provider, so pair it with those. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
The rest of the hiring kit for this role sits in the hiring templates library, and the general mechanics of running an interview apply here too. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR, so until it lands, the download above is the fastest way to run this process consistently.
From Interview to Onboarding
The interview ends and the sequence starts: offer, confidentiality acknowledgment, credential on file with its renewal date, access granted at the right level, and a written first 90 days. For a finance hire that sequence is the difference between a fast ramp and a quiet three months.
Offer and confidentiality first
Confirm role, pay, and start date in writing, and pair the offer with a confidentiality acknowledgment, since this hire sees payroll and owner compensation on day one.
Store the credential with its date
Keep the license number, state, and renewal date on the employee record, not in an inbox, so the renewal is a calendar item rather than a surprise.
Set access at the right level
Bank, ledger, and payroll access granted deliberately, with owner visibility retained and a second approval required above a payment threshold.
Write the first 90 days down
Name the first close the new hire owns, the first filing they are responsible for, and who reviews both. A finance hire ramps on a calendar, not on goodwill.
Reference checks belong here rather than earlier. Ask previous employers about accuracy under deadline, how the candidate handled a mistake, and whether they would rehire, and treat a reference check as a test of the same things the interview probed. Send the offer letter only once those come back clean.
FirstHR connects the offer, the confidentiality acknowledgment, e-signatures, the new hire paperwork, and the access-and-policy checklist in one place, and stores the license document with its renewal date against the employee profile, so a small business can run the whole sequence from one system. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not accounting or tax software and not a payroll provider, so connect those separately. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Key Takeaways
Verify the CPA license on the state board lookup before the interview: state, status, license number, and renewal date.
Assess five areas: licensure and scope, technical accounting, tax and audit ownership, plain-language communication, and ethics and independence.
Push every technical answer from definition to sequence, because a close described in order is evidence and a definition is not.
A CPA you employ cannot issue an independent audit opinion on your own statements, so ask the independence question out loud.
Benchmark pay against accountants and auditors from BLS OEWS, May 2025, then adjust upward for the license and your local market.
Score all six areas from 1 to 5 with a line of evidence each, independently, before anyone discusses the candidate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What questions should I ask a CPA candidate?
Ask across five areas: licensure and scope, technical accounting, tax and audit work, owner communication, and ethics and independence. Strong openers include: is your license active and in which state; walk me through a month-end close from start to signed statements; a reconciliation is off by a small amount, what do you do; walk me through how you respond to a notice from a taxing authority; explain a deferred tax liability to me as if I have no accounting background; and tell me about a time you were pushed to record something you disagreed with. Ask for sequence and specifics rather than definitions, because every licensed candidate can define accrual accounting and far fewer can describe a close they personally ran. This page provides six ready-to-use sets and a scorecard so you can ask the same questions of every candidate and compare them fairly.
How do I verify that someone is actually a CPA?
Use the public license lookup published by the state board of accountancy, or the national lookup NASBA runs across participating boards. Search the name, confirm the status reads active rather than inactive or lapsed, and note the license number and renewal date. It is free and takes about five minutes, and it belongs before the interview rather than after the offer. Two details trip people up. CPAs are licensed state by state, not federally, so a candidate can hold a valid license somewhere other than where your work sits. And an accounting degree, exam progress, or a lapsed license are all sometimes described loosely as being a CPA, so ask for the state and the number directly. If the role prepares federal returns for compensation, confirm the IRS preparer tax identification number separately, because that is not part of the license.
What is the difference between a CPA and an accountant?
Accountant is a job title anyone can use; CPA is a license granted by a state board of accountancy with education, examination, and experience requirements behind it, plus continuing education to keep it. The practical difference for an employer is the scope of work. Only a licensed CPA can issue an audit opinion or perform other attest work, and the license carries professional standards a state board can enforce. A skilled non-licensed accountant can run your close, prepare statements, handle payroll accounting, and manage tax filings perfectly well. So the real question is whether your work needs attest or signed representations, or whether it needs someone competent to own the books. Decide that before you write the posting, because interviewing for a CPA when the seat is a staff accountant seat overpays for the role. This is general information, not legal or financial advice.
Do I need a CPA or would a bookkeeper be enough?
It depends on the work, not on the size of the company. If the job is recording transactions, reconciling accounts, handling bills and invoices, and keeping the books current, a bookkeeper is usually the right hire and the cheaper one. If the job requires owning the month-end close, preparing and defending financial statements, handling tax positions, coordinating an outside audit, or advising on structure, that is CPA or senior accountant territory. Many small businesses run the best combination: a bookkeeper or an accountant handling day-to-day work in house, with an outside CPA engaged for tax and year end. Before you interview, write down the ten things this person must do in their first quarter. If most of them are recording and reconciling, hire a bookkeeper. If most require judgment and signature, hire the CPA.
Can a CPA I employ audit my company financial statements?
No. Independence rules in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct treat an employee as part of the entity, so a CPA on your payroll cannot issue an independent audit opinion on your own financial statements. An employed CPA can prepare the statements, build the schedules, manage the relationship with the outside audit firm, and get the company ready so the audit runs cheaply and quickly, but the opinion has to come from an independent firm. This matters at the interview stage because owners sometimes hire in house expecting audited statements for a lender or an investor, then discover the requirement cannot be satisfied internally. Ask the independence question directly in the interview. A candidate who cannot explain the boundary is telling you something about how they think about professional standards generally.
How much does a CPA cost to hire?
Use federal wage data as the anchor and then adjust for your market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), accountants and auditors had a national median wage of $83,680 a year, about $40.23 an hour, with the lowest 10 percent under $56,020 and the highest 10 percent over $144,090. The middle half fell between roughly $67,020 and $109,810. That occupation covers every kind of accountant, licensed or not, so a CPA generally sits above the median rather than at it, and public accounting in a major metro sits higher again. Two adjustments matter more than the national number: benchmark against comparable local employers with a similar client mix or industry, and state how busy-season overtime or bonus is handled next to base pay rather than leaving it to a later conversation.
Is a CPA exempt from overtime?
Usually yes, but the credential is not what decides it. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the learned professional exemption turns on the actual duties performed and the salary paid, not on the job title or the license. A CPA doing professional accounting work that requires advanced knowledge and consistent exercise of discretion and independent judgment generally meets the duties test, and certified public accountants are named in the Department of Labor guidance on the exemption. A person with a CPA license who is doing routine clerical bookkeeping is a different analysis. Classification also has to satisfy the salary basis and salary level requirements, and some states apply stricter tests than the federal one, so check your state as well. Decide the classification before you make the offer rather than after. This is general information, not legal advice.
How do I judge technical answers if I am not an accountant?
Grade the shape of the answer rather than the accounting content. Three patterns tell you most of what you need. First, sequence: a strong close answer runs in order with a timeline and a note on what usually breaks, while a weak one is an unordered list of tasks. Second, cause versus plug: when a reconciliation does not tie out, a strong candidate chases the difference to its source and says plainly that it does not get forced to balance. Third, plain language: ask for a technical concept explained as if you have no background, and watch whether the candidate reaches for an example or for more jargon. None of that requires you to know the answer yourself. Each question set on this page includes a note on what a strong answer sounds like for exactly this reason, and reference checks with previous employers cover the rest.
