Certified Payroll Professional (CPP)

Certified Payroll Professional (CPP)

CPP stands for Certified Payroll Professional is a certification course in payroll and ethics in same by American Payroll Association (APA). Upon clearing the exam, the candidates will receive a certificate using which jobs in payroll management can be procured. Candidates who secure this certificate will receive a pin and label through which they can be recognised as the certified payroll specialists.

CPP globally is considered as the Gold standards certification for security management professionals.

Eligibility criteria

APA has set the criteria for a potential CPP aspirant to be able to take the test in order to pass the certification. Below are criteria, candidate should be able to meet any of these following

1. Candidate should have worked for at least 3 in last 5 years before taking up the exam as a payroll professional directly or indirectly. It can be para payroll like taxation, accounts, audit and reporting.

2. Should have worked for 24 months prior completion of CPA in any of the payroll tasks offered by APA. These tasks can be any of the below three

• Payroll practices, payroll concepts, advanced payroll concepts and intermediate payroll concepts.

• Payroll 101 and payroll 201 which are for payroll certification program and payroll administrative program respectively.

• Certified payroll boot camp which will a 20 hours course explaining concepts regarding the same by the American Payroll Association.

3. After receiving the basic fundamental certification, the candidate should have worked for 19 months in payroll tasks listed by the APA or within 18 months of completion of all the courses with in one of the three options offered by APA

• Certified Boot camp co-ordinated by APA.

• Payroll 201 as said above.

• Concepts of payroll, advanced payroll concepts and strategic payroll practices.

Who is allowed to take exam?

Candidate having an associate of bachelor’s degree in accounting or related concepts with relevant experience before applying for the certification. The candidate upon clearing the fundamental certification exam can apply for similar roles and work during the course of completion or main exams. Before completion of the final exam candidate should have minimum of 7-9 years of experience in payroll tasks offered by the APA directly or indirectly.

Candidate should complete the application and receive approval from APA’s certification department. The application and other information required by the candidate is available in the CPP handbook which will be provided upon paying the exam fee.

CPP exam format.

CPP exam will be conducted for the total duration of 4 hours. Each candidate applying will get 200 multiple choice questions along with 25 pre-test questions. The exam covers concepts, knowledge and skills from 7 domains. The weightage for each of these modules along with concepts are listed below.

1. Core payroll concept- This is given 27% of weightage overall and concepts like Fair labour standard act, professional responsibility, methods and timing of pay, worker status and employment taxes.

2. Compliance and resources- This section has 21% percentage and covers concepts like escheatment, reporting, global GAAP principles and penalties.

3. Calculation of pay check – this has 20% weightage and concepts like net pay, taxes, involuntary tax deductions and compensation are covered.

4. Payroll process and supporting systems and administration- maintaining master file recovery, disaster recovery plan, and selection, implementation and project management concepts are covered and this section has 9% weightage.

5. Payroll administration and management- policies, staffing, overtime communication, employment development concepts are covered in this with 10% of overall weightage.

6. Audit- it has 7% weightage with concepts like internal controls, payroll control systems, third party control, audit policies, norms and procedures.

7. Accounting- this section has the lease weightage of 6% with general concepts of accounting, account reconciliation, payroll journal entry and general ledger account classification.

Overall 200 questions which are numbered and carries points/marks are chosen from these 7 domains according to the individual weightage, the concepts covered in tentative and doesn’t carry any particular weightage among them.

How to prepare for CPP?

Candidates who have signed up for the CPP exam will have a tough time as it is not an easy exam to crack. Most of the applicant will be already working in the same industry and vertical as the normal criteria to pass the eligibility criteria. So instead of pushing when is near the exam date, it is better to push and learn new concepts every day to be able to develop the personality and intellectual to clear the CPP exams. 

The exam is multiple choice format exam with over 200 questions from various concepts. Each of these 7 verticals have their own weightage for each and every one of them. Candidate can plan accordingly to cover most the vertical and its concepts well with the exam date the domains with more weightage like core payroll concept, compliance and resources and calculation of pay check. Concentrating on concepts involved in these domains will help them get a better hold and confidence on the overall exam paper. If these domains are in the work line of the candidate, he will also have a good domain knowledge from his work experience. 

Even not they cannot neglect any of these high weightage domains. Not to mention that all 7 domains are important, candidate should have proper hold and confidence on each of these to 

be able to crack the CPP exam. It is a very competitive exam with candidates appearing in millions, so the aspiring CPP candidate should travel that extra mile every day and make sure more domain concepts are covered every day and more confident he feels about the exam It is a 4hour long exam, proper mock tests and time management should also be taken care in order to utilize the time properly.

Conclusion

CPP is professional course offered via certification by the American Payroll Association. The candidate working in payroll work areas can take up this exam. Upon certification the individual will be regarded as the Certified Payroll specialist and henceforth take care of payroll responsibilities across any firm. The exam has 200 questions covering concepts from 7 domains with each of these questions having more than one option. The CPP certification has reputation globally and the individual bearing label of CPP is always looked above as the professional payroll specialist to take care of most of the payroll responsibilities across the organisations. The examination has its own strict 3 criteria to meet the eligibility as discussed above..