Journey from a Small Village Boy To A Chartered Accountant & SAP Consultant

• Hi, I am Prasadh Atmakuri a qualified Chartered Accountant from ICAI (The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India).
• I belong to a small village in India and moved up the corporate ladder to be a successful SAP Consultant.
• After a brief stint at a public accounting firm, where he worked in Tax audits, Financial Audit, System audits, etc I shifted to Infosys as a SAP Consultant.
• As an SAP FI Specialist - I am an expert at designing business processes across various industries and aims at bringing out the best out of self and the team, to add maximum value to the clients.
• Here is my story.

Humble Beginnings - From a Village Boy to a Chartered Accountant 

I grew up in a small middle-class family in a village. I studied in Telugu medium and was not good at English. During my childhood - My first activity in the morning was to go through the new papers, especially the sports columns for a quick 5 minutes before heading to school.

While I was in class 9 and following my daily newspaper routine something caught my eye - It was an article about a course called Chartered Accountancy. The article had a list of success stories of people who cleared the same. After reading the article, I was inspired and decided to be a Chartered Accountant.

The very same day I informed my Dad and everyone in my family about it. They all laughed at my decision of becoming a Chartered Accountant except my Dad.

Since I was very young, I forgot about my CA dream and moved on with life. In the year 2004 soon after completing my 10 + 2 (12th standard) exams, I made plans with my friends to spend the summer having fun. That very same day my Dad comes by reminding me of my dream of becoming a Chartered Accountant.

He told me that one coaching class in the nearby village was offering CA coaching. My Dad me that the coaching class was very good for people like me who studied everything in Telugu local medium and not in English. I thought about it and decided to give it a try and said yes to my Dad to join the institute.

Within a span of 2 days I was sitting in a coaching class preparing for CA – PE-1 (1^st level CA exam from ICAI. Now it is known as CPT).

In the initial days of CA classes, I had trouble understanding and sometimes I felt like quitting. Every time I felt like quitting I thought about my parents’ hard work and struggle and I decided not to quit and study hard.

With God’s grace and my parents’ blessings, I was able to clear my CA PE1. I again gave my best and cleared CA PE 2 exam (CA PE 2 is 2^nd level CA exam from ICAI now it is known as IPC) in my 1^st attempt.

Now it was time for a 3.5 year of internship at a Chartered Accountant firm.

And finally, I attempted my CA Final Exams and cleared the same in the second attempt. I was now a qualified Chartered Accountant...Woohoo!

This was a big success for someone like me who grew up in a small village speaking only Telugu (and no English). 

Taking a Leap and Starting my Career as a SAP Consultant

When I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, I had two offers in hand – The regular Finance roles and the other one is to be an ERP consultant at Infosys (as leading IT company in India).

After doing my little research, I decided to stick with the ERP consultant position. This is one of the areas where our Chartered Accountants have very little knowledge. The majority of Chartered Accountants are either into - Taxation, Auditing or Finance kind of roles.

Being an ERP consultant, in my case SAP consultant, you will get an opportunity to understand the complete business process and redesign their existing process.

As an SAP Consultant, you will be able to suggest business re-engineering and redesigning their business process, streamlining the existing process and effective utilization of their IT infrastructure. As a part of my work, I have traveled across different countries including, the UK, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

So if traveling is on your list then - this would be a PERFECT job role for you.

"I did my articles in a city near my village. Do I Regret?"

Well, I NEVER regret doing my articleship from a small firm. To be honest - There is no such thing called a 'small firm or big firm' if you look at it in a positive way.

By working in a small firm you won’t be restricted to one particular field. You will have to work on statutory audits, internal audits, bank audits, taxation etc.

If you working in Big 4 Accounting Firm, you would be restricted to one particular area. Of course, they will groom you well but you won’t get an overall exposure!

During my internship, I got an opportunity to work in most areas like - Tax Audits, Certification Works, Preparation of Books of Accounts, Regular audits, Excise, and Service Tax etc. The work I was doing made me fall in love with the Chartered Accountancy course.

Extra Tip for your articles.

• NEVER take your articles phase for granted.
• Please do whatever work is assigned to you putting your heart and mind, giving your best every day.
• There is no such thing called small work or big work.
• Everything is important in our profession.
• This is also one of the important times in your career which could help to plan your future better.

Wrapping it Up...

• CA is the course that teaches us NOT TO GIVE UP.
• Clearing CA in the first attempt is every CA student’s dream. Students who clear CA in more than 2 or 3 attempts are equally capable.
• All this 1^st attempt concept applies only to get your 1^st After that everyone has to prove themselves!
• I personally know a few of my friends who cleared CA in the first attempt and are still not sure about their career progress and I also have a few CA friends who cleared after 6 attempts and are very successful in their career!!!
• So please do not get trapped in the number of attempts kind of things.
• The number of attempts does not matter - All that matters is HOW DETERMINED / HOW STUBBORN you are towards your goal.
• Be consistent in your efforts and work hard
• Have a positive mind and the right attitude
• Remember Rome was not built in a day, it takes efforts to be successful in any field
• Life is a mix of success and failure - Handle both of it well.
• Nobody has the right to tell you that you can’t achieve anything. It is you who has to decide.
• Write Mock Papers. I wrote Mock papers and they were indeed helpful – he concluded.