A Professional Accountant must have university degree in accounts.Having Professional degrees like CA,ACCA,CPA,CMA,CWA or any other Post graduate degrees in Accounting subjects will be a value addition for the Accountant.But all the3 factors mentioned here1)Academic qualification,2)Experience,3)Achievement are equally important to a Professional Accountant. Because mere qualification will not be enough to rate the Accoutant
Professional accountant is one who passess all the exams of the relevant body. e.g ICAEW ACCA ICAS etc.. mantains confidentiality of clients information, behaves in professional manner i.e not discredit his profession by any means e.g not taking a bribe.... remain objective that is not allow any bias.. etc
to become an accounting professional you have to get an academic degree ( BA in accounting is a start, an MBA and a CMA will give you additional leverage over others), to have appropriate work experience ( without experience a degree in accounting can easily become useless, experience is applying theoretical approaches you acquired in your academical education into actual practice, and to accomplish certain achievements, as achievements are indications of how well you have combined the two previous factors and is a sign of your level of motivation. finally, i believe an accounting professional should have all the three combined factors and make the most of each one of them.