AIPB Certified Bookkeeper (CB) exam requirements and format

The AIPB Certified Bookkeeper (CB) designation gates candidates on experience, not on a degree, and runs the exam itself at Prometric test centers rather than online.

Eligibility

You need at least 2 years of full-time bookkeeping experience, or 3,000 hours of part-time or freelance bookkeeping experience. That experience does not have to be finished before you sit the exam: AIPB gives you up to 3 years from the date you pass the exam to submit proof of it. In practice this means a career-changer with less than 2 years on the job can still take and pass the exam now, and backfill the experience requirement afterward, as long as it is documented within the 3-year window.

Exam format

The CB exam has four parts, all multiple-choice, and it is not an at-home, self-paced, open-book exam start to finish. Parts 1 and 2 run through the Prometric national testing network: 2 hours each, $100 per part, a 75% passing score, covering accruals, deferrals, the adjusted trial balance, correction of accounting errors, bank reconciliation, payroll, and depreciation. Parts 3 and 4 are open-book, no-time-limit, no-fee back-of-workbook exams, with a 70% passing score, covering inventory and internal controls/fraud prevention. A failed Prometric part can be retaken for $60 after a 30-day wait; the back-of-workbook parts can be retaken free.

Cost

AIPB’s own “Cost of Certification” table, in its Self-Study Handbook, itemizes the self-study path at $479 total for members and $574 for nonmembers: $25/$60 enrollment, $254/$314 for the six self-study workbooks, plus $200 flat in Prometric test fees (the same whether or not you are a member). AIPB separately advertises a pricier, guided 99-Hour Prep Course at $1,495 (registration, six workbooks, and prepaid Prometric fees included, marketed as a $300 savings versus buying the pieces separately); that bundle is an alternative study path, not a second required cost on top of the self-study total. Membership is not required to sit the exam or hold the CB designation, and AIPB’s own 1-year membership lists at $60/year, with a promotional $39/year rate also currently running, which actually drops your total certification cost to $479 (member) below the $574 nonmember path.

Staying certified

Retaining the CB designation requires 60 Continuing Professional Education Credits (CPECs) every 3 years, starting from the certification date, at a $3-per-credit registration fee if paid (a $180 maximum across 3 years; free CPEC sources also exist per AIPB).

What this format actually means day-to-day

The split between the two Prometric parts and the two back-of-workbook parts matters more than it looks on paper. Parts 1 and 2 require you to schedule and travel to a Prometric test center, sit a proctored 2-hour exam under standard testing-center conditions, and pay $100 per part regardless of how many attempts it takes to pass. Parts 3 and 4 are graded from your own workbook answers, with no proctor, no fixed appointment, and no fee, so you can retake them as many times as needed at your own pace until you clear the 70% bar. In practice this means most of the time pressure and cost risk in this exam sit in the first two parts, and the last two are closer to a self-paced homework assignment than a traditional exam.

Edge cases in the experience rule worth naming

The 3-year documentation window cuts both directions: it covers experience earned before the exam and experience earned after it, which means a candidate does not have to sequence their career around the test date. Someone who passed the exam at 1.5 years of experience, for instance, has up to 3 years from the pass date to finish documenting the remaining months and submit proof, rather than needing all 2 years locked in before sitting for Parts 1 through 4. Undergraduates and career-changers commonly ask whether unrelated office work counts: AIPB’s public guidance is that plain administrative or clerical work that is not bookkeeping does not count toward the 2-year or 3,000-hour threshold, while internships and accounting- or tax-related volunteer work, such as Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) placements, can count. Part-time and freelance hours are tracked cumulatively toward the 3,000-hour threshold rather than requiring a minimum weekly hour count, so a candidate juggling multiple small freelance clients can accumulate qualifying hours across all of them.

A worked cost example across both membership paths

A nonmember candidate who never joins AIPB pays the full $574: $60 enrollment, $314 for the six self-study workbooks, and $200 in Prometric fees. A candidate who joins at the current $39/year promotional rate before enrolling pays $479 for the certification itself, plus the $39 membership, for a combined $518 first-year total, still $56 cheaper than the nonmember path even after adding membership in. That $56 gap is why AIPB membership functions as a cost-reducing choice for most candidates rather than a pure add-on expense, as long as the candidate joins before paying the nonmember enrollment price rather than after.

What is not yet confirmed

The exact retake wait period beyond the stated 30 days and whether the CPEC registration fee ever changes are the remaining open items; every other figure above traces to AIPB’s own Self-Study Handbook. See the comparison matrix for the current status of every cell, and the total cost of certification guide for how this compares to the other three paths.