"We are one year away from a test," says Jim Bourke, chairman of the CITP committee and a partner with the Red Bank, N.J.-based firm, WithumSmith+Brown. "We need a hurdle or it [the CITP] doesn't mean a thing."

Over the last two years, there have been some major changes to the specialized certification. Besides having eliminated a test, which few ever took, the committee worked to make the body of knowledge represent by the CITP something that represented what CPAs do and not just a designation that anyone experienced in technology qualify for. Under the old system, most applicants received their CITP based on the points they received for IT experience.

The CITP requirements still incorporate knowledge of technology and experience with technology in a business environment and only CPAs can qualify for it. However, the emphasis has changed to focus on areas such as audit, in which CPAs have special knowledge. Bourke believes this change was the reason there were 235 new credential holders added in 2009, 90 percent more than were added in 2008. There are now more than 1,600 CITPs.

Bourke says emphasizing the importance of technology in traditional CPA endeavors is important. "We took the CITP to the space the CPA owns," he says. For example, while technology plays a crucial role in performing audits, it used to be that auditors understood the process before information was fed into a system and understood the reports that came out. But they didn't understand the computer systems themselves.

Despite the new emphasis, there will only be one exam, not separate sections for auditors, for example. Bourke likens this to the CPA exam which covers all elements of the traditional tax and accounting business. While candidates are expected to know something about each area, they don't need to be experts in all of them in order to pass.