I am looking to do the ICB Diploma in Payroll Management exam and later when I have done the ICB Levels 1 & 2 Manual exams the Certificate in Computerised Booking exam.
What I would like to ask anyone is what Sage system would they recommend that I purchase to do the exams on? I intend to do the Payroll Management exam by self-study as I have a little past experience on payroll and have been in the Inland Revenue and am not sure yet about the book-keeping one whether I will need to do a distance learning course or would manage with self study if I have passed my Levels 1 & 2 Manual book-keeping.
I have been told by ICB that I would need an active version of any system to take the exams and not just a training one.
I assume that I would purely need the basic Sage Instant Accounts and Sage Instant Payroll which only allow one business to be set up to be able to do the exam on?
ICB said that they believed the limit of 10 employees on the Instant Payroll would be sufficient to do the exam on.
If people think these are the relevant systems for exam purposes does it matter what version you use?
I asked Sage and they said they have just released Version 15 for Sage Instant Accounts but I was wondering about buying an older version say Version 11 which I have seen advertised on ebay new and still sealed as this would be cheaper to just do the exam if there was not much difference. Does anyone know if you can do the exam with an older version of Sage Instant Accounts please?
I was not sure if this would be possible with the Sage Instant Payroll though as I assume you would need the most uptodate version due to the changes in tax rates and reliefs and benefits?
I was not really intending to set up in book-keeping straight away after passing the exams as I would like to get some working experience first so I would not need to invest a lot at the beginning to have Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 50 Payroll for a future business so did not want to have to spend too much on a system as I would only be buying it so that I could do my exam on it and if I did want the bigger system if I did set up as a book-keeper later I would invest in it then.
For the accounts Sage Instant accounts version 11 would be fine (I think I used version 11 or 12) and it was fine for the questions asked in both papers 2 and 3.
With Sage payroll if you can find a cheaper version of it on ebay then it is doable but takes time to adjust it to the right tax and ni settings (I had version 11 or 12 and went into all the settings and changed them all manually as did not want to pay sage for the update disk, took ages and until I got the results was worried that I had not amended all the settings right so was worried would not pass - but I got 99% which was a relief.)
Thanks very much again for taking the time to reply. That's really useful as I should be able to get them quite a bit cheaper on ebay as I don't really want to pay for the full priced current version if it's not necessary just to pass the exams on.
If I did then move onto setting up in book-keeping myself I would want to spend the money on investing in the larger system which Sage has advised me is about & £705 plus VAT so didn't want to waste too much on a smaller system just to get me through the exams.
I don't know if I would be brave enough to alter it all manually on the Payroll bit like you or might buy the update disc but obviously would have to see if adding that on to the purchase price of the older version makes it more than buying the latest version.
At least I shouldn't need to do that with the accounts package.
Reading on another forum for the 2009/10 year National Insurance changing too much for anyone to be able to adjust manually on Sage Payroll. I think when you book your payroll exam with ICB you get a choice of years for the exam so best if they have option for 2007/8 or 2008/9 then that is best. Might be worth phoning them ahead of purchasing the payroll software because it may be if you know what years are option for exam you may be able to find payroll software for that year on ebay cheaply if they have 2007/8 as an option or earlier.
I have just rung ICB and they say 2007/08 or 2008/09 is what is needed for the exam. I thought it would need to be the most recent and was probably going to buy the 2009/10 Financial package which I saw advertised on ebay last night which includes Sage Instant Accounts and Instant Payroll at a good price of £129 and what a waste of money as I wouldn't have been able to use it for the exam!
I will go back to having a look and see if I can pick up an older package for less as it is just for the exam.
