I am currently in a full time job but have always regretted expanding my skills after leaving school.
Book-keeping has always caught my eye and I am wanting to get qualified in this area to try and improve my career prospects.
I have enquired at my local community college and they do the OCR Level 1 in bookkeeping and 2 and 3 in accounts. I was going to charge ahead with this until I looked on the net and found info on AAT, IAB and ICB courses. So now im all a bit confused and bewildered and not sure what my next move should be.
Will the OCR be as good a course as the others or should I look into doing one of the others through distance learning? If I started the OCR and wanted to change would I have to start from scratch with one of the others? Is there a recognised qualification that most employers in this area go for?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I would say it all depends what you want to do career wise, if you are wanting to stay in your full time job, or get another full time job within bookkeeping/accountancy in my experience would say many of the companies looking for this if they are interested in qualifications as well as experience many are asking for AAT qualifications. Some companies are just interested in experience though.
If however you are wanting to in the future become self employed bookkeeper then would say IAB or ICB are the ones to go, I myself have found the ICB not to be as good as they used to be and the support seems to have gone and a few others have said the same on this forum where others have received good support from them so it is a little hit and miss at the moment. I was considering joining IAB when my ICB membership expires, but decided that you are less restricted paying HMRC for Money Laundering Regulations as all the institutes are so strict in what you can do, ie ICB only let you offer payroll services if you take their exam, you can only do Limited Company's bookkeeping if your membership is at a certain level, and for doing self assessments returns need to do exam for that I believe.
Would say whether you have distance learning or a local college course would depend on what you are better at, I did distance learning and found that I found it hard to stick to a set time to do things and never got around to doing it for ages, with a college course on a set day it is easier to stick to.
Being honest, it was in the back of my mind that if I did want to I could eventually go self-employed but my initial goal would be to find employment in a bookkeeping/accountancy position. Going self-employed is not really a major concern for me right now.
Must admit I think I would be more motivated to learn and stick with it by doing a local college course but the only one on offer at my local college is the OCR. Would this be worth doing or would it be wiser to do the AAT. Also is it the AAT level 2 in bookkeeping that would be the best place to start if going down this line?
Sorry for many questions. Im just trying to get a clearer picture in my mind of all the facts to hopefully aid an easier decision.
