quick, quick, to Amazon NOW! - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

quick, quick, to Amazon NOW!

Neil · Senior Member

Damn. I paid £ 28.80 for it two days ago.

Neil

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Morning Neil,

still not a bad price though.

I couldn't believe the price when I read it last night especially as it includes level III certification!

This is basically the same as some training providers are charging several hundred pounds for... Well, minus the tutor support anyway.

On that matter I was actually following leads yesterday from the ICB website to training providers as I've been thinking about the ICB payroll certification (no longer thinking about it as they want £500 which I regard as around £300 too much for what they're selling).

One of the training providers was pushing bookkeeping and stating that once qualified you would be able to command a salary of £30,000 to £35,000 per annum!... Can only assume that this was a typo by the training company as sure that they wouldn't be trying to mislead people!!!!

Can totally relate to your Homer pic. Good one matey.

Talk later,

Shaun.

Xanobia · Member

Morning people

I have been monitoring this site for a while and enjoy reading peoples posts. I can't resist a reply to your last post Shaun as I am a victim of a training provider telling me that I could earn a salary of around 30k. I have paid £1800 for bookkeeping manual level 1+2 and also payrol through the Distance Learning Corporation. I slowly realised that this was not quite true and it serves me right for not doing my homework first and looking into it more, lesson learnt for when I come to advance to the next level as I haven't really used my tutor support apart from him ringing me when he hasn't had an assignment from me (its not easy with a 2 year old running around the house). I'm along way off from alot of people on the forum but hopefully once my little one has grown up abit and started school I may see some rewards. I am not far off my level 2 exam so i'm getting there slowly.

Xan

Neil · Senior Member

Morning Shamus

Like you, I spotted that buying the Sage Part 3 course would buy me the certification and I thought that if I were only going to pay for one that would be the best as it also implies the other levels have been passed. I'm not that miffed at missing an even lower price but the item I ordered hasn't actually reached me yet so I was that close.

Regarding the exaggerated claims by a training provider, I concur. It must have been a mistake as their ethics wouldn't allow them to mislead the purchasing public, would they?

Cheers
Neil

-- Edited by Neil on Monday 8th of February 2010 10:20:33 AM

Neil · Senior Member

Join the club, Xan. I'm £1760 out of pocket for Level I, II and III manual.

I'll be self tutoring the rest, believe me. Thanks to the people here and Shaun in particular, I've located most of the resources I'll need to do that.

I'd be glad to pass on anything I've learned if you have questions.

Best wishes

Neil

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Wendy,

welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that you've fallen victim to the training vultures. I'm guessing from the amount quoted your with Home Learning College.

Any questions that you have just ask and we'll do our best to answer. If we don't answer straight away then someone is actually paying us for something (does happen occasionally!)

Hi Neil,

Ethics, training providers... Sorry, you're not allowed to use those two words in the same sentence!

Hi anyone else reading this,

Actually, there are some very good training providers out there. From other threads it seems that Premier training and Ideal Schools come particularly well recommended.

I fall into the give me a book, a computer and a crate of red bull category of learners, but that approach isn't for everyone as some need to be part of a group to bounce ideas around to get to grips with the subject.

If the latter is the case, if your thinking of investing the home learning college sort of money then without hesitation I would recommend the Open University course B680, the certificate in accounting (now broken down into constituent courses as it had become too expensive).

On passing B680 you can go straight to full membership of the ICB or IAB, Get exemptions from many of the AAT and CAT exams, or can bypass the entry level exams for the ACCA or CIMA.... Or you can do all of them but that's an awful lot of annual subscriptions to fork out.

Talk soon,

Shaun.

LaShel Bookkeeping · Veteran Member

I agree with you there. I think I paid about £600 to complete the ICB ABC course & never needed any support, but, I still use their disk when I want to refresh on depreciations, prepayments etc on the manual side, its a really good CD, and everytime Ive swapped the disk to new computers/laptops they have always provided me with a new unlock key even though it was about purchased anout 6 years ago. Some do justrip you off though. Ive been quoted about £400 for manual payroll course, I'll teach myself, thanks..lol..

PamelaG · Member

Thanks just found this forum as I am studying for my IAB, already found out today my AAT NVQ 2 exempts me from the Level 2 exam and have now bought this - happy days!

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Sorry folks. The price is back to £50.

Hope that everyone that wanted one got there in time.

I'll keep you informed if any more of the items in my Amazon shopping basket come up at some ridiculously low price.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

If anyone uses the free 180 day trial copy of Sage Line 50 that comes with the certification course with the older versions of the BPP AAT Foundation bookkeeping with Sage and Spreadsheets with Excel it seems that V10 restore files can be converted to V14 but V11 files cannot.

I'm just trying to do the old Sage course with the new software.

I don't know about anyone else's feelings but my dislike of Sage based on V10 seems to be dissipating somewhat as I'm using V14. It does seem a lot different to what I was expecting it to be. Hardly seems the same product at all (so far in a good way).

cheers,

Shaun.

-- Edited by Shamus on Sunday 14th of February 2010 06:12:34 PM

semsley · Guru

Hi Shaun

I managed to get the course for £24.95, it arrived today. Not going to install or start it yet though. Most of the stuff, with the exception of the foreign trading, I have done before, when I was teaching in college, but not for a while so will need to refresh. I have V11 Line 50, wonder what it would cost to purchase the 2008 at the end of the 180 days. I do like the improved version of bank reconciliation where you can save if you come to a transaction you haven't entered rather than having to %£$$%%£ start the whole thing again as in V10 and 11.

Amanda · Expert

Hi,

I have Version 12 instants and you can save the bank rec and then go back to it which is great if there is one that you can't find at the time.

I also have an older version V10 which isn't quite so good, I must admit I do think when they do a new version the improvements are good.

cheers
A

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Morning all,

for anyone whose installed the V14 software that came with the course.

Has anyone found the Product Valuation Report? (mentioned on page 4.11)

I've looked under every rock but so far nothing. I know that it's only available with 2008 professional (which this is). Everything else apart from this report (and also a history report) which is supposed to come with V14 professional seems to be there.

Any idea's?

Hi Shiela,

like the course, the actual software on Amazon seems to fluctuate wildly in price. After using V14 I've decided myself that I need to upgrade but not sure yet to which version.

I've put the levels I and II self study courses for all later versions on my Amazon save for later list. Hopefully I'll drop on another bargain with each of the newer level so that I can try out V14, V15 and V16.

Morning Amanda,

it's nice to see a company that improves with newer version unlike Microsoft that just leaves us all pining for their older products.

I'm still hoping that they bring in a classic interface option in Excel with the next version. I know that there are third party products that will do it but you can't really do that on clients systems.

All the best people,

talk later,

Shaun.

semsley · Guru

Amanda wrote:

Hi,

I have Version 12 instants and you can save the bank rec and then go back to it which is great if there is one that you can't find at the time.

I also have an older version V10 which isn't quite so good, I must admit I do think when they do a new version the improvements are good.

cheers
A

I find sometimes the improvements are good, like the bank rec, but sometimes they have no material gain. What I would like to see if the ability to memorise transactions, particularly invoices in Instant - but hey you can't have everything.

rachelmclean84 · Newbie

Hi Shamus and everyone else

Please can you tell me about the sage 50 self-study workbooks level 3, will this course contain everything that i need to pass the icb level 3 diploma in computerised bookkeeping?

Sorry I am new to the site and have been looking for workbooks/courses that are affordable for months for the level 3 exam.

Thank you

Rachel

Ammers · Veteran Member

Hi,
Yes same here... I want something to self study for the level 3 Manual in bookkeeping with ICB.... would this do?
AnneMarie

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Rachel,

No. Stage three covers stock control, sales and purchase order processing, quotations and invoices and foreign trading.

It doesn't cover everything included in the other two levels.

Think that I've mentioned a few times on the site. What you need is the 180 day trial version that comes with this course, plus the BPP book AAT foundation bookkeeping with Sage and Spreadsheets with Excel.

Between those two sources and a mock exam you will get through the level III computerised.

Anne Marie.

This stuff is for the computerised side. For manual level III you need something like Business Accounts by David Cox and maybe a few of the AAT workbooks.

A good sign that you are ready is being able to do the ACCA CAT exams which are freely available of the ACCA site. (I put a link in to a message earlier today. You might want to read through the recent messages as this is being covered a lot at the moment).

Hope this helps,

Shaun.

Ammers · Veteran Member

Hi Shaun, yes it does help. Thank you for the info
I;m very glad I found this site, its been invaluable... just wish I'd found it before enrolling with HLC...
AnneMarie