I am a 52 year old Senior Manager with an Investment Bank in the City of London.
I have worked in the City since leaving school as a 16 year old and have therefore spent the last 36 years working with figures in a variety of different positions, from auditing, reconciling, foreign exchange, bought and sold ledgers, trial balance, etc.
I have had enough of working in the City and fancy the idea of working as a bookeeper for local businesses and sole traders.
Is there a way of testing my current level of knowledge to establish the relative entry level for me to start on my journey towards gaining a professional booking qualification?
Thank you very much for the link. I took the test and it recommends starting at Level 2. I was OK with any questions relating to the pure maths and the concept of cashbooks and statements but a lot of the terminology and rules regarding VAT, Discounts, etc quickly highlighted my lack of true accountancy/bookkeeping skills. What would be the right level of ICB mock papers to obtain and does anybody have an example that they could email to me in exchange for a contribution to a charity of their choice.
The downside to ACCA is that it would take too long for you to become fully qualified and the expense really would not justify the return (I'm only just down to the final papers and it's taken seven years and probably more money than I will ever recoup from this).
However, the first three ACCA papers are the equivalent of the AAT or CAT qualifications.
I passed to AICB with near perfect results with no other study materials than that I had used for ACCA which shows they are all pretty similar content at this level.
From your description though ICB or IAB would seem to be the most sensible way for you to go as these are more geared towards you setting up on your own.
Have fun with these past papers. Suspect that from your background you will sail through the Management accountancy ones. Fingers crossed the Financial accountancy papers will further emphasise any gaps in your current knowledge.
All the best with the new career,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I might have some ICB past papers what I could send you just let me know your email. Also thinking about what Shaun said, ICAEW/ACA professional stage accounting study manual and question bank is a great help and it is pretty much level 2 and a bit of level 3 bookkeeping (about) You can get it from ICAEW
It is £30 but it worth every penny. The question bank only is 200 pages of questions and answers and for the £30 you get the study manual and the question bank..ok,plus postage :( so make it 45...
But I must agree with Shaun, IAB or ICB is the cheapest and fastest option for you and with a little bit of home study you should be able to pass the exams in no time. Also with these two bodies to be able to practice you don't need any actual qualifying work experience. With ACCA or ACA and even with AAT you would quickly realise even with decades of experience how difficult it is to get them accept your work history as qualifying. Hope this make sense.
Also you must know you don't have to be member of any bodies/associations to practice as a self-employed bookkeeper, the only thing you really need is MLR cover what you can get from HMRC...
Cheers for the link to the ICAEW bookshop, I've just bookmarked it and when finances permit will expand my library a little with some of the titles from there.... as if the current collection of 116 study texts and revision kits plus numerous ilearn, ipass, success CD's and various other publications wasn't enough!
Taking an average of around 1000 pages per text no wonder my brains fried!
In just counting my collection I've realised that in my ACCA studies I've amassed study texts related not just to ACCA but also AAT, CAT, CIMA, Open University and even an HND foundation degree in Accounting.
I'm really getting the impression that when I (finally) finish my ACCA qualification shares in BPP and Kaplan will fall off the edge of a cliff.
Hows the ACA studies going at the mo? Have you ended up like me buying around the qualification or stuck just with the designated texts?
On a linked subject, don't know if you read PQ this month but there's a bit of insight into how publishers get their books on the ACCA approved list... It costs £50,000! (Cash for books article. PQ magazine, March 2011).
ACCA have BPP down as their platinum provider and then Kaplan and Get through guides both as gold. Personal opinion would definitely put Kaplan as the platinum provider.
Oops, getting completely off subject. need to write to Patrick again.
talk in a bit,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
an excellent revision book that takes you through practical scenario's that I occassionally do just to keep myself firmly rooted in the basics is the AAT revision companion for units 1-4.
My version is ISBN 9780 7517 3228 3 however, it's bookkeeping rather than accountancy so basically doesn't change that much from version to version.
The book is divided down into :
Income and Receipts
Payments
Ledger Balances and initial trail balance
Information for Management Control
I wouldn't bother too much with the last section in the above.
The current second hand price on Amazon for my version starts at £1.99 plus £2.80 delivery or for the current version (ISBN 978-0751766998) £25.20 with free delivery.
An excellent text to get you started would be Business Accounts for Book-keeping and financial accounting courses by David Cox (osbourne books, ISBN 978-1872962634, £17.24 from Amazon).
I normally advise two other books :
Mastering Book-keeping by Dr. Peter Marshall
Mastering Accounting Skills by Margaret Nicholson.
Both excellent books but aimed predominantly at complete newstarters. If you read them as such then you will refer back to them for years but if you come to them with knowledge and experience already you may find getting through them pretty dry.
Even so, if you wanted a couple of additional reference texts you can pick the pair up for under £20.
Hope that these suggestions help,
All the best,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my request for information.
Time is not in my favour and therefore I have decided to focus on the ICB qualifications. I am going to start with the Level I Certificate in Basic Bookkeeping. I have looked at the ICB website and they are advertising enrolment to this course, run by Woodgrove Tutorials, for £179.
Any views on why I should/shouldn't sign up to this to get things started?
Mastering Accounting Skills by Margaret Nicholson.
Both excellent books but aimed predominantly at complete newstarters. If you read them as such then you will refer back to them for years but if you come to them with knowledge and experience already you may find getting through them pretty dry.
Even so, if you wanted a couple of additional reference texts you can pick the pair up for under £20.
Hi Shaun
I have looked up the two additional books on Waterstones website. I thought I would add the ISBN numbers in case anybody else that reads these threads would like to add them to their collection. They are;
978-1845284466 Mastering Book-keeping by Dr Peter Marshall
978-1403992703 Mastering Accounting Skills by Margaret Nicholson
I don't think you really need to do a level 1 course, you could just get those books above and just take the exam. You don't have to have a learning provider to take the ICB exams but you have to register with them as a student member - you have to do that anyway. Saying that £179 is not a lot of money but you do have experience so maybe you should not waste time on doing level 1 assignments and waiting for results..There is a lot of info on this subject on the forum. I look for those level 1 mocks now and scan them for you so you can see what is expected from you on that level before you pay money for course...
-- Edited by attilabenko on Monday 28th of March 2011 04:49:16 PM
Many thanks for sending me the scan of the ICB Level I Exam Paper. I was surprised at how little I was able to answer without guessing. I can talk to nostro accounts, vostro accounts, suspense accounts, statement debits/credits and offsetting ledger (cash book) credits/debits all day long at work but this is all based on financial transactions related to the buying and selling of shares, with or without foreign exchange and/or different base currencies for performance valuations (base currency v market currency) but throw in VAT and debtors and some slightly different terminology and it all goes to pot very quickly. I think it just reiterates the importance of making sure that you read and understand the course material. It also endorses my decision to start at the basic level.
I am going to purchase the above books and start to read through them. I will then revisit the exam that you sent me this evening. I am absolutely certain that I will then be able to answer the questions without any guessing. I will then send off to take the exam or, alternatively, crawl into a dark hole with my tail between my legs, never to be heard from again on this forum.
I will keep you informed of my progress and once again would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to help me make the correct decisions.
Chin up Patrick, it's all pretty logical (well except for VAT, or in fact anything to do with HMRC!!!!!). You'll be fine, Shaun has pointed you in the right direction and, when you have done your ICB or IAB exams we'll all be here to help you with the questions you have in the real world of book-keeping.
Chin up Patrick, it's all pretty logical (well except for VAT, or in fact anything to do with HMRC!!!!!). You'll be fine, Shaun has pointed you in the right direction and, when you have done your ICB or IAB exams we'll all be here to help you with the questions you have in the real world of book-keeping.
Books are ordered.......just waiting for Waterstones at Leadenhall Market to update my order to reflect that it is ready for collection and the journey can then begin.
I believe I am now in a position to take the level I exams. I have paid over my £45 student membership today. Does anybody have any Level I past papers that they can email to me (ballpiefun@btinternet.com) so that I can have a practice before signing up for the real thing?
