Hi Yukti,

Whilst you don't actually need a training provider for ICB many find it better and more motivating to go down that route so I won't do my usual and just give you a list of books that you could read.

Premier training always get pretty good reviews on here. Here's a link to their fee's page for ICB :

http://www.premiertraining.co.uk/courses/icb/icb_fees.shtml

Also, if you decide to go on to do AAT then you can do that through them as well.

Don't forget to factor in membership and exam fee's which are almost always on top of the training provider fee's.

Home Learning College (HLC) get pretty bad press on here. Normally for their comparitively high fee's, occassional mistakes in their course material and pushy sales techniques. However, I personally have not dealt with them so really you need someone who has to pass comment before making any decisions.

Sage Line 50 is likely to be the version that you will use in work. Sage Instants feels similar but is a cut down version. Therefore, Line 50 is better if you can get that as part of the course. Note though that the Sage 50 is likely to be a 180 day trial version where Sage Instant is likely to be the full version of the lesser product.

Personally I would take the 180 day trial version but thats really your decision. (I don't know whether this is still true but with my 180 trial version I can just keep reinstalling it to get another 180 days).

Note that the trial versions do not include all of the reports of the full version but they do include all of the important reports.

Anyone can join AAT straight at level 3 if you can convince your training provider that you have sufficient skiils to pass all of the exams up to that level. The main way to do that is via the AAT skillcheck which will tell you at what level you should join. AAT also give accreditation for prior learning without the skillscheck. For their current exemptions see here :

http://www.aat.org.uk/servlet/file/RAQ%20exemptions%20list.pdf?ITEM_ENT_ID=98330&COLLSPEC_ENT_ID=187

I note that IAB exemptions are mentioned but not ICB. You would need to check directly with the AAT to confirm any exemptions that they would give based on ICB exams passed but as mentioned above, the ICB would prepare you for the skillscheck from which you could gain exemptions by your current skill level.

The qualifications that you take should be defined by what you want to do with them.

If you want to be self employed then ICB or IAB.

If you want to be employed then AAT (Or CAT although you may find yourself trying to convince employers that CAT is exactly the same level as AAT).

Getting AAT and finding a good training position in practice can also open up doors to higher qualifications such as ACCA, ACA or CIMA. You can of course do those anyway but there are difficulties getting the required experience which having AAT already you may find easier to achieve.

Keep us informed of your decisions in this thread and we'll try our best to point out any pitfalls that you may encounter along the way.

Good luck,

Shaun.

I did this course and exam using Ideal Schools as the training provider. As I was doing another course with them I got a discount on the payroll course. They use Sage 50 Payroll and it isn't limited to 180 days. Just as well as I got sidetracked for about 4 months halfway through the computerised side of the course.

Hi Yukti,

Sounds from your degree as though you could have missed out the bulk of the ACCA syllabus up to the last five papers let alone any of the others.

Of course, considering the angle that you are coming at this from makes it a bit more difficult to advise on good starting texts as you will have already covered a great deal of ground and it's going to be difficult pushing a text at the right level.

I think one of those you may find interesting is the AAT revision companion for units 1-4 from BPP.

For a study text I normally advise mastering Accounting Skills by Peter Marshall. And Mastering Bookkeeping by Margaret Nicholson. The pair will set you back less than £20 from Amazon. However, you may find these a bit dry going if you have already done more advanced stuff so try business accounts for bookkeeping and financial accounting courses by David Cox which you may find much more interesting reading.

When I took ICB all that I used was my old ACCA study text for paper 1.1 and sailed through it. Thats the thing. At this level it's just bookkeeping which unlike accountancy is pretty standard so doesn't really matter that much whose books you use as they all cover pretty much the same material.

With the ICB, to do the exams directly, sign up with the ICB by applying for membership via the website to get the necessary forms.

When you are on top of the subject you can buy old papers from the ICB at £5 each. I would strongly advise for you to do at least one of those for each paper that you sit to get a feel for their exams.

When you are ready to sit their exams you can either book them through the website or give the ICB a call. Really is quite straight forwards.

Some ICB exams are done at home and other are sat at local testing centres.

You don't need Sage until the Associate level. Again, if you just wanted to pass AICB using sage then compare one of the Sage course in box kits from Amazon to what is being offered by your chosen training provider as you may find that all that you are doing with the training provider is buying the course in a box from them rather than Amazon!

As for the HMRC CD you really don't need it as you can get everything you need from their website. Which of course eventually you will have up permanently on one of you web browser tabs (My permanent tabs are this site, HMRC, ACCAGlobal, MoneyAM and Amazon).

While I remember, Nick knows that your from the North East because it's on your user profile.

Sure that I've missed something from the above. Oh well, I can always add more later,

Talk in a bit,

Shaun.

Hi Yukti,

no probs.

just a quick update on the Sage question.

The courses that I'm thinking of are the Sage courses in box that come with three manuals for each level and a 180 evaluation copy of Sage line 50.

There are three levels of course. each with it's own full 180 trial of the software.

Have a look at these three.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sage-Accounts-2011-Study-Course/dp/1906048282/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1302298678&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sage-Accounts-2011-Study-Course/dp/1906048304/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302298777&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sage-Accounts-2011-Study-Course/dp/1906048304/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302298777&sr=8-2

you need to enlarge the pictures to see the contents of each course.

Each course comes with Sage certification via online test.

The above is for the still quite expensive 2011 version. My version was 2008 which is still fine for everything that you need but under Windows 7 it seems to cause issues with the registry entry for Excel (2007) meaning that every time you start Excel you get a message telling you that the Sage integrations isn't working but Sage itself is fine.

On the books front I'm flicking through the David Cox book now and really cannot speak too highly on that one. Not too simple, not too complex. Well presented, regular multichoice questions on everything.

This is my version :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Accounts-Accounting-Finance-David/dp/1872962637/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1302299332&sr=1-3

Also check out bookkeeping and Accounts by Frank Wood and Sheila Robinson. You can actually look insode that one on Amazon. See here :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Keeping-Accounts-Frank-Wood/dp/0273718053/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Good luck with the studies Yukti. If you have problems with anything there's generally someone around on here to give a helping hand.

All the best,

Shaun.

Just to clear up any confusion, i was refering to the sunny bit of the north east where I am, but glad to see a fellow "northener" on here!

Hi Yukti,

no probs.

the early ICB exams (I only went as far as AICB) are in the format of a set of books that you have to fill out from initial entry through to trial balance. They are for a small VAT registered company and there are normally a few minor twists in the exams.

The first paper tests your bookkeeping by filling out a dozen or so T accounts and then using that information to create a trail balance.

The computerised paper tests in a similar way that you can use Sage or a similar package to do more or less the same at a slightly more complex level.

The exams are always based on practical application which is the thing that I really like about the ICB papers.

There will be plenty that you need to memorise but at this stage it's more things such as VAT calculations, what are credits and what are debits, depreciation models and what goes in the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet (or Statement of Comprehensive Income and Statement of Financial position under IFRS) rather than whole paragraphs from a standard.

I would say that memorising a few definitions and concepts right from the start doesn't hurt as going down this path you need to get your head around a completely different mindset. I would say that to take this path the basics of understanding lie in understanding and memorising the definitions of the accounting equation (Capital = Assets - liabilities), the qualitive characteristics of financial information (Relevance, Reliability, comparability and understandability), the basic accounting concepts (prudence, accruals, going concern, consistence) and the definitions of an Asset and a Liability.

Understand those and you will understand what you are trying to achieve. Everything else then starts to fit into place when you're going through learning double entry.

I think that the worst mistake many people make when starting out is when they try to learn how to do books without understanding what they are ultimately trying to achieve therefore they learn parrot fashion but do not really feel the subject and why things happen as they do.

Good luck in your studies Yukti,

Shaun.