I studied (and I use that term loosely) accountancy at college and finished with a D grade at A-level, i could've easily acheived higher but at the time was young, lazy and naive.
its now 7 years later and im looking at changing my current profession and want to study the AAT's, the question is, what level would i be able to start at? as i dont want to waste money/time studying something that i could do in my sleep but at the same time dont want to jump in ahead of myself.
It would depend on the provider you're going with. My local college for example would grant exemption to Level 2 (Foundation) for someone with GCSE / A-level Accounting.
Sounds at though you could do with getting back up to speed before going for the AAT qualification.
best approach may be to buy a copy of the AAT Foundation Revision Companion for units 1-4 and work through it. Normally takes me about a weekend so whilst it might take you a little longer it's not going to be a major commitment of your time.
Doing that should jog quite a few of the old brain cells that thought that they had forgotten all about accountancy back into action.
If you have difficulty with it I would advise buying Business Accounts for Book-keeping and Accounting courses by David Cox and then working through it cover to cover before doing the units 1-4 book again.
Once you've completed the revision companion to a satisfactory level do the online AAT skills checck (you only get one go at that so it helps if your prepared for it) that will tell any potential college the level that they should contemplate taking you on at.
I think that the highest level that this route will permit a college to start you at without evidence of additional recent studies or experience behind you is level III but I could be wrong on that.
If this is just a matter of getting back up to speed then buying the above books and doing about six weeks hard study time before thinking about AAT will pay dividends later.
Good luck with your studies,
kind regards,
Shaun.
P.S. The above answer is in respect only of your question related to the AAT and I do not touch on whether the AAT is the right organisation for your needs which is a whole different question. I assume that you have already studied that kunundrum in other threads that discuss the various options of AAT, ICB, IAB, CAT, ATT, OU (B190), ACCA, etc. Depending upon what you want and need from your qualification, your study and your supervisory body.
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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.
Once you've completed the revision companion to a satisfactory level do the online AAT skills checck (you only get one go at that so it helps if your prepared for it) that will tell any potential college the level that they should contemplate taking you on at.
I think that the highest level that this route will permit a college to start you at without evidence of additional recent studies or experience behind you is level III but I could be wrong on that.
One can do the tests on www.aatskillcheck.org more than once. But it does state "Last completed AAT Skillcheck", "Result from last completed AAT Skillcheck", "How many times it has been taken", and "Highest result from AAT Skillcheck".
I did it once a couple of years back and got a pretty good score (enough to go straight to level III if I wanted) but a month or so later tried to have another go expecting the questions to be randomly generated so the sort of thing that you could do multiple times however it told me at the time that I had already done it (from what you say though things have obviously changed now).
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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.
That happened to me too ('bout 18 month ago). I was having a play with it not realising that it was a once only (at that time ?) attempt, so didn't take it too seriously. Didn't do to bad but wasn't trying, so could have done better. When I realised that, I tried to do it again and it wouldn't let me.
Turns out that while one can do the test more than once, it's the same questions. The only difference is the order the questions appear at is randomise a little bit.
I would imagine a provider might insist on only taking the first result in such a case.
) if that rule has changed
