Hello, my name is Shaun. I have been out of book-keeping for a number of years and I am looking to get back into it.
Previous experience includes working as a legal cashier in a 6 partner practice, payroll and books for a small financial advisers, accounts manager for another 8 partner solicitors which involved managing 2 cashiers and liasing with the costings dept as well as monthly payroll, monthly management reports, VAT returns and liasing with the accountants as needed. Then I setup as freelance working for a couple of small limited companies and several sole traders/small partnerships. I ended up back in the financial services industry for about 7 years and for the last 3 years have been driving HGVs so I am currently way out of the industry.
I have worked with several different types of computerised accounts and some well organised and some rather haphazard manual systems which I have rebuilt. As I understand the underlying theory I am happy to work on any new accounting software.
As for accounts specific qualifications I have some legal cashiers certificate from ILEX from about 1988 and I took the intermediate level of the old AAT in August 1999 NVQ level 3.
I have been looking around the websites of the ICB and IAB trying to decide how to proceed. My aim is to refresh and update my knowledge and be able to gain employment in a, possibly part-time, accounts office role - with a view to maybe setting up as freelance again. I no longer have any ambition to proceed into any kind of accountants role.
I have plenty of time and motivation to study. I just don't know where and with which organisation to begin. I would appreciate some help if possible.
It seems that with the ICB I would have to start at the very bottom and work up again (not necessarily a bad thing) Whilst with the IAB I could potentially come straight in at member level by obtaining the Level 3 Certificate (again it may be better to start again at Level 1 or 2 anyway - any views on this?).
As I have been out of the industry I could only obtain Fellowship with the ICB after 5 years but could obtain that within 2 years with the IAB.
Then there is the seemingly simple structure of the ICB qualifications compared to the IAB - Do any of the IAB qualifications overlap in their coverage? I would like to continue to study and rebuild my skill set so the various different options are interesting.
I would like to think that I could be back into a bookkeeping role within a year or so.
Sorry if I've brain dumped or rambled on too much - but any views on what steps to look into next would be greatly appreciated.
I'm studying with the ICB and to be honest I could not see any material difference between the ICB and IAB sylabuses.
I think that if you have done bookkeeping in the past it wont take long to pass L1 and 2 of the ICB. You can probably just study the relevant manuals and apply to sit the exams which is a reasonably cheap way of doing it. This link might be of interest.......
Employers tend not to be familiar with ICB qualifications. So, if you are looking for employment, rather than setting up on your own, then you may want to think about the AAT instead.
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.................just an ICB student, at the moment.
