I am looking at using my ILA Scotland allowance to pay for / contribute towards some book-keeping qualifications to help me get into an entry-level job. Most of the jobs I'd love to apply for all require Sage experience, and of course without Sage experience I can't apply for that many jobs. The usual.
A search of the ILA Scotland course list appears to narrow things down to two possibilities:
"Sage Computerised Accounts" Pitman Training Centre Leading to "Other Award Body : Pitman Certificate in Computerised Book-Keeping using Sageline"
or
"Introductory Sage Accounting" + "Advanced Sage Accounting" Life Skills Central Limited Leading to "Company or Course Certificate / Diploma" (not that helpful a description)
Does anyone have any experience of either of these courses through ILA Scotland and/or care to express an opinion on which might be more help in my future book-keeping career (whatever that may yet turn out to be).
If it matters, I am already going to undertake the OU course B190 with the aim of completing the Professional Certificate in Accounting, and perhaps more, but that would be attained late next year; the purpose of the training I am looking at now is to try and make myself more employable in the meantime.
As an aside, are either of these training courses any better / going to increase my employability over buying the 2 stages of Sage's self-study Bookkeeping CD-ROMs, which are alot cheaper but of course I'd have to pay for by myself. Stage 1 looks to have the same content as the Life Skills Central first course, for example; are they in fact the same and I might as well buy the stuff directly from Sage/Amazon myself?
Thanks in advance.
Rob.
-- Edited by Rob-f58049 on Wednesday 28th of March 2012 08:38:49 AM
seems to be several questions buried in there so I'll answer some and maybe come back to answer the rest later.
As an aside, no idea at all what an ILA is but I digress.
B190 is an introduction to bookkeeping and is pretty much the same course as the AAAT ABC bookkeeping course, both having their foundations in the EQL CD couse in bookkeeping which is an excellent introduction. I'm unable to compare against the Sage bookkeeping course.
What is now B190 used to be given away by the OU as pre course preparation for the old B680 certificate in accounting which got ridiculously expensive so was split into three parts but only two of them still exist. The financial accounting and management accounting modules. (Accounting theory seems to have fallen through the cracks).
The OU certificate in accounting is an excellent course which to my mind is the equivalent of AAT level four or the first three papers of ACCA.
Many companies offer Sage training but as you've already spotted, for the most part thats really the Sage course and certification in a box that can be purchased from Amazon.
That's not to say that for many the hand holding of a training provider isn't completely necessary but I think it's very much a horses for courses and if you are quite happy learning without support then just purchase the materials from Amazon and do it yourself.
I don't think that there is anything that can guarantee employment in this day and age. Employers want experience rather than qualifications which leads many down the delf employment path even though that may not be where one wanted to go in the first place.
Full AAT or PQ ACCA still win out in the employment league. Full AAT from sctratch including Sage training will set you back about the same money as the OU certificate in accountancy (about £2.5k I think) and to my mind although the OU course is excellent, AAT would be money better spent.
HTH. Looking forwards to reading other peoples views on the Sage bookkeeping course.
kind regards,
Shaun.
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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.
Right, keep the M6 clear. 52 million English are all going to move North of the border.
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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.
Re your comment about the Amazon box, does that in fact include some kind of certificate at the end, or is that reserved for doing it via Sage or some other learner provider. The Amazon description doesn't specifically say that I can see.
I also notice that the Amazon box is software v17, and the latest seems to be v18; I don't suppose that matters much since not every end-user will have the latest version anyway.
Expand the picture and you will see in the green bubble below 180 day trial version of Sage 50 it says Sage Certification.
It's exactly the same certification as offered by training companies.
Can't find it at the moment on Amazon but there's one of these courses where you get all nine books and all certifications but only one 180 day trial version of Sage 50. It's cheaper than buying them seperately but means that you need to do all three courses inside 6 months.
HTH,
Shaun.
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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.
Hurry up before Theresa May puts in place her new border patrol.
Hi Kris,
I think with the difference with how the Scots seem to be treated by comparrison to the English any border patrol would just be killed in the stampede!
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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.
It's for "Sage Bookkeeping", as opposed to "Sage 50 Accounts" that you referred to. Incidentally, I see that the one you talked about has "Used" copies for a much cheaper price. Anyone got any idea if that means the trial software and receipt of a certificate at the end are still applicable? I've emailed to ask as well.
I know that with older versions of the box (I've got v14, level III) it doesn't register the software with Sage but rather registers it to your machine so after six months it stops working but you can of course then instal it on a different machine which has never had the software on it so, following that logic installing a second hand copy on your machine will work (#1)... Unless they've changed the way that the trial software registers itself from the machine to Sage.
There are a couple of minor reports in the trial version that don't work but everything necessary for Sage certification of ICB level II computerised is there.
One warning though on second hand software is that the certification is only good for one use so if thats already been used by the current owners you won't get your certification.
HTH,
Shaun.
#1 to be used only to complete your training, not to be used on a commercial basis which would be in breach of the trial version licence agreement. Personally I installed it, played with it for a bit, got bored then went and played with VT Transaction+ so got maybe a weeks worth of use out of the first instalation.... So installed it again on a new machine, got bored even quicker, went off to VT again and never went back.
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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.
When I did a search on the ILA course database I only looked at local area; that seemed to be sensible enough to include distance learning options as well. Hence the two results at the top of this topic.
