I am looking for a bit of help here please? I was given the forum details from Dave Campbell at Training Link, who incidently is one of the most helpful and friendly people I have dealt with!!!
I was initially interested in bookkeeping to continue to learn whilst I have a part time sales job. I have always been interested but have never had the time before to look into it properly. My question is whether to go down the route of bookkeeping or whether I could go to accountancy?? I have no previous accountancy type qualifications and do not actually work doing this which I had heard could be a barrier to doing the ACCA course.
Any thoughts or advice would be gratefully received... Thanks
there is no reason for you to be ain an accounts role to study ACCA in fact many people go right through the qualification before getting a relevant role in order to gain the three years required for membership (You sit as an affiliate until you have the proper experience).
The qualification really is second to none and from the sound of your situation you won't suffer as others do with issues over regulation 8.
The first three ACCA papers are the equivalent of the full AAT qualification. The next six are scenario based skills papers and are the equivalent of a BSc (Which you can opt into to come out of it with a degree after the first nine papers if you so wish).
The last five papers are at masters level and the papers really put you in the position of giving advice which is fun but very, very time pressured in the exams.
If you have no accounts or bookkeeping experience have you thought of doing the foundations in accountancy with the ACCA as an introduction before moving up to the full qualification.
If you take this all the way through to the diploma on transfer to the ACCA qualification you are exempted from F1, F2 and F3 so you start at the skills rather than fundamentals level.
Before deciding on ACCA also check out CIMA's website which is another quality qualification that you can study without being in a relevant role.
Other alternatives include IAB, IFA and AAT.
Also as an introduction to this you might find the OU course B190 quite useful. (And it comes with some hady exemptions!).
The ICB qualification probably isn't what you want if you are looking to move to ACCA as whilst you would gain a lot of knowledge from studying ICB it doesn't give any ACCA exemptions where IAB does.
Hope that helps for starters. I know what a nightmare it can be for starters with so many choices and if you make the wrong choice now it can prove an expensive miistake.
As such please feel free to post follow up questions which we will be happy to field.
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.
Shaun, thank you so much for your reply. I will have a look into the options that you mention before I make a decision. As you say, it's a lot of investment if I do the wrong thing. Best Wishes to you Nicola
We started off as bookkeepers (working with accountants) but have decided to reposition and offer accounting services. This makes us more marketable and profitable and we found the majority of accountants are not really open to working with bookkeepers.
Thank you for your kind words and welcome to the forum. As I explained I am not really qualified to advise on Accountany courses and knew you would get some sound advice on this Forum. Thanks Shaun and Bob for offering your experienced advice. Good luck Nykki which ever avenue you decide to go down and please let me know how you get on.
Just preparing my invoice for you for consultancy services Dave... lol.
No probs matey, always good to make sure that we give newcomers the right start in this business.... Actually, there's lots of right starts. Rephrase that, try to make sure that they don't make a wrong choice.
I'm expecting follow up questions once Nicola's had chance to look at all of the stuff on the ACCA and CIMA websites. Whilst I've given her lots to think about I personally think that as she's new to this the ACCA FIA route would be the best foundation for a move towards becoming an accountant.
The FIA (which replaced the old CAT) is a qualification in itself, it's an excellent foundation no matter which way you decide to progress, be that bookkeeping, accountancy or simply management in business.
Have training link thought about offering courses supporting the ACCA FIA qualification? I know that it's possible to do on one's own from books but there are many people out there who like having a training providers support espechially on the first tentative steps in this business.
I know that Premier training have embraced the new qualification with each module at £99 (plus subscriptions, exams and shipping). Maybe there's another opportunity for Training link?
All the best,
Shaun.
P.S. when you get a promotion on the back of all these suggestions I also accept plain brown envelopes stuffed with used 20's
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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.
Brown envelopes! We are in a recession I cant even afford the spit to lick them. Personally that is one of the reasons I love my job, we are always looking at ways to improve our other services, but for us it is not just about provision but providing excellence. We have to have the correct tutors with the qualifications from each body and so on and so forth so even with all the will in the world transition can be a slow process. The owner has looked at the ACCA FIA qualification but felt at the time it was better suited to classroom. £99 a module does seem cheap for a recognised qualification, stack em high sell em cheap? As a consumer if I see something cheap I wonder why but the same can be said when something is too expensive and distance learning there seems to be no price structure for the provision of different bodies training. Its a case of charge what you want and see if anyone buys. Then again if a company is struggling and cheap keeps them afloat so be it lol.
Nykki is at the moment trying out our free trial and asking a lot of questions which shows she is serious about studying, a total beginner which is why I passed her on to this forum, it would have been easy for me to say ICB ICB ICB but as I wanted her to have an unbiased view of the options available I thought joining the BKN forum would give her the info so she can make an informed choice and not a stab in the dark.
Shaun you keep the ideas coming and when I get that promotion I will of course send plenty of brown envelopes, to be honest though I would never take credit for someone elses idea, just not me, I would say Shaun from the BKN forum came up with an idea, you could claim copyright lol/ I am luckier than most as I have a great boss (brown nosing on forums could be a new trend). Paid for us all to attend ICB conference last 2 times including hotels, food and drink, thats staff and their partners, so we get well looked after, its not a job, its an obsession, a bit like this forum lol.
