Firstly let me introduce myself. I am a new member and have registered in order to get advice on my future plans.
I am a recent graduate in Accountancy & Finance and I have found that the world of work is just not for me. I have been in finance roles for the past 2 years. I don't want to work for anyone else and would love to run my own business. During my degree, i found taxation and financial reporting to be my favourite and strongest subject.
My dad is a cipfa qualified accountant and has suggested that we both go into business, with him being a silent partner.
I have a few issues presently which i hope you can help me with:
1) Am i too young and inexperienced to do this, or will Tax Assist really provide me with everything that i need to know?
2) I want to qualify in the near future (ACA ir CTA), will TA help?
I'll answer more fully tomorrow sometime but for now, whilst I will pass no comment on Tax assist it may be worth mentioning that if you want to reach ACA then look at Certax who are approved by the ICAEW for training.
That said, I think that they expect you to be at least MAAT to go down that route.
Personally I looked at them but knocked it on the head as they would not show me the franchise agreement up front which to me means that means that there is something in it that they don't want me to read.
That said, they are proper accountants with a real practice which will help you to become chartered by being able to supervise you unlike many franchises out there that are marketing opportunies with a back end offshore accounts department (thats not making any comment about any particular franchise but a general comment).
You say that you are looking to become chartered soon. Please supply more details as to your timeline and where you are along it at the moment.
Whilst looking at Certax also check out the Abacus Franchise which is another one run by accountants but I think with that one they are not actually a practice approved to supervise training by the institute.
As I say, I'll revisit this thread tomorrow when I may change or add to this post.
night for now,
talk tomorrow,
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.
I would like to qualify in the next 3-4 years. I am still open to ACA or CTA, or even ACCA.
Regarding the other franchises, my Dad has looked at them and has deduced that Tax Assist seem the best one. I'm just a bit scared as I will be the main player of this business. I am not concerned with the technical accounting requirements, as I love tax and financial reporting.
I'm more worried about marketing and getting the level of clients/turnover which will make it worthwhile. Doing a quick cashflow, i have worked out that ideally i need 70-80 clients, roughly £49-56k turnover. To me, getting 1-2 clients a week, each paying £700, does seem unlikely. But there is the option of going straight into a shop front.
the issue is that there are two completely different questions here. The first is that you want to become qualified and the other is that you are looking at a franchise.
to a large extent the two can be considered almost mutually exclsuive.
There are qualified accountants who run franchise operations but they did (as a rule) not learn their trade as a franchisee.
Most franchise operations will not get you anywhere as far as a quality accountancy qualification goes as they will not count towards your experience requirement unless properly supervised by a properly qualified accountant (relatives don't count).
That was why I suggested Certax as that one is pretty much the exception rather than the ruile as far as being a franchisee counting towards qualification.
Also, don't forget that even once you've passed the qualifications you still have to do a couple of years post qualification supervised in order to obtain a practice certificate (and without a practice certificate you cannot offer your services to the public).
You can do ACCA without being in a training contract. You cannot do ACA without one.
To be allowed to study towards CTA you need to be fully qualified with ACCA / ACA / ATT or one of a handful of other qualifications.
ATT would be the fastest of those.
Also, if you study AAT you could get onto the ACA fasttrack.
Gettting clients is like a snowball rolling down a hill. You may get nothing for six months or more then little by little as you do acquire clients world of mouth as to the quality of your service spreads and with it so increases the number of clients.
The tax assist shop front idea is sound but you need to factor against that the increased rates of a shop unit against upstairs offices.
Would a tax assist franchise suceed.... Probably.
Would it make you and Accountant... No.
Will you make the money that you are looking for... Maybe.... But, you will have high overheads including franchise fee, franchise maintenance fee, staff costs, shopfront premises and associated rates.
So the question really comes down to will you make more and get further than if you had done this properly and got a trainee position in practice whilst you passed your exams and then set up in practice as a qualified accountant.
Personal view is that I see an awful lot of succesful chartered and chartered certified in the highstreet and there are an awful lot of accountancy franchise resales... You do the maths!
To my mind the franchises that suceed are those run by the people who would have suceeded had they followed the traditional approach but they get there faster by being part of something larger than themselves.
To suceed in this business you need to come to the table with the qualifications and/or the experience and there is no shortcut to that.
None of the above should in any way be construed as anything against he franchise in question. It is purely a consideration as to whether the franchise route is right for your requirements and to my mind, for what you really want (qualification) you are actually looking at the wrong franchise if you go down that route.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. careful not to mix up AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) and ATT (Association of Tax Technicians). Sound the same but very different bodies / qualifications.
__________________
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.
So when they say you don't need to be qualified to be successful, that's not entirely true? So you can't learn everything you need to know in 6 weeks and then use the support for any issues that arise? I guess businesses would only go to qualified accountants?
To be honest i would be happy with any qualification. I get around 9 exemptions for the ACCA.
Many thanks for your input. I've just hit a wall in my life and want to do something. I can't see myself working for soneone else. Maybe franchising is not the correct way forward then. Maybe even accountancy isn't.
