I am currently MICB with the SA Diploma and have an ICB practice licence/mlr cover and PII. Having decided that IFA level 4 was the way forward rather than ICB level 4, I was wondering if anyone else has been in a similar position and if you need seperate cover/licences going forward.I would expect to join FTA before IFA by taking D1and D4 exams in June, therefore would the FTA expect me to apply to them for PL and would it cover all my activities until completion of D2 and D3 in December. Then I would presume that an IFA PL would cover all activities.Any thoughts would be appreciated.
just read your other post in the small companies thread about you having no replies to this one.
I remember reading this at the time and thinking that you were only looking for answers from MICB's rather than general responses so I didn't answer.
Lets see if we can get the ball rolling on this one with a short response.
I use IFA for my practice certificate / MLR and have found them to be a sound body.
Bit expensive to join and renewal of membership is January regardless of when you join so be careful when in the year you sign up.
IFA's refer to themselves as Incorporated Accountant's.
Many IFA members are ACCA refugee's who took all of the exams and then found the ACCA practice certificate impossible to obtain so as you can imagine there is an excellent quality base to the training that many of the IFA accountants have obtained which will I believe lead the qualiification to grow both in numbers and respect in the accountancy community (especially since the IFA became an IFAC member body).
FTA is part of IFA so one call to them should sort out the licences that you need.
Where you go with other bodies it can be quite expensive where practicioners need to maintain multiple practice licences and PIIs (talk to those who went from ACCA to ICAEW and have to maintain both in order to be chartered!).
As for a practice certificate on the back of FTA... Would there be any point until you are also at least Dip Fa for the accounts?
As I say, this is just a short note to get the ball rolling and get the post back to the top now that we are into a calmer time of the year.
Actually, on that last point, it is worth noting that there were exams of all of the major bodies in May and June which would be another reason for lack of responses during that time.
Kindest regards and sorry that its taken so long for you to get any response (even a vague one like the one that I just wrote) to your question,
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.
Thanks for your reply, I was just thinking ahead a bit with the original post. As previously mentioned I am taking part of the Dip FA this month(financial accounting,tax and ethics)and the remaining exams in December. As the tax exam+ethics allows application for FTA membership and ICB prevents the use of the words tax advice/advisor, there could be a benefit to a FTA practising certificate or should I just tell my PII provider that I supply services in addition to those covered by MICB. The main train of thought was similar to Rich in that I need to revamp my website and separate bookkeeping and accountancy services, although hopefully will be selling a combined package to new clients.
I did ICB up to level 3. I was then going to do IFA but level 4 ICB was supposedly going to be introduced so I decided to do that instead (that turned out to be a bad decision since level 4 was delayed so many times) I have done the ICB level 4 modules as they were released whilst focussing on IFA. I'm taking my last IFA level 5 exam this month.
ICB level 4 is much easier than IFA level 5, but I didn't do IFA level 4 so can't moment on that. ICB could be a useful place to start though especially as it is relatively low cost and convenient since exams are done at home whenever you are ready to do them.
My understanding is that as a full IFA member, you can apply for a practice licence which would cover all areas. Our practise has been offering services beyond the ICB stuff for a few years as my husband is ATT so our PII is a general accountancy level cover, not a bookkeeping one.
