Dave Campbell wrote:

---

Hi Tori

Welcome to the forum and I dare say Shaun will be on here to say hello to you soon. The ICB have a mentoring scheme on their forum if this helps?

The forum is full of many interesting, clever and sometimes mad members   (Dave is clearly talking about himself here)  so lets hope you fit in with the crowd like a duck to water lol.

Take care and speak soon

Dave x

---

Welcome to the Forum Tori

I dont have a mentor but have probably had more help from the guys on here.  Enjoy

Hi Tori,

welcome to the forum.

Sounds as though you're about to hit the nightmare of being qualified with the ICB and hypathetically able to offer a full service to clients through their practice certificate but also being with the ACCA which takes precedence over all other professional memberships meaning that unless you have an ACCA practice certificate you are only able to offer bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll work. (no accounts, no filing, no advice unless supervised by a suitably qualified practicing accountant). Which of course renders much of what the ICB allows you to do null and void.... I didn't say that this was fair!

Once you have qualified and got your letters based on your signed off PER you can then find an ACCA practice certificate training contract (almost as easy to find as unicorns) which you can bring forwards one of your years used to gain membership if your employer at that time was a practice certificate recognised training provider otherwise its a further three years post gaining your letters.

You are now at the stage where many ACCA people end up reviewing their options to decide whether to move to another professional body. Recently quite a few disappeared to the IFA but recent shennanigans over merging with an Australian accounting body make that one less attractice now.

You might also want to consider AIA who may be at the edge of the top table but they are on it. (and some of those who have now abandoned the IFA have moved there).

Of course, the best option would be to gain an ACCA practice certificate (who wants to be anything other than ACCA if you have suffered some of the most difficult accountancy exams in the profession! (and without taking the books in the exam hall with us any ICAEW readers, lol)).

Are your current employers recognised by the ACCA? If so then you may be able to gain your post qualification experience with them in order to gain a practice certificate in order to offer services beyond trial balance.

Which of course leads to the $100 question why be with the ICB at all?

Well... I think that ICB or IAB training for nuts and bolts level skills is a good revision during the later stages of study of the stuff that was done long ago at paper F3 so it's almost CPD. Also there is opportunity to network with other bookkeepers... But as mentioned above you can also do on here.... Of course, if you want business then it's not generally other book-keepers that you need to be networking with.

Personally for ACCA people I would say take their exams to hone and test your skills and then dump them and get your MLR through HMRC to cover you for the limited services (to trial balance) that you will be able to offer pre ACCA practice certificate.... And before anyone complains this answer specifically pertains to ACCA people. The others don't have anything like ACCA regulation 8 or at least not implemented so rigidly (i.e. CIMA and AAT people can be accountants provided that they make no mention of their professional body where with ACCA it's simply being a member/student regardless of whether you mention them or not).

Which will your last paper be Tori?

kind regards,

Shaun.

Hi David,

but isn't it true that with AAT you can practice as an accountant making no mention of AAT until you move up to MAAT and then you can't unless you have a practice certificate. There have been several posts on that one here in the past taking quotes from the AAT site. The key is that you cannot do that if you move up to membership

On the CIMA one I could be mistaken but I thought that it came from one of your old posts about CIMA students being able to practice if they made no mention of their professional body.

If the CIMA rules have changed in order to bring them in line with ACCA I stand corrected but I stand by the pre MAAT comment in relation to AAT.

Kind regards,

Shaun.

Hi David,

My bad,

I wasn't thinking how my post read to others and had just gone on Tori's line about one more paper to go meaning that for her there are at least 2.5 more years to a practice certificate (if she can recycle one of the years from pre membership) otherwise at least 3.5 more years so my answer was intended to relate to student members rather than full members.

I just took a quick glance and cannot find the student regulations anymore which has the bit about what students are allowed to do pre MAAT and the links in posts on this site are now dead. Does that mean that the rules have changed or the AAT simply don't want people to know about them?

From another post on this site that at the time was taken directly frm the AAT site :

While you are studying for your AAT qualification, you can set up in practice.
However, certain restrictions apply until you become a full member:

• You may not advertise in connection with the AAT.
• You must only undertake work within your competence and seek professional advice where necessary.
• You must abide by the our Guidelines on Professional Ethics.
• You are strongly advised to take out professional indemnity insurance.

If anyone knows where that page is now hiding on the AAT site please post a link as it's eluding me at the moment.

kind regards,

Shaun.

p.s. and of course you would need your MLR from HMRC.

Hi Shaun

Thanks for the response!! I currently work for an organisation called Creative Rural Communities. We are employed by the Vale of Glamorgan Council but funded by the Welsh Assembly. I have been credited with 3 years for working in a finance environment while working there.

My last paper I was going to do was Advanced Tax. P6.

I decided to do my ICB as I felt that ACCA was really high level accounts and I wanted to revisit the fundamentals. I was hoping to basically start doing people's self assessments once I am qualified?

Perhaps I need to look at the guidelines imposed by ACCA? Am I allowed to be a member of the ICB and ACCA?

Kind regards

 

Tori

 

Nobody believes me when I tell them that Dave.... Tut.

The problem is that people do the same with qualifications as they do with the tax system, they make assumptions based on logic.

I mean, what logic is there behind someone with a bookkeeping qualification being allowed to prepare accounts and someone with an accounting qualification (even full membership) being restricted to the perceived role of a bookkeeper (bookkeeping up to but not beyond trial balance).

To be honest though I don't think that it's the ACCA thats wrong but rather everyone else is so do they go along with the crowd and devalue the qualification in order to fit in or keep pursuing protecting accountancy in the same way that the ICB are attempting to chip away at it by claiming that tax returns, accounts production and filing all come within the remit of book-keeping.

I actually despair every month when I open PQ magazine and see the ICB advert inside telling people that they can use their qualification as exemptions to gain ICB membership but completely omit to tell the readers that they would have to give up their existing accountancy qualification to do it.

Thats like saying that you can give up your AMG Mercedes for a Mini. The mini's still a sound little car but it should hardly be considered for a straight swap.

From our perspective all that we can do is attempt to traverse the minefield in the hope of getting to an ACCA practicing certificate at the end of it.