Seconding Joanne's warning. I very nearly went with them to do a bookkeeping course in 2006, as I had started using sage at my job and wanted to learn more. The course was IAB and I asked the external chartered accountant about it and he had never heard of them.
I then did a google on HLC and it was horror story after horror story. Fortunately I was still in my cooling off period so was able to cancel.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
think that it would be a good idea for the site to have a bit of a run down on who's who in the industry as you are not alone in not knowing the quality qualifications from the toilet paper.
I'm not going to cover off all bodies, just a general run down of the one's that as a member of this profession you should know (more or less in sequence of seniority)
ICAEW - Institute of Chartered Accountants England & Wales ICAS - Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland ICAI - Institute of Chartered Accountants Ireland (Now CAI) ACA - universal term covering ICAEW, ICAS and ICAI) CIOT - Chartered Institute of Taxation ACCA - Association of Charted Certified Accountants CIMA - Chartered Institute of Management Accountants CIPFA - Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy AIA - Association of International Accountants IIA - Institute of Internal Audit CIPP - Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ATT - Association of Tax Technicians AAT - Association of Accounting Technicians ICM - Institute of Credit Management IAB - International association of Bookkeepers ICB - Institute of Certified Bookkeepers
I have not included accountancy bodies not included in the annual report on accountancy (i.e. IFA, ICPA) although such is not meant as any insult to those organisations (just there are so many of them).
Within each body the letters that member can use after there name may not be immediately relatable to the organisations name. i.e. Cima fellows may use the designatory letters FCMA, their ACCA equivalent may use the term FCCA. CTA is a member of CIOT The key though is knowing the important professional bodies and more to the point which one is the top qualification for what you want to be regarded as an expert in. For payroll, as stated by Joanne it would be CIPP, for credit control ICM, for internal Audit IIA, for bookkeeping AAT, for Tax CIOT (although ATT also makes a good positive statement about your knowledge base).
You should also know : FRC - Financial Reporting Council IFAC - International Federation of Accountants IASB - International Accounting Standards Board
As mentioned at the start of this reply, this is not for you personally but I feel that there are many who come to this business who do not really understand the overall structure and the bodies to aspire to for their chosen fields of expertise. And there are a LOT of bodies out there... Think that I read somewhere that there are over 200 current accounting and bookkeeping bodies in the UK which is what put me off the idea that was bandied on here a couple of years back of BKN going down that path... That said, with the training industry contacts that we have plus status of the site of having in the region of a million hits a month I think that we could have quickly become one of the organisations that gets named in lists if ever we did decide to go down that path.
-- Edited by Shamus on Thursday 29th of October 2015 12:39:13 PM
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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 say thats about the right position. The only reason that I didn't include that one (and ICPA) is that they are not mentioned in the FRC's annual report on trends accounting. Same reasoning as missing out qualifications such as CAT, ACCA-X, FIA, etc.
In hindsight I think that you are right and maybe I should have included them.
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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.
no, the ICB/IAB aren't included in the report as they are not accountancy qualifications.
My list mixed up accountancy qualifications with more career specific qualifications (payroll, credit manaement, tax, bookkeeping, etc.) but for the accountancy qualifications part I only included the recognised qualifications (ICAEW, ICAS, ICAI, ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, AIA).
kindest 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.
Fortunately I was still in my cooling off period so was able to cancel.
That was lucky John.
I had two of them sitting in my house trying to get me to sign! Threatened them with the police in the end to get rid of them. I was quote £2500+ for a course which I could get elsewhere for about £150!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Great list that Shaun! Heard of most of them, but certainly not all. One of my sons pals is doing ACA - good to see where it sits in the scheme of things.
Thanks for including all that lot!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
unbelievable. door to door they are 8 minutes from me and I had never heard of them!
Even more embarrassing, just looked at them on Google maps and they're a Chartered Certified firm with shop front offices... Ah, that will be the reason then. When walking around I look at the windows above the shops as thats normally where we lurk. Tut, shops are for cakes, not accountants, lol.
And wadda ya mean you used to work for them! Have you worked in sunny utopian Cannock then Nick?
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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.
No, i never got over there, so I will take your word that it is sunny! I just did their payroll support and material writing a while back. I am just so busy now I couldn't give it the attention I would like to.
Karen Groves used to contribute on here a while back. She sits on the IAB council I believe.
Nick
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
No, i never got over there, so I will take your word that it is sunny!
Its been gloriously sunny here today in Cheshire - so much so that I was sitting out in it for two hours at the local country park - no coat/jumper required.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I thought you were going to say you wished I would bog off - charming! Oh I totally agree with what you have put though - its obviously cannot cope with the likes of us who can type fast - drives me nuts that one!!!!!!!!!!!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I think that I need to interject here that Home Study College (also known as Stonebridge College) and Home Learning College (frequently referenced as HLC) are two different training companies but they seem to have been mixed up a little in this thread.
My impression was that Eilef was talking about HLC and peoples answers were appropriate to that.
Eilef,
please could you confirm the college that you were referencing.
Also, as another aside, you need to get away from thinking in a "there or there abouts" type manner. Bookkeeping is a precise art form so you will need to move away from sentences such as "or wheterver they are called".
Naming the wrong company in a public forum could prove an expensive mistake for the poster and the site (although the site does have PII to cover itself against such claims).
Michelle,
Lol, glad you liked it.
Like the list of thanks as well. (it's in the more emoticons)
I should have known the Slovenian one as I've lived there as well (did a three month due dilligence of a division of a major pharmaceuticals company).
Only thing that I can remember of the language is how to order two beers "Divar Pivo Possim"... Remember that one, second most important line in any language (next to Thankyou).
kindest 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.
Thanks for the recommendation Nick, much appreciated.
Shaun I actually worked there for about 15 years (was Groves & Co. now Churchill Groves), hence it still being our registered office. We chatted ages ago about ACCA exams if you recall?
For anyone interested in Payroll Courses we currently offer the Levels 1 & 2 Award in Computerised Payroll as a combined course. If we get enough demand this tax year for Level 3 we will run that also.
Eilef isn't on here all of the time either so just to fill in for him for a bit. Apparently there were some issues over processing his practice certificate which took much longer than it should have done.
It did get covered in another thread but I really can't remember which one at the moment. You might need to trawl through Eilefs posts for about the last month or so for the full story.
I know how you feel being out of the loop. Silly amounts of work on at the moment and don't get to post on here much at all at the mo (although it's always open on one of my screens just in case we have any site issues).
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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.