Mid-thirties guy here looking to switch from I.T. (career to date) to Finance/Accountancy. After much research I'm struggling to pick the right route. Before you ask, I do not enjoy I.T. these days and Finance/Accountancy seems like a good career choice. My research to date has be to thoroughly understand: 1) The demand and job security of the Accountancy profession. 2) The role and security of Financial Advising/Planning. 3) The CIMA and ACCA qualifications.
Firstly, I have an interest in personal finance and therefore thought being an IFA would be the ticket, however I do not want a sales position and (having researched) found that it is just that. I do not see a Paraplanner as a career for me either. I see the role of an accountant as very secure career with good job prospects. I took great time to deliberate between the ACCA and CIMA qualifications. I went with the ACCA as it provided greater options (i.e. both practice and industry). I studied a couple of the papers (entry level) but found aspects of the qualification less interesting (in this case 'costing' ) and therefore I knew I wouldn't stick it out. I still feel Finance is the right route as I like book-keeping, and keeping figures in check, but wish to achieve a greater level than this (no disrespect intended if any taken).
So here I am again. I would like to ask you guys if you know of a position that meets my criteria (below): 1) The role is in demand, common place, and has good progression (exactly like an accountant). 2) Is like an end-user role - i.e. you are employed by a company and you receive a normal salary each month. 3) It is not a sales based role. 4) Qualifications are required so not just anyone can do it. This will also demonstrate the higher salary deserved to undertake such a role. 5) A role where common activities are to save money but like personal finance (investment, tax, etc..) not like stock depreciation, etc.. 6) The qualification taken is focused on the area in question because if some modules are not focused towards the end result/role then I would lose interest (i.e. want to do tax role but some modules are focused on management, and visa versa).
Can anyone point me in the right direction? I am considering the tax route as this has elements of personal finance, has specific lower then higher qualifications (so has progression), will always be in demand (so secure), and commands a good salary.
Apologies for the long post but wanted to give you a good grounding as I really need your help!! Thanks in advance.
you seem from your post to be a little lost for direction and there are a few misconceptions in there.
Job security in accountancy is the same as in any other business nowadays. There are unemployed accountants and self employed accountants with too few clients to make ends meet.
ACCA remains one of the best qualifications that can be achieved without a training contract (ICAEW requires a training contract) but by being a student member of the ACCA you are restricted in the services that you are able to offer on a freelance basis to bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll.
If you are going to be self employed then no matter what you do it will be a sales based role.
There is currently no protect on the terms accountant or bookkeeper which is why so often you hear people say Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified, Chartered tax adviser, etc. as those terms, insolvency practitioner and Auditor are all protected where the term accountant (possibly much to the surprise of the general public) is not.
You mention the tax route but you would not even be allowed to study to be a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) unless you have first passed a serious accountancy qualification such as ACCA and you are not going to pass any accountancy qualification unless you embrace all of the facets of the profession which will include cost accounting, accounting theory, business analysis, etc..
There is also the ATT qualification but you will find that unless you have studied an accountancy qualification first there will be elements of it that you struggle with.
Even if you took ACCA and passed all 14 exams you would still need to have three years signed off experience before you would be admitted to membership and only once admitted to membership can the three years supervision begin in order to gain an ACCA practice certificate.
There are faster easier routes but you state that you don't want an option that just anyone can do.
When you use TLA's like IFA you need to specify that you are not talking about accountancy as from our side of the fence an IFA is a member of the Institute of Financial Accountants, not an Independant Financial Adviser.
The key is that if you want to enter this profession as a career changer you need to love it. Some parts may prove more difficult than others to master but you still have to master all of them before you are able to specialise.
With the ACCA studies you have done so far at the entry level they are basically setting the foundations for your studies. Think of the entry level papers like GCSE's. The next six papers are at at BSc level (s a big jump) and the final five that you do at MSc level. They are really difficult letters to get after your name but still they do not guarantee employment!
A tax adviser wouldn't be much good if they did not understand GAAP. How do you advise a business owner if you don't understand their business? You have to understand the cost and management accounting side of things to be a financial accountant or tax professional.
Getting a good qualification will take five+ years to achieve assuming you can devote around 30 hours a week to your studies and even then employers want people will experience as well as qualification... Its a catch 22. You can't get the experience without the qualification and the qualification won't open the doors that you need it to without experience.
All in all from your initial post I think that you need to rethink how much you will need to learn, the security of the position and the fact that you cannot just choose parts of the role.
Before you choose a specialisation (which is the question you appear to be asking) you need to realise that you are going to have to pass all of the exams and get some general experience. If the fact that you will learn things that you may never use turns you off the idea then I fear that it is unlikely that you will succeed in this career change that will really test your stamina.
If you cannot face the commitment that ACCA will require try something a little lower down the scale of qualifications for your first one. How about AAT. Very good qualification at the crossover point from Bookkeeping to accountancy. Excellent qualification for servicing SME businesses. That one only takes a couple of years and at the end of it you could move on to ATT which is a perfect combination to run a small practice and develop your chosen area of specialisation.
As for what that area of specialisation will be, if you give the qualifications a chance doing all of the things that you currently don't like, what you gravitate towards will become evident.
Hope that helps,
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.
In my opinion. Take as a pinch of salt. Route would be - AAT, Claim exemption from the IAB, start a practice advising sole traders. Whilst building confidence, along with experience study the ATT qualification. The world is your oyster after that. For what it's worth, I did the whole career change thing. It's hard fighting off apprentices. Qudos to them. For me, self employment was the only option. Can't wait for KPMG to call me back forever lol
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Johnny - Owner of an overly-active keyboard.
A man who can read, yet doesn't, is in no way wiser than a man who can't.
I'm a career changer as well. Decided at age 37 that working in commerical finance wasn't for me anymore and decided accounts/bookkeeping was the way to go.
That was 8 years ago now. Did the ICB exams and got qualified, now lapsed though then started on the ACCA route, not finished yet and to be honest probably never will. The amount of time that needs to be dedicated to getting e.g. ACCA qualified is a big committment so dont take it lightly especially if you have kids running about in the background.
I adjusted my expectations and managed eventually to get into a middle level accounts role in an SME. Doing good stuff but not overly technical or high level but enjoying it more than dealing with the banker types i used to have to - thats speaker as an ex-banker type!!
Nothing good comes easily and ALL work has boring bits. If you want to go down this type of finance route then you need to know about costing so why would you let a small topic like that put you off a whole potential career......stick it out, get past it, move in to better. Bookkeepers and Accountants have to know about costing as a very common issue with clients is they that they have no clue how to do it and need guidance before their businesses collapse! There are lots of other finance type roles out there where you can achieve elements on your wish list, albeit at times even the bits you dont like (such as sales) will need to be on that too. Eg asset finance companies; invoice discounters; structured finance; dare I even say Banks (as most Banks have departments and sectors that you wouldnt even know they would be involved in). In some of these you would need to start close to the bottom, if not at the bottom and work your way up through training and education.
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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
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.
Dan - dont let not having a degree stop you! You need to dive in and try, whilst not giving up your day job. Thats what quite a few us have done, all at different levels!
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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
Steve McQueens comments over there just cracked me up Jo.
You know what he's talking about when he says lion tamer don't you :
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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.
Loving the line in there about a slow transition from Chartered accountancy to Lion taming... Via banking!!!
Does this one remind you of the good old days
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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.
Oh boy, they were great days. Before 2000 they were anyway. But I wouldn't go back, not with the state it's in now. Went out for Ladies Wot Lunch with three of old colleagues and three out of the four of us sling a good half hour trying to persuade the only who is still there to escape before it gets any worse. But I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Better money than this game, but a damn sight more stressful, but finance at it's best!
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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
