Good evening.
I am a member of the AAT and am working within a small practice dealing with SME's. I would like to re start my studies after taking time out to raise my family but I fear I have completely confused myself with all the reading of the various institutions! I enjoy the role I do and the roles it could lead onto but I wondered if anyone can give me some advice as to the differences between the mentioned qualifications, the types of jobs I can or cannot do and the credibility of each qualification with potential future employers.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
before we can answer that, whose flag does your current employer practice under and will they support (not necessarily financially, but rather in signing off your experience) your studies?
__________________
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.
My employer is a fellow of the IFA. I understand that I would need experience in areas she would not be able to help with I.e. auditing, insolvency.... If I were to study with ACCA and ICAEW.
ok, some bad news here in that you are going to be quite restricted.
1) ICAEW : You need to study under a training contract. Your employer would need to be a Chartered Accountant (ICAEW (or ICAS in Scotland or CAI in Ireland)
2) ACCA : In general you would not be allowed to do anything beyond trial balance even as a student employee if your employer is not a chartered or chartered certified practice. Effectively from the ACCA's perspective as an ACCA student you would be the most qualified person in the firm and as an unsupervised person you can only offer bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll work. However... There are exceptions to this if your employer becomes recognised by the ACCA (even as a non ACCA member) then you would be able to train towards ACCA membership but not an ACCA practice certificate (unless your employer becomes ACCA or ACA and approved for practice certificate supervision). Here's a link to help get your employer started on the journey towards being a practice recognised as an ACCA approved emploer : www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/employer/products-services/approved-employer.html
3) IFA : No issues.
4) AIA : You missed this one. Its another worth looking into and many IFA members moved to the AIA when the IFA merged with the Australian institute.
You mention Audit and Insolvency. Those are area's that not all accountancts are qualified to work in and you need different types of practice certificate for those area's. Personally I took advanced audit with the ACCA (Paper P7) but unless I also had three years working in statutory audit in a practice recognised to train me in audit then I cannot perform any audit work... Then again, nor would I want to as its the most litigous area of the profession.
All things considered I think that you need to write off the idea of ICAEW unless you change employers.
There may be problems with ACCA but at least now you know about them up front. If you can work around it, the ACCA has some of, if not the best trainning that you can get. You just need to be careful that you do not inadvertantly fall foul of regulation 8 which in certain circumstances you can even as an employee (i.e. working for a deemed unqualified (not all bits of paper are recognised by the major bodies) you would effectively be the most qualified person in the practice therefore you are working unsupervised beyond trial balance).
However, provided that your employer becomes recognised by the ACCA (see above links) then this may still be an option.
If not then consider AIA or IFA. The first of those is better recognised by the FRC.
Hope that some of the above is useful although sure that some of it is not what you want to hear.
kindest regards,
Shaun.
p.s. it doesn't come through in the above but well done for trying to progress. The stage that you are at is a minefield of potential mistakes in direction where various bodies rules will prevent you getting to where you want to be. There are routes therough the minefield and doors to higher qualifications left slightly ajar and you just have to make sure that you don't take a wrong turn en route. Have you though of another option as being to build upon your existing AAT and doing ATT and then possibly CTA? What about CIMA as an option? (takes gritted teeth for an ACCA person to mention that one as a viable alternative, lol). I seem to have given you as many questions as answers but I hope that some of it has helped.
__________________
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.
Hey,
I would just like to add that as you've already gained X amount of years experience in practice, the option is always there for you to move to say a ICAEW practice. Having experience working in practice is heavy ammunition to get where you want to get to.
Of course that assumes you'd want to move.
Which ever you decide, I wish you the best of luck for the future.
__________________
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.
Good morning,
Thank you so much for your help Shaun. Your late night reply has made it so much clearer for me.
To be honest I had not thought about any of the other routes and nor have they been mentioned as an option by my employer. I will certainly be researching those routes today!
Thank you abacus for your reply too. The practice I work in has a lot of benefits as a working mother of two young children. Therefore I feel changing employers at this time may not necessarily be a benefit. Weighing up the pros and cons of work life and parenthood is no easy decision!
