Thank you Shaun for the welcome and for your speedy and helpful reply.

I've just checked out the CIPP site and the course they list is £995 for the Payroll Technician certificate. There is no mention of sage/systems training though. Is that something I would have to do completely separately? and afterwards? I have been quoted £200 just for Sage payroll 1 and 2.
Sadly I can't really afford £1200 for 2 courses at the moment so my plan has stumbled at the first hurdle!
I'm not really interested in being self employed but I am interested in learning bookkeeping.

I wonder if I would be better off doing either the course package I mentioned above or the AAT Level 2 certificate in Accounting which I see advertised everywhere (they run it at my local adult education centre and colleges) and then I could try getting a job or do some temping as an accounts clerk at a small company, maybe I would be happy to stick with that or maybe I could pick up some payroll experience while working (and think about payroll qualification in a couple of years)

Do you think the package listed would get me a basic level accounts job? or does the course sound completely pointless? The salesman from the college is calling me tomorrow to work his sales techniques on me so I need to be clear in my own head about the value of this package.
Thank you again

Hi again Karen,

AAT level II is only the introductory level and it won't open any doors for you on its own. Employers are looking for level IV qualified.

A better approach for starters may be to look at ACCA-X (quite different to the ACCA professional qualification).

ACCA-X is free to study and its good quality training to get you ready for something like AAT or even to move up to ACCA or CAT qualifications.

If you pass ACCA-X you should find that you will either be exempted from AAT level II or you should sail through the AAT skills check and be able to start at level III.

On the cost front unfortunately with a few exceptions such as ACCA-X anything worth studying will cost and its a three way hit as you need to sign up for student membership, pay for the training and pay for the exams. Even with ACCA-X although the training is free there are still exams and membership to pay for although for that level they are very reasonably priced.

Check out ACCA-X here : www.acca-x.com/global/en.html

I would not like to comment on wheter the course offered by the college is pointless as no training is without merit, but, it does sound as though it is entry level and no matter what training company sales people tell you that will not find you a job. Employers want the following as entry level qualifications :

Bookkeeping - AAT level IV
Payroll - CIPP
Credit Control - CICM
Tax - ATT

When the college calls a few things to watch for are lines such as there being 4.6million businesses all crying out for bookkeepers and only a couple of hundred bookkeepers to service them... Its complete tosh. There is no shortage of bookkeepers or accountants meaning that to stand any chance of getting the interest of the businesses out there you have to make yourself stand out from the crowd and the first step to doing that is having a quality qualification that shows employers what you are capable of achieving.

I wish that I could say that doing all the right things will end up with the job that you want but no qualification in this field will guarantee employment... Just someas mentioned above will put you in a better position than others.

I really wish you the very best of luck as I can hear the enthusiasm in your words.

Your goals are achievable but it will take a long time and a lot of hard work to get to where you want to be. I am not currently convinced that the course on offer is the best one but I could be wrong.

Personally I would first take the free ACCA-X training (you have to pay to sit the exams).

just my opinion and other posters opinions will differ from mine.

Good luck,

Shaun.

Hi Shaun,

I actually read through the beginning chapters of ACCA-X (Free) I thought it was very good, I know the further levels / sections are needing to be paid for - I still may buy those as it more than refreshes the memory bank.

When I began AAT level 3, I was never asked to do a skills test or the like, it may have obviously changed now mind.

Although I will add to that, that without knowing the basics of double entry, level 3 could take longer to complete than level 4.

I would always recommend AAT, I have it, I'm happy with it - Others have a grand opinion of it, even chartered accountants like it, some have even studied it - the organisation seems very proactive, publishes in detail their financial details, annually.

It has QCF status, I know that doesn't mean too much unless you plan to use them as UCAS points, but the option is there - can lead to chartered status through further study. A member of IFAC - Only one main player nay vote (ACCA) against the AAT being a member.

Has government approval as one of their recognised tech level qualifications.

Added to the approved list of bodies who can verify certain financials for the home office - which I was very happy to see.

And breathe lol - I don't actually work for the AAT may I add!

There is more, but i'll stop there :)

Thanks so much Shaun and Johnny, you have both been a great help.

The ACCA-X sounds an excellent starting point, I will have a good look at that. I can't believe there is something available that is almost free.
The 24+ loan is also a brilliant suggestion to help me complete the level 3 and 4. I didn't think I would be eligible for any loans or help due to already having a degree but the info I found says existing qualifications don't matter. Bonus that it doesn't have to be paid back until earning over 21k which I will likely never ever reach as it is quite likely I would wish to work part time forever!
Thank you for clarifying that I would need AAT level 3 and 4 in order for the qualification to be useful for getting a job. I was thinking that level 2 would be enough.
I must say my idea of being a payroll clerk or accounts clerk seems to be a lot more trouble and likely to take a lot longer than I expected. I have certainly underestimated what would be required. I will try the ACCA-X and see if I get hooked but I may have to forget the change of career and stick with the random admin jobs for the time being. They pay ok and allow me to do the school run and that is what is important to me at the moment.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again
Karen

Hi Johnny,

I assume by at the same level as AAT you would be referring to bodies such as AIA, CAT and IFA. I've promoted AIA above AAT purely on the grounds that AIA is recognised by the FRC as an accountancy body. Although IFA is recognised by IFAC it is not recognised in the FRCs annual report on trends in acountancy plus the IFA's merger with the Australian institute was a bit of a debarcle and a real disappointment.

My personal view of the pecking order (top to bottom, left to right (some at same level as organisation to their side)) is :

ACA (ICAEW/ICAS/CAI), CIOT
ACCA, CIMA
AIA
AAT, ATT, CAT, IFA
Open University (B680/B290/B291), ACCA-X, IAB, ICB, Pitmans, City & Guilds.

I know that I have not included all of them such as Cipfa, CIPP and CICM. Quite open to arguements to suggest that I have the pecking order wrong.

... But don't tell my chartered freinds about the above as I work dilligently to convince them that ACCA people are obviously the top of the tree as we have to memorise everything rather than getting to take books into exams with us! Lol, even if we did get to take the books in with us I suspect that anyone who needed to refer to them will run out of time and fail anyway. Pretty sure that ICAEW is the same in that they may have the books but I would have money on it that there isn't the time in the exam to refer to them.

You're right on the not sleeping. What a waste of study time that is when there already aren't enough hours in the week.

People new to this think that you can compartmentalise accountancy studies but it doesn't work that way. It takes over your entire life. The reality is that its more a life style choice than merely a career with constant learning well beyond the requirements of CPD.

Even now there is never a time that I do not have a deck on index cards in my pocket for that odd few minutes such as when I'm waiting for my boy to come out of school.

Tell me about it Johnny.

I've got seven of those full size Ikea Billy bookcases stuffed floor to ceiling with accountancy books... Sometimes my place feels like a retirement home for old study texts.

Besides ACCA I also buy the study texts of other professonal bodies (ICAEW, CIMA and AAT).

The other day you were talking about your preference for BPP texts as opposed to my preference for Kaplan. Pre 2007 it used to be the other way around for me but I've never taken the the BPP changes that emphasised paragraphs, have trendy formatting with emphasis boxes and in ruining the text they also greatly reduced the number of examples.

Some of the best and most used texts that I have are a collection of the ACCA BPP study texts from 2002. I still use those on accounting theory, bookkeeping, management accounting, strategy and performance management today although those covering financial reporting standards, tax and even Audit are now long out of date... But still they get a home for life.

On the cards front, if you decide to adopt that as a starter my most used deck of cards is one that has the id of standards on one side of the card (with no indication as to what it refers to) and its full name on the other. The full set of accounting, audit and ethical standards runs to 108 cards. The good thing about knowing that deck inside out is that no matter what the question you may not know the answer but you should have a good idea of exactly where to look.

Other frequently used decks are ratio's and formulae, and another on key words, phrases and clauses. With so many items that could be regarded as key you have to be pretty brutal in keeping that deck down to around a hundred cards. My restricting factor on deck size is the largest available bulldog clip rather than the number of cards per se.

Personally I never took to those pocket books as they cover too much on a single page where the cards will only ever cover one thing per card... Ok, some of those things can be quite long such as pointers to all of the various criteria to look for when doing an inintial review of a business or signs that a business is in trouble.

Another handy hint that I find useful is a white board in the bathroom.

I have a list of about fifty acronyms on the board and when lying in the bath I try to go through all of them.... On occassion though it works better than counting sheep!

In regards to tax, as it changes every year - is to learn to know where to look. (That is directed to the readers) Subscribe to popular tax magazines, remain active on forums - and never be afraid to ask questions. It's impossible to know it all of the top of your head.

Makes sense! I think of del boy when I think of a filo fax lol! Have you any of the yellow / orange or red / green books from CCH? I just wondered if there is any difference? I mean for what I know they may just contain purely the acts? Or is there some plain speaking interpretations within? They carry a hefty price tag, yet students can grab the lot for £80.

Hi Johnny,

yes, the cards will work for anything.

with some things though rather than recite what you expect to be on the other side of the card you need to write it down. Formulas are a good example of that.

Also I find that when using formulae its handy to have to little example of it on the card (With formulae where you need to include an example of usage you may need to use the larger sized cards).

I understand exactly what you mean about opening your mind. You will also over time start thinking things like "thats just a silly idea" or "They're just copying the ideas of Michael Porter" (Yep, I'm talking about you Johnson, Scholes and Whittington).

I think that everyone will come accross an idea that fundamentally changes the way that they look at business. My epiphany was Porters five forces analysis. As simple in concept as SWOT analysis yet absolutely the way that one needs to look at any and every business idea to determin its viability.

I don't know too much about sitting CIMA exams. Thinking about the ACCA papers for the most part you are right, it's geared towards you being either a consultant or a principle in general practice rather than actually being an employee of the business concerned. I feel that is in part to test one's ethics over how you balance ethical duty to the profession against commercial considerations such as the risk of losing an important client by needing to refuse a clean audit report.

That is of course not to say that ACCA does not give you the tools to work within the businesses rather than only looking at the business from the outside.

Certainly working in corporate I worked with (many) more management accountants that were ACCA than were CIMA although that may have simply been down to the types of business (financial institutions) as a couple of years ago I went for an interview with a telecoms company and all of their management accountants were CIMA and seemed to assumed that ACCA people were purely geared towards practice.

Got to third interview stage before they decided that they wanted a CIMA qualified bod on board... And a few weeks later the company went belly up (serves them right for not employing more ACCA people).

With the ACCA exams I pretty much got them down to a study formula by the end.

I used to start off with the BPP I-Learn course over two weeks which would aclimatise me to the paper that I was about to study. The I'Learn courses on CD are no longer available (do not buy them off Ebay as they are single user licenses and once used the CD's are coffee mats!)

This can however be replaced with spending the same time sitting through the lectures on OpenTuition in order to get a feel for the subject.

Next do the study text.

Do one chapter per day of the text including doing all of the examples and tests in that chapter.

Depending on the paper that ends up between 28 and 35 days.

I do not say one month as you need to factor in one day per week where you do no study otherwise you just end up burnt out by the exams.

Next do buy both the BPP and KAPLAN revision texts for the paper that you will be doing.

Some people work through the questions sequentially. Personally I create a spreadsheet matching the questions to the sitting where they were originally sat and then working through them one paper per day doing the questions that came in the same real exam sitting.

For the first month of doing exam questions just try to get the answers right. If it transpires that there is an area that you do not perform well at redo that chapter in the study text.

For the second month of doing exams try to do them under timed conditions.

More ACCA people fail because they run out of time than because they did not know the material.

On the run up to the exams you should be doing one paper per day five or six days a week without referring to the study texts.

Your speed will improve as will your ability to read twists in questions that many other people may miss.

There you go, four months (with a bit of contingency built in) per paper planned. Two weeks intro. Five weeks study, four weeks untimed exam practice, four weeks timed exam practice. Then the exam.

I know that you are talking about going the CIMA route but I just figure that any study system that works in studying ACCA would also work with CIMA and ACA.

I would say that no matter how good your memory retention when you are looking at the sheer volume of stuff that you need to remember with the higher qualification it will be tested to the limit. The key to passing is practice, practice, practice.

The 50% vs 70% is really comparing apples and carrots. When mentioned to anyone the assumption is that CIMA people score higher which I believe is CIMA's intent.

Taking the top level CIMA papers from their top level and considering that they needed to get 70% to score a pass their scores were

E3 - 75%
P3 - 64%
F3 - 64%


Now compare that to the ACCA Options paper which have a 50% pass rate :

P4 - 35%
P5 - 29%
P6 - 42%
P7 - 39%

Now is that a reflection of ACCA people are worse than CIMA one's? Is CIMA an easier qualification? Are Cima markers more lenient? Is the scope of the CIMA syllabus is smaller?

Considering the considerable variances in pass rates I've just had a glance at some old CIMA papers (here : www.cimaglobal.com/Students/Exam-resources-and-information/Exam-preparation/Strategic-level/)

Looking at a couple of old papers at the highest level I notice immediately a glaring difference in that CIMA will set a scenario and then tell you to (say) use Ansoff to evaluate the scenario. Or another question asks the candidate to use Fitzgerald and Moon to structure their answer.

For similar questions with ACCA you would be given no clues about how to approach an answer and the examiners will be looking for those who adopted the better approach as much as getting the right answer.

I also note that more seems to be written into the exam questions where with ACCA there is a lot more getting inside the psycology of the client firms management as to why they are adopting certain approaches rather than asking whether the approaches adopted by management have been applied correctly which appears to be CIMA's approach (The old difference between are we calculating something correctly rather than are we calculating the right thing).

Despite their differences, both qualifications need people to have very similar skillsets. They are both great qualifications that anyone who has either should be rightly proud of.

Hi Karen,

I'm going to disagree a little with the advice given regarding qualification for being a payroll clerk. I personally believe that Sage is fine (so long as you know what the software is doing and why). I am CIPP qualified and it is a great qualification for someone who is a payroll professional, running a large team of payroll clerks but is over kill for your purposes (looking to earn £500 per month part time). I have had people work for me who I have trained on sage payroll from scratch and they have gone on to get other jobs within payroll and never taken any further training. I think your biggest hurdle is getting experience, because different scenarios come up all the time (Although Sage have an excellent help line to assist when you get stuck).

From time to time I believe you can pick up Sage courses from 'Groupon' for around £20 or so which would be worth looking out for. Read around the subject a bit and brush up on auto enrollment. But like I said before, it is getting experience with real life payroll that you need before someone will let you loose on their wages.

That was good going John, self taught doing a small payroll to the worries of a 240 strong payroll. 90% of the time I would say you can just enter the numbers and let the software do the rest, the other 10% you have to study or learn on the job. Learning on the job has to be quick though as you run the risk of a bunch of maruading employees baying for your blood...there's no better incentive for getting it right!