Find many useful stuff from this forum and decided to join. Just would like to say hello to everyone and introduce myself a bit.
I got my ACCA membership since last year, without a practising certificate. Having stayed at home for three years with children I decided to do some bookkeeping job. Not sure where to find clients yet.. hopefully I will get there.
I cannot believe there have been 104 viewings of your profile and not one single person has said a word! Come on people, thats poor!!!!
If you have been reading the site Im sure you will know that we ask for more on the intro (nosey parkers that we are ). Who will be your supervising body for the bookkeeping work? Who will be your target client bearing in mind you cannot go past TB (including not doing year end journals) under the ACCA regs.
When you say got your ACCA membership - I take it you mean you have passed the exams, as opposed to being a student member? What are your plans for getting your supervision to ultimately get your practice licence with them?
Be good to have another ACCA on here helping with answering Qs.
__________________
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
Hi Yin, welcome to the forum. There are loads of helpful people on here, but if there's anything ACCA specific (I'm a qualified ACCA member with practising certificate) you need help with just ask :)
__________________
All thoughts are my own and should not be used as professional advice.
I cannot believe there have been 104 viewings of your profile and not one single person has said a word! Come on people, thats poor!!!!
If you have been reading the site Im sure you will know that we ask for more on the intro (nosey parkers that we are ). Who will be your supervising body for the bookkeeping work? Who will be your target client bearing in mind you cannot go past TB (including not doing year end journals) under the ACCA regs.
When you say got your ACCA membership - I take it you mean you have passed the exams, as opposed to being a student member? What are your plans for getting your supervision to ultimately get your practice licence with them?
Be good to have another ACCA on here helping with answering Qs.
Hi Joanne
thanks for your reply, lol maybe everyone is waiting for you to be the first to ask for detailed intro.
I have pass all the exams and experience qualified as well. However, ACCA is really not supportive on self-employ.... I am currently giving up on ACCA practicing certificate as my previous employer was not approved employer and it's hard for me to get into employment now with my demanding young children.
I am thinking of getting an IAB practicing certificate to get the AML supervision and hopefully some technical support from IAB... but they told me that IAB is not able to supervising new member at the moment, not sure when they could fix this...so currently looking at ICB.
Regarding the bookkeeping works, I am still checking the ACCA regs.
Hi Yin, welcome to the forum. There are loads of helpful people on here, but if there's anything ACCA specific (I'm a qualified ACCA member with practising certificate) you need help with just ask :)
Hi Rachel
Thanks.
I am wondering whether there's any other way to get practicing certificate rather than the normal employment way. if I does not able to get the practicing certificate, I am not quite sure how far I could go with only providing the bookkeeping up to TB. am I not able to do vat returns?
Hi Yin
IAB and AAT will not, quite rightly as it is to protect the public, provide even a bookkeeping licence unless you have sufficient bookkeeping experience to meet their standards. If you undertook bookkeeping work for your previous employer and it meets the timescales requirements then that could well be sufficient for the IAB/AAT bookkeeping licence, albeit it might be that you are not given a full licence and are instead restricted to the services you can provide. They do prefer if you have had some exposure to the public via working in a practice or doing some appropriate volunteering. You havent said who/what your previous employer did so its hard to say.
Please dont use your children as a reason not to progress the ACCA requirements - there are a fair few on here, single parents included, who have moved heaven and earth to progress themselves along a Chartered route and some who have gone on to do more than the ACCA as well. If you want something badly enough they you can do it, no matter the obstacles, even 3 of them! Ask yourself are you really prepared to give up all your hard work so far to join the ICB? Really? If you get a licence with ICB, IAB, AAT then you will have to give up your ACCA membership as the ACCA rules trump the others. You then cannot refer to the fact that you are ACCA - at all. Potentially, what for, to earn a pittance compared to what you can earn with your Chartered status?
Take a look at some of the moderator's commentary on the ACCA rules, reg 8 specifically (that is the one to be careful of), how to get a licence, appropriate training etc - he has written at length on here numerous times. Search for 'Shamus', open his profile page and then you can search his posts. Even if you only check the ones in the last 12-24months you will get some very useful ino in this regard.
__________________
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
Yes, I understand your situation very well having done ACCA through to practice certificate whilst being a single parent so understand totally your frustrations.
As a self employed person you can still gain signoff if you work under the wing of an approved practice. The hardest part though is needing to justify every one of the 4620 hours as relevant to your training and getting the variety of signoff including in managerial positions... If you are going for Audit as well thats a whole other level of pain.
The idea of joining a lesser organisation such as the IFA or IAB is only useful for MLR cover. Even though you are ACCA you can make no mention of that lest clients are confused that you are a practicing ACCA accountant. Even though IAB and IFA can both go well beyond trial balance if you practiced under their flag unless you relinquished ACCA membership you could not provide any service beyond trial balance.
Under no circumstances can you make any reference to any affiliation to the ACCA except to other accountants.
You touch on VAT which is a crossover service in that some of it you can do and some you cannot. Lets consider that.
Bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll are all permitted services... Or are they! As a member without a practicing certificate you can prepare the information for inclusion in documents to be filed but the filing itself requires judgement which is beyond bookkeeping. So you can prepare the figures to go into a VAT return but you cannot file it.
I've read the IFA's study on bookkeeping and that genuinely is what they think that bookkeepers do where of course the reality is the entry level bodies are churning out people offering full accounting services where qualified accountants are not deemed worthy of offering equivalent services.
Sure that there's an ACCA document that puts that better than I did... Hang on a sec, I'm off to firk around the ACCA site... here you go :
I did suggest to the ACCA some time back that the restrictions should be based upon size of client rather than services offered but unfortunately that went nowhere. I assume because they feared that pre practice certificate members would be stealing clients from practicing members.
I more than many know how difficult it is, but it is worth it.
In my case I went on to do the MSc. with UCL (VERY, VERY worth it!!!). As a fully qualified member you have that option open to you and you can get a student loan to pay for it. Price is very reasonable (think for members it's now £3.5k in fees rather than the £28k as a full time student).
The MSc. is over two years and could open doors to enable gaining pactice certificate giving you a couple more years to get the children into a position where you could devote more time to an ACCA Practice certificate training provider approved employer... Or you could end up like me and the MSc. makes you think that practice isn't for you as you will have just run Birmingham airport for five years (over five weeks), turned around an international shoe company... Amongst a lot of gaining an undertanding the psycology behind economics.
To my mind ACCA was worth the suffering even if just for the money off the MSc. from one of the worlds top Uni's. It's certainly opened more doors for me.
Good luck with whatever your next step may be.
All the best,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
Hi Yin IAB and AAT will not, quite rightly as it is to protect the public, provide even a bookkeeping licence unless you have sufficient bookkeeping experience to meet their standards. If you undertook bookkeeping work for your previous employer and it meets the timescales requirements then that could well be sufficient for the IAB/AAT bookkeeping licence, albeit it might be that you are not given a full licence and are instead restricted to the services you can provide. They do prefer if you have had some exposure to the public via working in a practice or doing some appropriate volunteering. You havent said who/what your previous employer did so its hard to say.
Please dont use your children as a reason not to progress the ACCA requirements - there are a fair few on here, single parents included, who have moved heaven and earth to progress themselves along a Chartered route and some who have gone on to do more than the ACCA as well. If you want something badly enough they you can do it, no matter the obstacles, even 3 of them! Ask yourself are you really prepared to give up all your hard work so far to join the ICB? Really? If you get a licence with ICB, IAB, AAT then you will have to give up your ACCA membership as the ACCA rules trump the others. You then cannot refer to the fact that you are ACCA - at all. Potentially, what for, to earn a pittance compared to what you can earn with your Chartered status?
Take a look at some of the moderator's commentary on the ACCA rules, reg 8 specifically (that is the one to be careful of), how to get a licence, appropriate training etc - he has written at length on here numerous times. Search for 'Shamus', open his profile page and then you can search his posts. Even if you only check the ones in the last 12-24months you will get some very useful ino in this regard.
Thanks Joanne
I have thought about to get the ACCA pc, but it's really hard for me now to work onsite. Have tried to apply for remote jobs but never heard anything back...That's why i think of doing bookkeeping now, to get some work to do from home before getting into employment again hopefully next year. I will have a read through Shaun's previous post regarding ACCA rule.
my background is in industry, as you said i might not be able to get the IAB practicing certificate, if i want to be self-employed i will need to apply AML from HMRC?
Yes, I understand your situation very well having done ACCA through to practice certificate whilst being a single parent so understand totally your frustrations.
As a self employed person you can still gain signoff if you work under the wing of an approved practice. The hardest part though is needing to justify every one of the 4620 hours as relevant to your training and getting the variety of signoff including in managerial positions... If you are going for Audit as well thats a whole other level of pain.
The idea of joining a lesser organisation such as the IFA or IAB is only useful for MLR cover. Even though you are ACCA you can make no mention of that lest clients are confused that you are a practicing ACCA accountant. Even though IAB and IFA can both go well beyond trial balance if you practiced under their flag unless you relinquished ACCA membership you could not provide any service beyond trial balance.
Under no circumstances can you make any reference to any affiliation to the ACCA except to other accountants.
You touch on VAT which is a crossover service in that some of it you can do and some you cannot. Lets consider that.
Bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll are all permitted services... Or are they! As a member without a practicing certificate you can prepare the information for inclusion in documents to be filed but the filing itself requires judgement which is beyond bookkeeping. So you can prepare the figures to go into a VAT return but you cannot file it.
I've read the IFA's study on bookkeeping and that genuinely is what they think that bookkeepers do where of course the reality is the entry level bodies are churning out people offering full accounting services where qualified accountants are not deemed worthy of offering equivalent services.
Sure that there's an ACCA document that puts that better than I did... Hang on a sec, I'm off to firk around the ACCA site... here you go :
I did suggest to the ACCA some time back that the restrictions should be based upon size of client rather than services offered but unfortunately that went nowhere. I assume because they feared that pre practice certificate members would be stealing clients from practicing members.
I more than many know how difficult it is, but it is worth it.
In my case I went on to do the MSc. with UCL (VERY, VERY worth it!!!). As a fully qualified member you have that option open to you and you can get a student loan to pay for it. Price is very reasonable (think for members it's now £3.5k in fees rather than the £28k as a full time student).
The MSc. is over two years and could open doors to enable gaining pactice certificate giving you a couple more years to get the children into a position where you could devote more time to an ACCA Practice certificate training provider approved employer... Or you could end up like me and the MSc. makes you think that practice isn't for you as you will have just run Birmingham airport for five years (over five weeks), turned around an international shoe company... Amongst a lot of gaining an undertanding the psycology behind economics.
To my mind ACCA was worth the suffering even if just for the money off the MSc. from one of the worlds top Uni's. It's certainly opened more doors for me.
Good luck with whatever your next step may be.
All the best,
Shaun.
Thanks Shaun
It's good to know that if self-employed could still have chance to be signed off. After all these years of study and working, ACCA regs gives me a shock when I first found out qualified accountant could only do basic bookkeeping.
Thanks for advising me the MSc in UCL, is the degree awarded by UCL or UoL? I have already had a master degree in Accounting and Finance 9 years ago, do you think it is still worth doing? do you know their employment prospective? not much information on career sorry to have so many questions.
Having passed the approved examinations conducted by University College London has this day been admitted to the University of London to degree of Master of Science
then the level you passed followed by In Professional Accountancy.
Don't know if thats what you were looking for.
If you've already got one then probably no point doing another....
So, you up for a doctorate in accounting then (I say that only partly in jest! lol).
__________________
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.
). Who will be your supervising body for the bookkeeping work? Who will be your target client bearing in mind you cannot go past TB (including not doing year end journals) under the ACCA regs.
thanks for your reply, lol maybe everyone is waiting for you to be the first to ask for detailed intro. 
(I say that only partly in jest! lol).
