Retraining into accountancy

[Hangoverstruggles]

Hi,

Wondered if any had any advice on the best routes into accountancy as a career change?

I am late 30s with two primary aged children. My career so far is in retail, having completed a business & retail degree, worked as an Area Manager for a big retailer after completing their Graduate scheme. I know work in a support function for the same company, mostly doing reporting and analysis at head office.

I am done with retail. I work way over my hours, we are stretched every day, I'm over working all over Christmas and also weekends etc.

I love reviewing our performance data, making business decisions based on the data and seeing the results. I love working hard and am competitive to achieve KPI improvements.

I think I'd love to retrain into Management Accountancy. It appears to me this would give me the work I enjoy, but with a more family friendly work pattern / flexibility.

Has anyone done this? Or currently work in this field and can give advice on how best to start? We can afford for me to take a couple of years out to study.

There seems to be lots of routes into accountancy, and all the training companies obviously plug their preferred method. Im looking for some real life experience of the best way to go about it.

Thank you in advance.

Bumping for the evening crowd! 😊

First of all there is no work life balance. You need to get things done on time so month end is busy. I work late night Fridays and on Sat once a month, quarter end and year end are worse, also there are times you cannot go on holiday or take time off.
If you don't have a relevant degree then it's AAT to start with and then as you ate interested in management accounts, CIMA which is a minimum of three years as you do exams while you work. So expect full time work plus lots of study time.
It's not for the feint hearted but it does pay well and you can move industry fairly easily.

I retrained in my 30s as a chartered management accountant via CIMA. We tend to work in businesses (so you won’t be spending days on end doing audits working for large accountancy firms). Exams to pass but also need experience to qualify. Sounds like some of your experience would be relevant. Have a look at CIMA website. Alternatively you could try ACCA who are certified accountants and very similar to CIMA.

My training was quite a few years ago though - so my advice would need checking! If you can getting on a scheme with a big employer who would put you through the exams and give you the experience you need then that would be the best route in.

Lots of accountancy is not about “doing the maths” but dealing with people to ensure you have the right information. Sounds like you definitely have that experience.

Good luck!

I would look for an employer that offers a training contract in AAT or maybe CIMA (think you may need AAT before CIMA). You then get your training costs and study time paid for 3-4 years whilst earning a smallish salary (18-20k in my company lately). The experience imo is as key as the paper qualification.

If you want to be a head of finance/ finance director then pps comment about long working hours are fair. If you are happy to be a mid level manager then there are lots of "work just your hours"/ flexi jobs about for a decent salary (£40-60k in the North) although I do agree that month end cab be more time pressured.

However you say you like analysing figures and making decisions. I've found accounting is more about analysing figures and then presenting your findings / recommendations to operational management for decision making (or to be ignored!). Decision making would be more likely to be in a finance director role which would be higher stress, longer hours.

Coincidentally this was featured on BBC Radio 4 ‘Questions Answered’ 09:30 this morning (Thursday 12th August). The lady featured had retrained into Accountancy.

Try this link.

She’s not having a good experience.

Is there any way to get yourself a role in finance at ur current workplace? Then maybe they cld support you through your exams. Ideally u want to find an employer that would do it for you as it's very expensive to pay for your classes and exams if u want to go straight to acca/cima. Another way cld be doing accountancy degree first and then get full exemptions from the low and mid level exams just leaving the professional level ones to complete.

I do work evenings sometimes, maybe even wkends up late. I get flexi though so I at least get the time back!

It took me 6 & 1/2 yrs to qualify while working full time. I worked in an account assistant type role which was about £15K but that was 15yrs ago. They paid for my degree and I went to uni part time (day release then evenings in another job) I then got job as trainee accountant on £25K. They paid my exemptions for my exams which were nearly £2000! Got a new job after qualifying that was £37.5K at that time and that was 6yrs ago.

Other thing I would say is the exams are pretty hard. I found the step up from degree level very difficult. I passed all but one first time. Didn't do enough studying and went on holiday to Dubai when I should have been in classes 🙈 The pass rates for the professional level exams on acca aren't great. I think the last 2 or 3 in particular were less than 1 in 3 people passing! I had to spend wkends studying a lot. You've got to be very disciplined. I work with quite a few folk that have been doing their exams for years. This is because they don't put the time and effort in that is required. Some just keep failing the same ones, some put their social lives first etc.