Thinking of retraining in accountancy...any accountants about?

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

I have a degree in an unrelated subject.

I have looked briefly at the ACCA and ACA websites, and think I understand the academic side of it although am unclear on the time commitment for studying. I am, however, a very academic person with exams being my strong point (over essays and coutsework)

I.am good with a calculator (though only just about average with mental arithmetic). I am good with IT, including exel although have no experience with accounts specific software such as SAGE. I am very analytical and logical.

my weaknesses...I'm not really a people person, and I'm not great with words. My current knowledge of economic awareness is weak, mainly through lack of active interest and could be rectified.

I am aware that there are different types of accountancy, but not clear of the functions on some of them. A summary would be good.

Am I right in thinking that this would be a office hours job (bar studying)?.

How would I go about getting a training place. I can see some advertised on ACA. Is it worth approaching the smaller firms in.my area, or would that be restricting in terms of breadth of experience?

I trained with ICAS (Scottish Institute) with a big 4 in audit, the working hours were crippling - getting home at 8/9 in the evening and then having to study. Also with the added pressure of exam failure = getting sacked. Not easy, but, in an odd way, audit was fun. I made some of my best friends in that place. Very strict 3 year training contract.

Smaller firm may be the best option if you have other commitments - children etc. ACCA/CIMA may be more flexible as I think you can choose how many exams you sit at each sitting.

Good luck!

P.S as an MAAT - I can not recommend the qualification enough :)

Hi there, we've moved this thread into 'Going Back to Work' so it doesn't disappear into oblivion!

Thanks Kat.

There are so many topics now that I don't know exist.

I'm an FCA as well. I qualified in London with a big 6 firm (again in the days before there were only 4).

First thing we did was an intensive bookkeeping course so that we understood double entry so not all ACAs are crap at it!!

Hours were very long, average of 11 hour days with more when required. I went back 3 days a week when DS1 was little but only managed 18months as the pressure to work long hours was immense and I got given the less demanding (boring) clients because I wasn't available at all hours. When I left I was the longest lasting part time fee earner (in an office of 2,500 people )

I then moved out of practice into industry for 6 yrs then set up my own small practice which suits me brilliantly now. As others said though my big firm experience is very different to what I do now. That said having trained as an ACA with a top firm and now being as FCA does really impress potential clients and proves my credibility.

You need to think about what you want to actually do when the qualification is done. Then work from there.

Good luck!

Yep- for ACA I would definitely discount Big 4 if you have family commitments and no help. The hours are long, especially in the Jan-Mar audit busy season, and there are often "away jobs" - i.e. non-local audits requiring you to stay away from home Monday-Thurs nights or (worse IMO) audits requiring a long daily commute (I remember that 1.5hrs each way was deemed reasonable). The training contract is an extremely good experience but it's best suited to fresh grads with no family commitments. The (very few) mature trainees either had no kids or had a spouse who could pick up the slack.

I would look into smaller local firms who are more likely to have local clients, no PLCs (extra stress because they HAVE to report on a set date) and a more 9-5 day. The upside of those is that you're likely to get more interesting work/responsibility straight away. The first year of Big 4 training contracts is a lot of crappy, fairly menial work.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten the away jobs. Three weeks in Anglesey every January was never something I looked forward to!!

Ha ha- yes I did a month on the Isle of Sheppey. Oh the glamour!!

We used to do Guernsey in January - when the off licence shut at 5pm

Hi I have finished level 2 and 3 and I had no idea you can study on your own. I remember clearly asking some at aat and they said you have to have a course provider. So I feel quite confused and upset. I know I can study the books and pass courses because I've been doing it already anyway. The course providers just do the markings which I don't need to pay hundreds of £ for!

I see this is an old thread so not sure any posters are still around.

Hana - I'm doing L3 AAT self study, well I didn't bother with L2 exams just did the study until I understood it well to pass the online tests. Sorry you were given the wrong information, I have heard about this and the helpline people don't seem to know about self study and certainly don't encourage it. I found out about self study by reading online forums. It's still not cheap as the books are expensive and each exam is £50 plus, it's maybe half the cost of distance providers. You have to do one or two modules with a provider for the marking, like spreadsheets for marking, but the rest are computer marked. Are you doing L4? I know people do this self study, except the project which needs the provider to mark it, but I'm not sure yet as it's supposedly a big step up from L3. College providers are not much different in price to the distance providers as another option, most run evening courses. I presume you didn't need to use the tutor support.

That is incorrect one can be an auditor and be a Certified Accountant with ACCA.

With regards to the OP it depends upon your goal and where you wish to work.

CIMA is by far the best business qualification though it will not serve you well in practice.

Also with CIMA it assumes you will be working in middle management so dispenses with a lot of the basics as assumes you already know them. This is fine if you are working in middle management as you will have ledger staff for this work but if you go down the route of working with start ups this is very similar to a practice role in industry and in this sort of role you need your basics as well as the strategic and operational.

If I was starting again and as I said to a friend of mine, now an FD, I would always go for AAT first because it gives you the level of basic knowledge you will not need in middle management but if you ever have to start a department from scratch and put in all the policies and procedures then it is this basic knowledge which will be imperative.

I would say AAT, CIMA FD

In fact I have a friend who is ACMA (CIMA) but now working for a very small company and rather than convert to ACCA as she knows she has a lot of gaps at the basic level she has started AAT and will probably progress from there to ACCA and concentrate on the financial accounting this time rather than management accounting. They are very different disciplines.