Advice on accounting route

[Rapunzel91]

Hi,

I know there are a few accountants here and I was hoping for some advice.

I decided a year ago to do a career change into accounting, I have no work experience in accounting/finance but I am in the research science field. Also have postgraduate degree in other field.

I started studying AAT level 2 and now have one exam left at level 2. I started applying for some jobs in accounting and surprisingly (to me!) was offered a role as an Accounts Payable Clerk which I am starting soon.

My plan has been to continue with AAT level 3 and 4 and then go onto CIMA/ACCA/ACA, depending on which direction I want to go in.

I have just realised that since I am now starting this new job I could probably skip the rest of AAT and go straight onto ACCA/CIMA/ACA? It would certainly save me a lot of time but is that would other people in the same position would do?

For reference it is a full time position, they are eager to offer me all training and seem to want their employees to progress internally. It's industry and not an accounting practice.
I also have a young child so any studying I do is in evenings/nap times/weekends which is hard but I'm powering through.

Ultimate goal would be to go into more senior accounting/finance role and I want the chartered status. I'm 30 now so not young but have years and years of working life left.

Most trainees with a degree start at ACCA/CIMA level AAT tends to be those with just Alevels.

AAT is a highly respected qualification in accountancy so whilst you might be planning to pursue a Chartered qualification don't underestimate how far you can get with AAT. The academic jump and time commitment difference between AAT and the other qualifications is significant and AAT will exempt you from some of the initial exams with some if not all of the bodies you have listed. With your academic background AAT should be straightforward - as you're finding, and AAT gives a great foundation for further study.

I'd say unless your new employer is pushing one way or the other it's a judgement call around your wider life / commitments / responsibilities. Do you have the capacity to increase the amount of time you spend studying whilst getting to grips with a new job? How old is your child - would it be easier / more difficult to manage the commitment now - bedtime is earlier, naps are really helpful and Nurseries much better suited to working parents) but older children and less intensely dependent and might be able to entertain themselves more while you study? What funding / study support package is you employer offering?

What sort of finance career do you want as that might impact the answer? For example do you want to prepare small company accounts, be an auditor, be part of a technical accounting team preparing listed company accounts, be more of a business partner to operational areas so tracking budgets, preparing business cases etc?

Hi op I did similar. I skipped AAT entirely. It is a bloody hard slog but I would just get started if I were you rather than doing all of AAT first otherwise you are just studying for more years. There’s nothing to stop you (except your employer I suppose) taking a break between exam seasons if it starts getting to much for you although I would advise against that because I saw so many do that then just no restart when I was training in industry. It’s a different beast to practice. Unlike practice you won’t lose your job if you fail exams but there is also much less support.

Thank you!

@nicknamehelp as I didnt have any finance background I thought it would be important to learn the basics. I think that's been a good decision as I would ha e been clueless and I've heard from employers/managers who prefer people who understand the basics.

@FruitBadger thank you for your insight, really helpful! I do worry that I would struggled if I skipped the rest of AAT. I dont have any more time to commit to studying either. My daughter is 2 and I dont like sacrificing the time that I have with her at the weekend so I will definitely have to consider what to do. I will probably see how my new role goes and slowly see what others have done/what they recommend too.
I'm not sure what, if any, study support they will offer. They offer some good benefits to all employees but I will have to find out if they offer any study leave/cover any fees once I'm in the role. I'm assuming they will not offer any so that if they are thats a nice added bonus.

@Weepingwillows12 probably more in the direction of business partner, but its still too early to tell really as I want to see what areas I enjoy the most. I suspect not a role that's strictly to do with numbers.

@nattertAtter well done! How did you find it? How long did it take you? What job role are you in now if you dont mind me asking?

I'm an ACA, my sister has an AAT and ACCA. I was fortunate enough to work for a big 6 (as was then) company that paid for three months of study a year. I did A level maths so thought how hard can it be (with the misplaced confidence of youth). The answer was very hard, particularly the tax and consolidation modules. Doing it with a child would be hard but not impossible.

My sister is now freelance and finds her rates vary by the type of work she does, preparing accounts and tax returns is a higher rate than book keeping.

If you're not sure whether you have the time for the second qualification, I'd complete the AAT so you have that in the bag.

There's also a bit of a pecking order with ACA/CIMA/ACCA (not perpetuated by me, credit to anyone who can get through the tedium of accountancy exams!). ACA tends to be the most highly regarded though my sister reckons the ACCA is more use when it comes to the practicalities of accounting.

I did it in just over 3 years. 3 is the minimum due to work experience required. It was hard. My job was full on and due to issues with the business my hours got insane towards the end and then obviously studying on top. Looking back I maybe should have given myself a break but I just wanted it done.

The first 3 exams were ok and I think would be easy if I’d had a bit longer in accountancy. To give you an idea I did 3x 2 hour lessons for 6 weeks with a couple of hours revision at weekends then took 2 days off work to cram and take exam.

The next level was harder but I changed employer to one who gave me study leave. I think it was 5 days per exam. I used to bunch annual leave around it to maximise it.

After that I tried to sit two exams every 6 months and they took steadily more of my time. To give you an idea- my last exam session I was working 50 hours a week , attempting to study every evening and getting into work an hour early to study and then travelling to a different city both Saturday and Sunday to get lessons 9-5. When the lessons finished I just studied every moment I could until exams . But i could have done one exam at a time and only done one weekend day and it wouldn’t of been so bad if I’d been doing normal working hours! Have a look at the Kaplan or bpp timetables to get an idea of what you’ll have to do. In practise people tend to get time off for college during the day, In industry your looking at online evenings or weekends but you need to factor in an average 10 hours a week per exam on top of the lessons. You can study with just the books and I know someone who did but he failed multiple exams which isn’t the end of the world (most industry employers just won’t pay for resits which is fair enough) but obviously means it takes longer. Have a look at the pass/fail rates for exams and you’ll see the early ones are about 70% if people pass then it drops to 30% by the end.

Saying that I did mine with all first time passes and I passed all my exams with a reasonable margin. So maybe I could worked less hard but I was doing it at a similar age to you and I just wanted my life back!

@zyd32

There's also a bit of a pecking order with ACA/CIMA/ACCA (not perpetuated by me, credit to anyone who can get through the tedium of accountancy exams!). ACA tends to be the most highly regarded though my sister reckons the ACCA is more use when it comes to the practicalities of accounting.

I think this is partly because ACA tends to be big 4 practise.

Please don’t illusion yourself that you will have a career similar to big 4. You will do well and probably find getting employment easy but I worked with a lot of people from big 4 and their knowledge when freshly qualified was leagues better than mine and the speed they’ve climbed the ladder reflects that.

My advice would be if you want to work as freelance practise then don’t do Acca. Part of t+c’s of joining Acca is that you need a practise certificate to run your own practise and you can’t get that without two years working in practise. It’s very unusual /hard to move from industry into practise so getting this experience post qualification is virtually impossible.

But plenty of people work freelance with “just” AAT which I know sounds backwards but it’s just about ACCA protecting their brand.

I assume there are similar rules with the other bodies. If you want to progress in industry go ahead with Acca /cima.

If you want to do ACA you will need to complete a training contract which requires you to work in an authorised training provider (usually a practice) for 3 years. You can of course do the exams separately but that won't allow you to qualify. So your new role would be very unlikely to support you in the ACA exams. In industry, you would normally be offered CIMA, or less likely ACCA.

Re AAT, it will exempt you from several of the ACA exams, but I have seen people struggle with this as they have to jump straight from AAT to the mid-level ACA exams which are much, much harder. At least if you start at the beginning with ACA, the exams flow on from each other to some extent.

Thanks again for all the insight.

I wouldn't think ACA would be the route for me. I'm nearly 30, have a child and do not have the option to do crazy hours for a big 4 company. Which is absolutely fine and kudos to those who do!

I'm prepared for it to take longer than 3 years to qualify as I have a child and cant and dont want to commit all my time to studying.

In the job I've left I've worked around 45 hours and studying maybe top 10 hours a week but many weeks much less plus taken a couple days annual leave to revise before exams. It's been absolutely fine. Fully expecting ACCA/CIMA to be a much more difficult level but at least I have studying at a postgraduate level so now how difficult it can be.

I'll continue with AAT and see what colleagues and employer suggest. I think I would probably prefer to work in industry but I cant say 100%, not having the experience.

Call CIMA/ACCA to see if you finished AAT you would get any exemptions. If you don’t then I would move on now and study CIMA/ACCA rather than spend the time doing AAT.

I did CIMA post university, working full time, with a child alone. It’s hard but the qualification opens doors and I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t put in this hard-work.

Good luck in whatever you decide!

I have an accountancy degree, AAT and CIMA and start a new board level job in a month.

There is so much more to accountancy than big 4. I have never worked in practice.

I thought the foundation level of all of the chartered qualifications were roughly equivalent to AAT (although I qualified when dinosaurs roamed the earth so my knowledge isn't current)

From what I have seen it is much easier to qualify in practice, the study packages offered are generally better and you're surrounded by multiple people who can help and advise you. Any top 50 firm will take on trainees, you don't even have to go top 10.

I started studying CIMA at 39 with 2 children under 3. It is possible to work and study in the evening once they are in bed. I just gave up crap TV. Since qualifying I have had many trainees work for me and all those that had AAT level 4 said they wished they had just done CIMA from the start and didn't do all AAT levels. Good luck, you will smash it.

I’m CIMA qualified and didn’t do AAT, neither do I have a background/degree in a related subject so I did all of the exams from the foundation level up, taking 3 years-ish, though I was early 20’s and child-free at the time.

I work in commercial finance in industry, qualified with a huge FMCG & have never worked in practice (nor would I want to). To be honest, the company i qualified in probably opens more doors than my specific qualification in the area which I work.

I didn't do a degree, but I did AAT and then CIMA - worked in industry for 20 years covering a massive range of areas, which has given me a breadth of experience.
The route I took suited me, my skills and my interests - I now specialise in my preferred areas in own business,

I think others have beaten me to it but if you are thinking business partner route then I think CIMA is probably best. It is also more common to do that in industry. With young kids,I would be investigating if work offer a training scheme where you get study leave. It's been years since I looked at it but they might get benefits from the apprenticeship levy if it's still running.

It is hard but in my view it's the amount of info to take in rather than how complicated it is. And knowing the style they want from you in exams so never scrimp on past exam practise.

With the benefit of hindsight, my ACA opened doors but perversely more due to its reputation than being actually useful in my jobs. After I'd worked in audit at a Big 4 for a few years, I went into investment banking. Pretty much everyone was either a lawyer or accountant. Although we all did everything, the lawyers were good at contract negotiations and us accountants good at analysing financial statements and modelling. But you'd probably be easily able to do that with an AAT, 90% of my ACA was far beyond what I needed (which was just a basic understanding of financial statements).

Nowadays my accountancy qualification is used for certifying people's passport photos. Possibly not worth three years of graft for that ;)

Thank you so much ladies! Wow, some are you are so inspiring! Well done for all you have achieved, definitely inspiring me to keep going.