Any accountants - Come speak to me!

[Crimblecrumblelover]

Hello,

I've been considering a change in career for quite sometime and would like to find out more about accountancy (although i know there are different roles within this career).
Bit of background:
Im a maths teacher, have a maths degree but not a honours degree. I have two young children under 5, so i need to be fairly sensible with this career change as I have childcare, mortgage etc. I know that i will need to take a big pay cut. Ive looked online about courses but there are so many different courses AAT, CIMA, etc.
Basically if you are accountant, do you enjoy your job? What are the pros and cons? What route did you take? Are there jobs out there and do you feel your job is secure (i ask being in the public sector which is secure)? Any advice would be helpful. Do you think coming from a teaching background will be a disadvantage?

I'm a management accountant and retrained from my previous career after my second child.

I really enjoy my job, I do a lot of business partnering with various departments and also do quite a lot of hands on statutory account work too.

There seems to be a lot of jobs around at the moment because I am being approached almost every day.
I got my first accounts job whilst studying AAT, based on my previous career. It was working for a charity and my old background was a good fit. I did learn a lot from them and moved on to another charity to improve my skills. I've since completed my CIMA qualification and work in the private sector.

I think coming from teaching would be an advantage, you often need to explain accounting ideas to non accountants and it isn't always a natural thing.

We have assistant accountants, who do not need an accounting qualification but do need to show that they can learn and follow instructions. We do offer funding for training as well which is a great way to do it.

Hi, another CIMA here and I went into it straight after university. I’ve worked in both public and private sectors and like MrsP above, I enjoy my job. Need to factor in month, quarter and year end dates where you might not be allowed holidays so need to have childcare in place. I enjoy learning about the business and working with different areas. Although I’m CIMA I also do stat and tax review. Would say that working in the public sector is not always more secure than private.

Thank you @MrsPnut. Thats really great advice. If you dont mind me asking how long have you been an accountant? Do you live/work around a big city? Im from a small town in Scotland, not near Edinburgh or Glasgow, so just wondering if that would be a disadvantage?

@Viewfromtheisland thank you. Thats something i would need to think about regarding holidays/childcare.

I'm a chartered accountant. I work in industry now and love it but I do think it is easier to train in practice especially in a medium sized firm. You can always move into industry but I think it would be difficult to move in the other direction if you suddenly had a desire to be an auditor

As an aside, audit firms cannot retain staff at the moment. It's not necessarily the most family friendly job because clients could be quite widely spread but with covid a lot more can be done remotely.

I'm also CIMA. Started with a job after university as a finance junior (initially to save for a master's) and just enjoyed it so have worked my way up while studying and been a financial controller/director for the last 15 years.
I enjoy making a real difference to businesses through providing relevant and useful information that forms decisions. I prefer working within business rather than practice for that reason, you get involved in so much and can be the voice of reason with numbers to back you up and suggest improvements, while still having the routine monthly accounts to do.
I also enjoy the variety, I have in my career worked in a group of luxury hotels, a multi academy trust, heavy engineering, nuclear industry, ppi council contract and it's really interesting to see how it all the different businesses work. There is plenty of jobs, especially in the last year where I have been constantly contacted by recruiters.

Oh yes school holidays always coincide with month end. I can only realistically have Feb half term, one week at Easter and two weeks in the summer. Kids have to do holiday clubs the rest of the time and I always end up with unused holiday.

CIMA qualified here, I have actually moved into IT here using my finance skills. I had a couple of roles one traditional month end one more project based. I enjoyed my work but didn't like counting my life down in month ends! Depending on the role / company you are in you may find your life governed by it! - I could not easily go on holiday or have a day off at all for the first week or so of every month!

Couple of observations from me - the full professional qualifications are by no means easy but there's great satisfaction in completing them - they require a lot of dedication and focus to pass (think learning how to present numbers in specified formats using precise formulae and all in another language due to the terminology involved) - there's a lot of things to learn, often by rote to get through the exams
A key professional skill is being able to explain and interpret the figures for non financial colleagues - so verbal and written skills are important- the better accountants are usually very proficient in this regard and that's how they progress.

Where about in Scotland are you? There are different options depending where you are. I know the central belt quite well if that helps?

Have you considered the HMRC Tax Specialist Programme? Worth a look if you live close enough to one of the regional centres.

Thank you for all your advice. I really do appreciate it. @emsyj37 i did look into that but im not super close to Glasgow or Edinburgh and would worry about that.
@Viewfromtheisland can I pm you?
Do you think it would be better to gain some qualifications whilst working such as AAT or look at jobs that provide training? I suppose if i didnt have children, i would take the "risk" but i have to make sure this is the right thing in the long term.

I work in financial reporting and did ACCA. If you're going to do it do ACCA rather than AAT. It's a better qualification (although harder obviously).

There are lots of different types of accountancy so it would help if you have a feel for what you would like to do. eg audit, tax, management accountancy.

AAT (accountancy technicians) and ATT (tax technicians) are the entry level qualifications. You might be able to skip that with your degree but equally you might value completing it first to give a strong foundation.

Then you have a choice between ACA, ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, CTA etc. ACCA is the broadest in terms of employability.

You can look on each of their websites for companies that are advertising training contracts. It is worth getting training on the job as you will need to demonstrate practical experience to beome qualified even at AAT level. It can't be purely theoretical, you will need to do it alongside some accoutancy work.

I'd agree that you should look at ACCA or CIMA qualifications rather than AAT - you can work your way up with experience from AAT but coming from a career change rather than school/University leaver the ability to jump start with higher level qualifications will be better for you.

You can self study the early exams online.

Theoretically, CIMA is more suited for management accounts/analysis roles and ACCA more technical - but in reality you can get exposure to both through the work and take career in either direction.

Month ends can be an issue with holidays - bigger companies are likely to have tight deadlines. Year ends are key too - typically December/Jan or March/April will be busy times.

That said there is lots of flexibility in working from home, for big or small organisations, industry types.

At the very process book-keeping end, there is a threat to job security from automation - but at the personal level and being able to interpret and explain things to clients or colleagues I think it is lower risk.

There are lots of jobs at the moment!

Maths graduates have relatively high exam pass rates - I don't really know why as the hardest maths involved is addition, subtraction and percentages so nothing like degree level!

And you can get payrises and promotions and more interesting work as you progress through the exams- even if you don't complete them all.

just to pick up on the AAT.. vs CIMA or ACCA.
AAT is entry level... if you complete level 4 that would give you qualification as a book keeper not an accountant. However- if you wanted to continue on to become an accountant the AAT level 4 would then exempt you from the first set of exams for ACCA or CIMA (or at least it did 5 years ago when i last looked at it).

The AAT is quick, easy and fairly cheap to start with which might give you a good trial by fire.

I did AAT then went on to ACCA, I now work as a financial director- I get a lot of variety in my role which is what I love.

My apologies to the OP but please may I ask a question of you all?

My son is about to leave uni with a degree in business management. He hopes to eventually become an accountant. He is currently torn between doing a masters or applying for post grad jobs that would allow him to do the accountancy exams alongside working.

He does not have A level maths so I hope that would not go against him. He dipped his toe into accounting by passing AAT levels 1 and 2 alongside his AS levels.

Please could anyone comment on masters vs a job? No one else in the family has been to uni and while it is 100% his decision I would really appreciate any advise I could pass on.

Sorry again to the OP.

Most people in my team studied alongside the job rather than going to uni. You get paid while you study which you wouldn't at uni plus you don't end up with student debt.

Thank you rainbowandglitter. The extra debt for a masters is definitely a concern for him on top of the debt for his three year degree.

Hi @Crimblecrumblelover no problem!

Frog fairy definitely work and professional qualifications route I would say. If he knows he wants to be an accountant then he will end up doing the professional qualifications anyway and employers will be focused on that not masters. That's coming from someone who did a master's first as thought wrongly it would be useful.

I think from my experience there is always opportunities for accountants. People have talked about CIMA and ACCA already but there is also the ACA route. Most people I know who did ACA are either CFOs, auditors or Internal Control (and there is fair demand for these right now with the possibility of UK SOX being introduced as part of the BEIS reforms), group reporting or business partnering. All qualifications are good but some are better for some branches of accountancy than others. AAT would get you in the door at admin level accountancy often but the other qualifications could give you higher paying opportunities. Depends what type of role you want?

Thank you for the advice Weepingwillows12.

He is looking for jobs but seems to stumble at the first hurdle as he has failed a couple character/personality tests. Poor lad has worked his ass off so I hope something comes along to suit him.

@frogfairy no problem, its such a big decision and i was considering a masters too. I hope he gets something.

@Weepingwillows12 thats great info. I am steering more to the acca but ive never heard of the ACA route, will look into it.

In terms of roles, i am quite interested in tax, auditing etc. Dont know whether they are completely different roles.

Tax and auditing are quite different as careers but all the qualifications mentioned have modules covering both so it's more what job you actually do alongside the qualification. Most of the qualifications require a certain amount of time spent actually working so maybe look at what companies are offering to support you as you train. Big 4 can be competitive and honestly used to be crap at work life balance but good experience long term. My current company has a finance graduate scheme which support you with limited time off and signing off training records but no money towards exams. Basically the support can vary and also the actual day to day work.