Any accountants out there - how to keep up CPD on maternity leave?

[lucasnorth]

Hi, grateful for any advice. I'm chartered, been out of work with DDs for 4 years now. Will go back in eighteen months but I'm starting to worry at the volume of technical change there will have been by then (indeed, that there has been already!).

Does anyone know of a good way either to catch up/keep up, or just before I go back? I don't work for a large company, and I'm not in professional practice, so internal training isn't an option.

Thanks in advance

Anyone?

What kind of accountancy do you do? Tax/audit/general and who is your qualification with as rules different for different institutes

I'm in a similar position, although no firm plans to go back at the moment.

Do you read Accountancy magazine? (If so you're already doing better than me!) Also does your local branch of the ICAEW run courses sumnarising recent changes?

Without actually having to put the theory into practise though... it's going to be hard to catch up I think. Have almost resigned myself that I'll be going back at a lower lever than I left.

I would look into doing an update course with a training college like FTC. CIMA do a lot of skills update courses that might suit (I'm not CIMA but I did a french/german GAAP one last year and a US/international GAAP update this year that were both very good.)

That's the pricey option.

I know my ACCA regional network do CPD evenings that are free to members so it might be worth looking into what your associaton does.

Personally, I mostly just bluffed it

Thank you all. Sorry to be away for so long, my computer had a close encounter with a cup of Ribena (the Ribena won).

To answer questions - I'm in general accountancy (not tax or audit), qualified with ICAS (although I'm actually in London), I tend to throw my magazine in the bin because it is SO SO DULL, ICAS don't run update courses to suit (I tried one of the ones they run last year and it was not what I need).

I was toying with the idea of going back to BPP (who taught me) or FTC to do a course; I didn't know they did update courses so I thought I might pay to do the technical course again from scratch (!). I'll look at their websites, and CIMA.

Although I'm liking the option of bluffing it .
How long were you off for notquitenormal, and how was it going back?

I was off for a year...so not too long for forgetting stuff. It was pretty straight forward going back, but I went back to a project/forecasting position, which is tends to be more bullshitting non-technical anyway. Remembering how to log in to all our systems was the hardest, I think I locked myself out of everything at least twice in my first month

I would expect CIMA would be a good bet; they do a lot of stuff aimed at management accountants who don't deal with technicals on a day-to-day basis but still need to keep up.

Ah, forecasting. I used to enjoy that

Will certainly check out CIMA courses; thanks for your advice.

ACA CPD requirements now only state that you have to do "enough" CPD hours that are appropriate to your position to keep yourself up to date.

Since I am on maternity leave I am taking the view that I don't really have to do anything other than read buy and maybe even take the plastic cover off a few copies of Accountancy (which I only read anyway to see if anyone I know has been struck off).