O God I think I've been ripped off !! Have I got any rights now?

rebootz

Hi all.

I'm sorry, I don't know if I have posted this in the right forum, but it is about training ...

After being made redundant a good while ago - I decided to retrain as a book-keeper.

Because I have a small daughter, and living where I do without being able to drive, physically attending college was out of the question, so I decided to try distance learning.

I signed up on a course, and until very recently I have been quite happily working on it and have just passed the 1st half of it with my final exam in October.

Money's really tight ( obviously ) and I am struggling to pay the monthly payments for the course but keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end.

I am paying £50 for 24months regardless of whether I pass the course in 6 months or 2 years.

The problem is that someone else on my course has contacted me today, as they are unhappy about what they have paid seeing as what the same course is available for elsewhere.

I've done a bit of a search, and have found 4 other distance learning places who are offering exactly the same course I am on for between £329 and £420. That's a huge lot less than the £1200 pound I am paying!!

I know maybe I should have shopped around a bit, but to be perfectly honest I didn't know that I could. And I know that I was happy with it until now etc etc but I just feel stupid now !

Is there anything at all I can do about this now? I have never done anything like this before, and have no idea really how any of this works, and whether I can kind of barter with them, or what? I mean, if they were a bit more expensive I could understand it - but by that much?? Surely that's not right?

Sorry if I have posted this in the wrong section

xxx

PasturesNew

SueSueSue wrote: »

Bookkeeping is very outdated these days.

I don't know where you live but there are loads of jobs for bookeepers wanted .. and many office manager jobs that expect you to do all the bookeeping too, usually up to Trial Balance, so I'd expect the OP's course to cover that and more.

There's a lot to it. Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger, Nominal Ledgers, Transfers between ledgers, trial balances and P/L reports, reporting in general. Even in remote areas it pays well (£15k).

rebootz

Thanks Sue - I didn't really think I could do something about it - I suppose I was just a bit shocked that there could be such a big difference.

The course is a combined L1 And L2 ICB Bookkeeping course. No - I'm not going to takeover Barclays with it but I think it's going to look better on my CV than nothing. And according to workhound , average salary for a bookkeeper in my area is about £20000. I wouldn't say no to that whether it is outdated or not

Thanks though

xxx

dmg24

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't know where you live but there are loads of jobs for bookeepers wanted .. and many office manager jobs that expect you to do all the bookeeping too, usually up to Trial Balance, so I'd expect the OP's course to cover that and more.

There's a lot to it. Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger, Nominal Ledgers, Transfers between ledgers, trial balances and P/L reports, reporting in general. Even in remote areas it pays well (£15k).

Agreed. I am CIMA trained, but do a lot more bookkeeping than anything else (I also enjoy it much more than the strategic work!).

rebootz

thanks Pastures New !!

The L1 which I've just passed covers up to trial balance, and the L2 takes up to end of year adjustments with depreciation and allowances for bad debts

xxxx

rebootz

O dear - I guess I should give up all hope then lol

But we all gotta start somewhere

Thanks for the positive remarks - and thanks to Sue whose opinion I also value

: )

xxxx

dmg24

SueSueSue wrote: »

What does it cover in regards to accounting standards, taxation, VAT and companies house compliance etc

If you are that interested, why not just look for yourself?

http://www.bookkeepers.org.uk/Introduction

Any

Rebootz - definitely don't give up.

Lots of employers employ ledger clerks even with no qualification or experience. Of course salary depends on those. Would I have a person who shows interest and has done something like this and person with nothing, the one with some qualification would be my choice.

Once you have the job, you can then go for something else as well (AAT, maybe even ACCA). If you show interest lots of employers will pay for it as well.

But is the showing interest and doing something about it (just like you are) that definitely makes person employable!

BTW: I am ACCA (nearly) qualified and have experience with employing clerks.

As for your question about the cost - I know there is many different colleges out there with different prices. The cost of this one is probably higher because they let you pay monthly and slowly. You should have done some research before, but it's no point beating yourself over it now.

SailorSam

I was part qualified ICMA many moons ago, and i did bookeeping. But not worked in an office for 30yrs now, i'm surprised Pastures that there is still a demand, i would have thought it was all done at the touch of a button.
I wonder as i'm not working could i get back into that, I'd need to brush up though.

greenbee

I know of a number of people who work in small companies who have book keeping qualifications - they do the day to day work and have outside accountants who check it and do anything additional (sorry... not an accountant, I can't even add up unsupervised , so I don't know the details!)

I'm also aware that as a large corporate, we employ people in our finance teams who are book keepers rather than accountants, as there is no need to completely fill the place with accountants (there are plenty of them as it is!).

Book keeping is also very useful if you're looking at office manager roles, and I'm pretty sure would come in handy in anything that had a financial element to the role (actually, thinking about it... next time I'm recruiting, that's probably what I need to look for... someone to make up for my lack of financial knowledge when producing reports for finance and the auditors!)

I don't think you're wasting your time, even if you could have found a cheaper course. Just make sure that you make the best of it and get your moneys' worth.

SailorSam - there is definitely still a demand, so I'm sure you could get back into it. People are still needed to make sure that what goes in/comes out when the button is pressed makes sense...

paulwf

Could you perhaps ask the company to explain why they are more expensive? It might be they are offering better training and materials. Getting the certificate on its own isn't important, it is being able to understand the subject matter in depth.