Career change to accountancy/book keeping

geek84

I have just been made redundant recently from my office administration job which I held for the last 20 years or so. I enjoy working with figures and was thinking of going into accountancy, and looking into book keeping to kick start my career. Is it possible to have book keeping as a full time job or is it the nature of the job that you can only get enough clients for it to be classified as part time work?

Also, some of my friends have stated that book keeping is only the basic qualification towards a career in accountancy, and that I need to take further qualifications if I intend to develop my career in accountancy. I would ideally like to become a chartered accountant , but do you think with my age (mid 40s), that is a long shot, with all the work experience & qualifications required? If so, what other qualifactions can I take which would develop my career further from book keeping.

Thanks in advance for your response.

heretolearn_2

It's quite a long haul becoming a fully qualified accountant and the two most common (and best) routes are either Chartered Accountant or Chartered Certified Accountant. They both give a lot of guidance on their websites.

If you want to do that, it's best to start off studying for those, rather than starting as a bookkeeper and 'upgrading' later, as it doesn't really work that way.

For bookkeeping, you need to look at doing IAB or AAT. The problem with most courses is that they only teach manual bookkeeping - great as you need to fully understand the basics, but rubbish in that no-one actually works that way these days (at least on a professional level) so you need to back that up with qualifications in some of the accounting software, for example Sage and Quickbooks.

For work, there are opportunities within firms' own accounts departments, and for accountancy firms, as well as going it alone. I think it's quite hard to set up as an independent bookkeeper these days, as there is so much competition, from people with far more experience.

We just advertised for a part-time bookkeeper, and had over 40 applications. At least half of them were fully qualified accountants desperate for any job!

ClaretHead

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants - CIMA, have an entry level qualification - the Certificate in Business Accounting - 5 papers in Maths, Economics, Business Ethics, Financial and Management accounting. There are a lot of distance learning providers, and some good course materials from CIMA themselves.

This qualification would show employers that you have a good grasp of the basics, and is an entry route to the main CIMA syllabus, which can lead through to being an accountant after another 9 or 10 exams, a case study and 3 years practical experience.

boopopps

Age is no barrier geek84. I completed my AAT in 2006 and we had people in their late 50's in our classes. I completed my CIMA in 2008 and again we had people in their 40's and 50's taking the qualification. The real life work experience really helps you and this only comes with age.

Home learning college do AAT as on line courses at home and you can complete the whole thing in 18 months if you choose to. Then if you want to pursue CIMA, if you go to one of the specialised Financial training organisations like Kaplan or BBP, again you can complete in 18mths like I did, as long as you do 3 x 3 paper sittings and pass first time and then do the final top CIMA sitting.

GO for it, it's great, you only live once. Goodluck.

jessicamb

I know people who started CIMA in their 40s, age is no barrier in this case.

Savvy_Sue

heretolearn wrote: »

We just advertised for a part-time bookkeeper, and had over 40 applications. At least half of them were fully qualified accountants desperate for any job!

nteresting, because a few months ago I was talking to our auditors about getting a bookkeeper in, and they said they'd been having great difficulty finding anyone willing to do just basic bookkeeping, either for us or some other clients!

bristol_pilot

Being in a class is one thing...being in a job is another. Before switching careers it is always advisable to do some research as to whether age is a barrier in practice in that profession.

donquine

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Being in a class is one thing...being in a job is another. Before switching careers it is always advisable to do some research as to whether age is a barrier in practice in that profession.

I can't comment on bookkeeping, but age definitely isn't a barrier in accountancy.

OP, most people studying towards the CA or ACA tend to have a relatively recent degree behind them. This doesn't necessarily mean they're all young - you do get a lot of older people going to uni these days - but they do all have recent experience of studying.

An alternative route is to study for a more basic qualification first, e.g. the AAT, and then go on to do CA/ACA exams. This is a popular route with school leavers and people who have been out of education for a while.

You have to bear in mind that you can't simply study for the CA/ACA by yourself - you need a training contract with an approved training firm, e.g. you need a relevant job. If you applied for a job where you would be studying for the CA/ACA, you would have a lot of competition.

heretolearn_2

"I was talking to our auditors about getting a bookkeeper in, and they said they'd been having great difficulty finding anyone willing to do just basic bookkeeping, either for us or some other clients!"

I'd agree with them. Just because we had a lot of applicants, didn't mean there were a lot of suitable ones. Half of them certainly would not be genuinely interested in spending the next few years inputting data and doing basic bookkeeping stuff; they were just applying for something as an emergency stop-gap. No way would a fully qualified accountant actually WANT to work as a bookkeeper. Even those with lower qualifications were often pronouncing on bigger ambitions, asking about promotion opportunities etc, when all we needed is someone a few hours a day, nice and reliable, happy as a bookkeeper, does their job and goes home.

Savvy_Sue

I know what you mean, heretolearn. Heck, I or one of my colleagues COULD do the job, but a) it would drive us stir-crazy and b) I can only do it if I don't have 16 other things to do at the same time. Someone who is happy to ONLY do the bookkeeping would be a treasure.

heretolearn_2

We hope we've found our 'treasure' after the interviews last week. AAT qualified, wants part-time as she has young kids, has just started her ACCA, so she's more than happy to do just basic bookkeeping stuff for a couple of years as the rest of her life is quite stressful enough! But she wasn't easy to find.