Accountancy jobs - what's yours?

Icey77

If you're going to work in practice you'd be (most likely) looking at ACA. ACCA and CIMA tend to be used more in industry.

It's far easier to move from practice to industry rather than vice versa. There can be a certain amount of "my qualification is better than yours" blah blah blah but they are so similar in content that if you get one of them you would be able to do any job.

I took a £3k pay cut to get into my first billing role from the PR admin role and I paid for my own AAT courses. BUT, this initial outlay got me to the point where my ACCA was paid for me (easily worth more than £5k in tuition, books, exams etc etc etc) and now I'm earning £45k. Please don't think I'm trying to show off, I'm trying to show how far your AAT can take you if you want it to!

Good luck and I completely understand your comment of getting numbers better than getting people - numbers are either right or they're wrong. End of.

Icey77

Sounds like it's a whoop for ACCA here at the moment

Good luck Any, I hope you get there soon - just remember that as you're getting all this experience you'll have no problem getting all the signoffs for full membership as soon as you get your finals done and sometimes that's the biggest issue for people.

Any

Icey77 wrote: »

If you're going to work in practice you'd be (most likely) looking at ACA. ACCA and CIMA tend to be used more in industry.

It's far easier to move from practice to industry rather than vice versa. There can be a certain amount of "my qualification is better than yours" blah blah blah but they are so similar in content that if you get one of them you would be able to do any job.

I took a £3k pay cut to get into my first billing role from the PR admin role and I paid for my own AAT courses. BUT, this initial outlay got me to the point where my ACCA was paid for me (easily worth more than £5k in tuition, books, exams etc etc etc) and now I'm earning £45k. Please don't think I'm trying to show off, I'm trying to show how far your AAT can take you if you want it to!

Good luck and I completely understand your comment of getting numbers better than getting people - numbers are either right or they're wrong. End of.

All practices around here send their juniors on ACCA courses rather then ACA. The gap is getting smaller and smaller - even our last KPMG audit junior was ACCA student!

It now seems that the difference between ACCA and ACA (or ICAEW if you like) is the same as whether you are public school boy or local comprehensive...

Any

Icey77 wrote: »

Sounds like it's a whoop for ACCA here at the moment

Good luck Any, I hope you get there soon - just remember that as you're getting all this experience you'll have no problem getting all the signoffs for full membership as soon as you get your finals done and sometimes that's the biggest issue for people.

I know, I can't wait when the times where I don't have to get up at the weekend to go to college come!!:D
I am not sure what I am going to do with myself with all those free weekends then:eek:

angie_baby

Hi All,

Sorry to but in, but wondered if anyone could give me any advice? Im 25 this year and Ive been working for a company for the last 7 years doing there accounts really.
We are audited, so everything gets checked properly at the end of the year. I do all the invoicing / chasing / deal with all suppliers / run P&L reports / VAT returns / Bank reconcilles etc.

I want to move on and have the experience but no real qualifcations. Its seems reading the thread that ACCA is the one to go for. How many hours a week would i have to study?

Any

angie_baby wrote: »

Hi All,

Sorry to but in, but wondered if anyone could give me any advice? Im 25 this year and Ive been working for a company for the last 7 years doing there accounts really.
We are audited, so everything gets checked properly at the end of the year. I do all the invoicing / chasing / deal with all suppliers / run P&L reports / VAT returns / Bank reconcilles etc.

I want to move on and have the experience but no real qualifcations. Its seems reading the thread that ACCA is the one to go for. How many hours a week would i have to study?

That really depends how quick learner you are. I know people who need to study 15+ hours a week (at home) and/or still go to college and I know people who just go to college and crash study 2 weeks before exams.

Home study for me would be just suicidal.

College is about 4-5 days for tuition and then another 2-4 days for revision per exam. Kaplan & BPP do both week and weekend courses.

yorkshire_laura

i'm another one who thinks ACCA is good i qualified this year!

I work in practice and my role is accounts prep, vat returns and a bit of tax, would ideally like to progress into a more senior role in the near future. Have wanted to work in industry for a while but have been advised to wait a few more years with the market as it is and because i'm quite young (22 this year) i have plenty of time to get more experience before i decide if i want to move into industry.

yorkshire_laura

and just to add i did aat as well

Icey77

angie_baby wrote: »

Hi All,

Sorry to but in, but wondered if anyone could give me any advice? Im 25 this year and Ive been working for a company for the last 7 years doing there accounts really.
We are audited, so everything gets checked properly at the end of the year. I do all the invoicing / chasing / deal with all suppliers / run P&L reports / VAT returns / Bank reconcilles etc.

I want to move on and have the experience but no real qualifcations. Its seems reading the thread that ACCA is the one to go for. How many hours a week would i have to study?

Hi Angie Baby, I think anyone here who has done or is doing ACCA would agree with me that it's not something to take on lightly.

I went with a small private class run by my AAT lecturer, we spent 6 hours every saturday in class, I spent 4-6 hours doing homeowrk on Sunday and then 2-3 hours every night Monday-Thursday finishing homework and reading for the next class on Saturday.

This may seem a lot and it is, I had two evenings off each week but it also meant that my classmates and I knew the textbook inside out and we got great results on our exams - we usually acheived marks of 75-90% and above. I know no one ever asks you what marks you got but we felt that we well and truly passed rather than scraped.

BPP etc have a reputation (I don't know if it is deserved) of teaching their students the bits of the syllabus that they think will come up rather than everything. A short sighted approach in my view as you'd be expected to have a basic knowledge in the real world if you had just studied the subject.

ACCA can take you a long way if you are prepared to put the work in, just to advise you we started with a class of 10 at the first ACCA exam, by the time we sat our finals we were a class of 4. You've really got to want it.

GreenNinja

Hi Kate,

I sort of fell into Accountancy work. Did some purchase ledger bits and some credit control in previous jobs and in my current job was employed to do another role. After a couple of weeks my boss asked if I would be interested in doing the Accounts. An older lady who was doing the job part time trained me and I now run the entire Accounts here, Sales, Puchase and Nominal ledgers, pay all the suppliers, deal with VAT returns, petty cash, etc etc and now do accounts to trial balance and end of month close.

Unfortunately I am not qualified although I have now been doing this current job for 2 years. If I were to move to another employer I would have to have some sort of qualification. So am hoping to enrol on a bookkeeping course in September.

Couldn't say which is the best way round to do it really. I earn the same as a qualified person would for my role.

Trust this helps. Good luck anyway! whatever you decide to do.