Training to be an accountant - which qualification best?

Lavendyr

I thought I might ask this here as I know there are many knowledgeable people on these forums!

In my current role within a small company, my work involves a wide range of responsibilities, just one of which is the company finances. We employ an accountant to complete the tax returns etc at year end and generally to tidy up the loose ends, but I am responsible for VAT returns quarterly, bookkeeping, financial forecasting/budgeting and payroll. Recently I've found that I've been enjoying this area of work more and more, the more I do it, and I am wondering if it makes sense to take it further and gain some kind of professional qualification with a view to focusing on accountancy.

However, I've been looking into the qualifications that are available and I'm completely confused - there are so many different types, and all the jobs I've looked at seem to ask for something different - some ask for AAT, others for CIMA, and I'm not quite sure what's best. Looking at their pages, CIMA qualifications would seem to suit my personal interests (being focused on strategic finance & business planning) but AAT seems to be the more popular choice as a starting point.

Can anyone offer me any advice or further insight into which qualifications are most respected/useful/educational? Thanks in advance

CIS

Have a look at the Open University course B680 - takes you from start up to AAT technician equivalent in 1 year and gives a certificate of HE.

It also allows exemption/accreditation with a number of accounting/book keeping bodies. including CIMA

dmg24

What level of qualifications do you already have? If you have a degree, you may already have a number of exemptions for CIMA.

I am part qual through CIMA, and gave it up because I found it mindlessly boring. CIMA is definitely a higher qualification than AAT, but if you do not have a degree, AAT is an excellent starting point.

Lavendyr

Thanks for the replies I do have a first degree from Cambridge, but it won't give me any exemptions I don't think, since it is in Linguistics! So it looks like my starting alternatives would be either CIMA's Certificate in Business Accounting, or an AAT diploma.

Is there any/much difference between CIMA and ACCA for chartered accountancy qualifications? I get the impression that CIMA is broader than ACCA in its coverage, but not sure which would be generally preferred.

What was it about CIMA that you found boring dmg24?

Iamthesmartestmanalive

With a degree you should look at ACA ( ICAEW - Chartered accountant), ACCA ( Certified accountant) or CIMA (management accountant).

ACA Is really only if you want to be a practicing accountant/Finance Manager
ACCA Is a bit more broader but again Practicing accountant/finance management

Cima is far more broader and looks at far more operational accounting for a day to day organisation

A lot depends on what you want to do

The one thing you should note is that each qualification has a "log book" you have to complete as the qualifications are not solely exams, make sure your role with have enough ongoing work to complete a log book.

I personally would suggest ACCA as it seems your role is more finance based and on succesful completion you would have a qualification which should easily launch your career along with your experience into a financial manager role and possibly eventually financial directorships and even CEO

Forget the certificates etc with a degree and experience you should launch right into the proper full on qualifications

Lavendyr

Thanks for the reply So CIMA is not really suitable for someone who wants to focus on being an accountant full-time but rather for roles such as CFO, Finance Director, Financial Analyst and so on, would you say?

The difficulty I have is that my role is so very varied that I am not sure it would be relevant enough. I spend probably 1/5 of my time on finance-related jobs - the rest of my time is divided between organising international events, contributing to & editing a magazine, human resources/personnel issues, PA to the MD, and other general management bits & bobs. So I'm not sure I'd call my role finance-based, it is extremely general, but I would like to specialise more in this area.

I looked at the ACCA page and the way it seems to work with the practical side of things would seem to suit me quite well, since the core areas of performance are more general business-related, and of the listed financial options, I do at least four of those within my current role.

The other issue is the cost. I am very doubtful that my employer would fund me towards this so I would need to self-fund. I have found distance-learning packages for CIMA for a reasonable price (for many reasons I would prefer distance-learning to taught courses, I have always preferred to go at my own pace), but I am having trouble finding a distance-learning course for ACCA that looks good and that I can try before I buy.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

Lavendyr wrote: »

Thanks for the reply So CIMA is not really suitable for someone who wants to focus on being an accountant full-time but rather for roles such as CFO, Finance Director, Financial Analyst and so on, would you say?

The difficulty I have is that my role is so very varied that I am not sure it would be relevant enough. I spend probably 1/5 of my time on finance-related jobs - the rest of my time is divided between organising international events, contributing to & editing a magazine, human resources/personnel issues, PA to the MD, and other general management bits & bobs. So I'm not sure I'd call my role finance-based, it is extremely general, but I would like to specialise more in this area.

I looked at the ACCA page and the way it seems to work with the practical side of things would seem to suit me quite well, since the core areas of performance are more general business-related, and of the listed financial options, I do at least four of those within my current role.

The other issue is the cost. I am very doubtful that my employer would fund me towards this so I would need to self-fund. I have found distance-learning packages for CIMA for a reasonable price (for many reasons I would prefer distance-learning to taught courses, I have always preferred to go at my own pace), but I am having trouble finding a distance-learning course for ACCA that looks good and that I can try before I buy.

Tbh If I was you and you want to practice solely as accountant Id go for the ICAEW/ICAS Qualification based on location as this trains you as a chartered accountant

Tbh for accountancy forms in the UK it has a bit more prestige

The only issue with this is that you probably will find you need to find a dedicated training contract as its unlikely your firm will be registered to provide the relevent training

ACCA is a good substititute but if your truly serious about being an accountant Id go for a training contract with an ICAEW/ICAS firm

These contracts are on the go at the moment and if you want one get applying soon.

You can look on the ICAEW and ICAS sites for lists of all ACA/CA training vacancies and start applying

Obviously if you want to stay in your current role ACCA is an option but I certainly feel most accounting firms in the UK see the ACA/CA qualified as being superior to the ACCA one

Namely because these ones are for solely accounting purposes were as ACCA is a bit more general and international

Lavendyr

Thank you very much for your input I will do some more reading and research!

dmg24

I would second smartest's advice. Had I had a choice, I would have gone for ACCA.

I did enjoy the CIMA Certificate (I only had one exemption as I had studied Law). That taught me everything I needed to do my job on a day to day basis. The Managerial Level papers IMO focused far too much on theory, and I found very little of it to be of any use to me (I was doing a series of placements so had several varied settings to try to apply the knowledge I had learnt).

From the people I know that completed their CIMA studies (including some at director level in the public sector), they actually apply very little of their studies in their day to day roles.

Lavendyr

Thanks again It's useful to have that input definitely. My thoughts are that I wouldn't necessarily want to be purely an accountant, but to have a slightly wider focus, so that narrows it down to CIMA and ACCA really. CIMA sounded ideal for that, especially with the focus on business planning and strategy, which ACCA doesn't seem to look at quite so much. But on the other hand, ACCA does in some ways seem to suit the work I do better, and also seems well respected. Hmmm...!

Clive_Woody

My wife is just over half way through her ACCA exams, it's a long slog, she started off going to evening classes at a local college, but we have since moved and she is now doing self study. The BPP books she uses vary in quality but they seem to be the standard text books (you would be shocked at just how many errors there are in these books which can make make following the examples difficult).

The ACCA course seems to cover a broad range of skills, and not just accountancy but managing people and IT systems too (Disclaimer: It is my wife doing the course so I am only going from my limited knowledge here).

You also have to keep a student training record of the experience you have gained, this is now done on line using the ACCA website which has to be one of the worst websites out there. My wife has spent the last 4 months (at least) trying to complete hers from the old paper based version. The ACCA IT helpdesk is next to useless from what I can see, they tell you it has been sorted yet nothing has changed, they try and update it for her and they can't do it either. The key thing is you need to gain a broad range of experience to qualify in addition to passing all your exams.

My best advice would be to speak to somebody who has completed the course and ask them lots of questions and see if it is for you.