Soldato
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Go for the Ernst & Young job. A top 4 accountancy practice on your cv will do your career wonders in future
Accountants - ACA, ACCA, CIMA
- Thread starter Rosbif
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Go for the Ernst & Young job. A top 4 accountancy practice on your cv will do your career wonders in future
Go for the Ernst & Young job. A top 4 accountancy practice on your cv will do your career wonders in future
A large difference over ACA?
Not really concerned about my salary over the next 3 years, as its training and obviously going to improve tenfold when I qualify.
In a nut shell, is there going to be a difference after qualifying between ACA at a firm outside of the top 100 to ACCA at a top 4 firm?
Also considering that i'm going to have to complete research again and attend another 2 interviews.
In a nut shell, is there going to be a difference after qualifying between ACA at a firm outside of the top 100 to ACCA at a top 4 firm?
Also considering that i'm going to have to complete research again and attend another 2 interviews.
Soldato
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Like Kemick I'm doing CTA and CA. CTA is definitely the harder of the two, as I'm finding out right now!
Soldato
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my mrs has CIMA, never had any problem getting a high paid job at all. this was paid on her behalf by her first company out of uni (she had to work for them for 3 years though), she moved to sophos for a higher salary hated it after 3 months , chose to find a new job and got one within 2 weeks of looking (J+J) on more money, better holidays, car allowance etc.
great profession if you can get into it, but from what she says its a lot of hard work and you have to have a fair amount of drive and cash if you cant get sponsored
great profession if you can get into it, but from what she says its a lot of hard work and you have to have a fair amount of drive and cash if you cant get sponsored
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Soldato
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I have been in the industry 15 years and initially was given some bad advice and wasted 5 years of study for very little.
My own view is as was pointed out earlier that ACCA is the industry standard and does focus a fair bit on management side of things while I would say ACA is more of an audit qualification.
Upon completing ACCA will say that if you are starting out with zero knowledge of accounting you will find it quite difficult and you may be worth starting off with CAT which will give you exemptions (when I did ACCA it gave me exemptions from the first level).
I know a lot of qualified accountants and to be honest I probably know 3 out of well over 80 ACCA.
CAT or AAT may be worth looking at if you want to get into the basics and age is on your side (I know CAT/AAT accountants earning £50k+) and will give you an excellent stepping stone to ACCA or ACA.
The thought of having to learn the basics (double entry etc) when starting ACCA would put me off immediately.
CAT and AAT used to do cram courses which may be one further option.
Oh, by the way I would not look down the road of CIMA, although it is a good course it is not as internationally known qualification compared to ACA or ACCA.
My own view is as was pointed out earlier that ACCA is the industry standard and does focus a fair bit on management side of things while I would say ACA is more of an audit qualification.
Upon completing ACCA will say that if you are starting out with zero knowledge of accounting you will find it quite difficult and you may be worth starting off with CAT which will give you exemptions (when I did ACCA it gave me exemptions from the first level).
I know a lot of qualified accountants and to be honest I probably know 3 out of well over 80 ACCA.
CAT or AAT may be worth looking at if you want to get into the basics and age is on your side (I know CAT/AAT accountants earning £50k+) and will give you an excellent stepping stone to ACCA or ACA.
The thought of having to learn the basics (double entry etc) when starting ACCA would put me off immediately.
CAT and AAT used to do cram courses which may be one further option.
Oh, by the way I would not look down the road of CIMA, although it is a good course it is not as internationally known qualification compared to ACA or ACCA.
I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this thread. I have found the input very useful and hopefully others have too. 
Interestingly the CTA has come up in the progression of this discussion. I have a few questions and if anyone could answer them I would be eternally grateful.
From my limited research of CTA there appears to be nothing from a regulatory or legal point of view that CTA can do which a CA cannot. Is this correct? I'm trying to establish why a CA would do CTA from a cost-benefit view point. I can understand why someone might go from ATT to CTA but not CA to CTA.
Thanks again to everyone
Interestingly the CTA has come up in the progression of this discussion. I have a few questions and if anyone could answer them I would be eternally grateful.
From my limited research of CTA there appears to be nothing from a regulatory or legal point of view that CTA can do which a CA cannot. Is this correct? I'm trying to establish why a CA would do CTA from a cost-benefit view point. I can understand why someone might go from ATT to CTA but not CA to CTA.
Thanks again to everyone
Soldato
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I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this thread. I have found the input very useful and hopefully others have too.
Interestingly the CTA has come up in the progression of this discussion. I have a few questions and if anyone could answer them I would be eternally grateful.
From my limited research of CTA there appears to be nothing from a regulatory or legal point of view that CTA can do which a CA cannot. Is this correct? I'm trying to establish why a CA would do CTA from a cost-benefit view point. I can understand why someone might go from ATT to CTA but not CA to CTA.
Thanks again to everyone
Very little that I'm aware of. It's much more in-depth though, so for purely tax jobs it does give an advantage. I think it's much more legislation based than the accounting qualifications, and once you get into the high end tax staff that makes a massive difference.
You'd be surprised. A friend from the same degree, same uni, same classification working at a Top 10 rather than Big 4 was on 10% less money.
Seen as there's only one Big Four who do both, I assume you're an E1? Email in Trust if you'd prefer not to talk about it on the forums. I'd be interested to talk to more of the E1's seen as they're all on the 9 month program rather than myself (E2).
My employer secured exemptions from cross-exams in mid and top level exams on both CA and CTA qualifications. We do both as they recognise the CA qualification can be very useful from a tax accounting point of view and simply understanding the business better, however CTA is the primary qualification. It goes in to much more detail than CA TPS Taxation (that has an awareness level).
Soldato
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Just started my ATT, exams in November, results in January 
I have a CTA question! what's the 'norm' timescale for completing CTA. I know you can do it in about 6 months if you're insane and attempt all the papers in one go. However would doing it over 12 months or 2 years be the more expected timescale by doing the exams in a couple of sittings???
I have a CTA question! what's the 'norm' timescale for completing CTA. I know you can do it in about 6 months if you're insane and attempt all the papers in one go. However would doing it over 12 months or 2 years be the more expected timescale by doing the exams in a couple of sittings???
Man of Honour
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I don't know for certain but I'd think there's a decent chance you'll be able to get involved in more at a smaller company than you would at a massive one, from that it might well come down to how well you sell yourself for your next job. Then again working at a Big 4 firm is somewhat unlikely to be looked on unfavourably.
There's currently a proposal between CIMA and the AICPA to work on a joint-venture which ought to boost the profile of both although it's yet to be ratified.
There's also the consideration that working for one of the Big 4 may well mean less of a work/life balance - I don't know what happens at each but anecdotally at least it seems much more pressured. I'd guess that it's rather similar to what happens at big law firms, they employ more than they need/expect to make it - for those that stick it out the rewards can be great but a fair proportion will burn out or never get marked as the "stars" who'll get the promotions.
KPMG used to spread the ICAS exams over two and a half years with CTA exams all done at once. Study in Edinburgh was completed over about a 12 week period with the exams at the end of the revision.
The newest intake does all exams (CA + CTA) in the space of 9 months with the final CA (TPE) at the end of the 3 years. Intensive is one way to put it. Speaking to some of them, they're in school pretty much every day from 9am til 8pmish either learning or revising. I think they might have to change it next year!
From personal experience, it depends on what exams you pick but if you do Awareness in November (I done IHT, VAT & Corporation tax) and then the two advisory papers in May (Individuals and OMB go well together). This gives you scope to resit the Advisory papers in November if you fail (about 50% do) without the rates/legislation changing. Finally, you sit A&I in May or November the following year. Be warned, A&I is a VERY difficult paper! Doing CTA shouldn't be sniffed at. CIOT switching to modular has helped pass rates but I've been told they refuse to release any form of decent syllabus so the training companies have to guess! The exams are extremely difficult too. Look at the pass rates with the exam commentary if you want an idea.
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I honestly can't see much benefit, aside from cutting time spent out of the office on studying, in pushing so much through in such a short time, when you need 3 years experience anyway.
Kemik said:
CTA is very hard. I think the syllabus is basically the legislation.
A tutor of mine with my previous employer, where I did most of my studying, had a lot of contacts at the CIOT and was always pressing for info on the syllabus. The most he could ever get was "X is not on the syllabus" where X was "farmer's averaging" or whatever. You could ask be told yay or nay, but that was about it. He inferred a lot of things and came up with a syllabus of sorts, but he wouldn't be held to it being remotely accurate.
ACA -v- ACCA
ACCA was formed in 1904, went through a number of mergers and in 1974 it had been granted a Royal Charter and became the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. Now it has over 493,500 members and students in 170 countries. Members are Chartered Certified Accountants.
ICAEW (ACA) was granted a Royal Charter in 1880, giving their members the right to use the designation ‘chartered accountant’. Many of the founding fathers of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms were early ICAEW presidents. Now it has over 136,000 members around the world.
ACCA was formed in 1904, went through a number of mergers and in 1974 it had been granted a Royal Charter and became the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. Now it has over 493,500 members and students in 170 countries. Members are Chartered Certified Accountants.
ICAEW (ACA) was granted a Royal Charter in 1880, giving their members the right to use the designation ‘chartered accountant’. Many of the founding fathers of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms were early ICAEW presidents. Now it has over 136,000 members around the world.
Hi again I'm back
I'm back with some very basic questions. I'm trying to work out exactly what does an ACA/ACCA do that an AAT cannot?
Having looked over letters of engagement templates on the AAT website someone who was AAT would be able to do the following: Annual accounts sole traders/partnerships/limited companies, personal taxation of individuals/sole traders/partners, partnership tax, corporation tax, payroll, PAYE and NI, VAT returns and management accounts.
It is my understanding that AAT are not authorised to audit.
Apart from auditing what does ACA/ACCA give you over AAT?
Once again thanks for everyones excellent input
I'm back with some very basic questions. I'm trying to work out exactly what does an ACA/ACCA do that an AAT cannot?
Having looked over letters of engagement templates on the AAT website someone who was AAT would be able to do the following: Annual accounts sole traders/partnerships/limited companies, personal taxation of individuals/sole traders/partners, partnership tax, corporation tax, payroll, PAYE and NI, VAT returns and management accounts.
It is my understanding that AAT are not authorised to audit.
Apart from auditing what does ACA/ACCA give you over AAT?
Once again thanks for everyones excellent input
I dunno - my old uni flatmate did his CTA exams and the jaffa cakes/EU court case story was barely amusing the first time he told it - can't imagine what other CTA banter must have been like.
Still I guess its more interesting than auditing at least.