Accounting geek question - ACCA or ACA?

Given me more to think about, maybe I'll dig up this thread next year if I remember.

No, I don't have a clear career path in my head.

I was leaning towards ACCA just because I don't know what kind of accountancy job I'm going to get, which might exclude me from doing the ACA. I'm thinking I should look into CIMA as well.

There's a Reed and Hays near my office (London, they're everywhere), think I'll have a talk with one of them before the end of the year. I know it should be obvious but that's good advice, I didn't even think to do this thanks.

Btw thanks for helpful emssages especially Robbie G, robskinner, Pudney@work, Castiel's wife Susie and all :D
 
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Only 'cause you're a nation of tight fisted penny pinchers
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vonhelmet said:
Corporate, though I did the individuals and OMB advisory papers for CTA as I was told advanced corp tax was harder!
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That's the way KPMG do it to. They've merged things too so that we do:

IHT, Corporate Tax & VAT awareness paper
Individuals advisory
Owner managed business advisory
A&I <-- exempt as we do CA TPE exam! The year above us are pretty annoyed we got the exemption and they didn't.
 
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Kemik said:
That's the way KPMG do it to. They've merged things too so that we do:

IHT, Corporate Tax & VAT awareness paper
Individuals advisory
Owner managed business advisory
A&I <-- exempt as we do CA TPE exam! The year below us are pretty annoyed we got the exemption and they didn't.
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The year above are too dammit!
 
Extending this accounting thread a bit sorry. Thinking out loud a bit.

I think I'll talk to Reed or another good agency sometime soon. I like the tax units, and I still don't really know what I'm aiming for.

Studying...

AAT - Will finish by February 2011 (fingers crossed), when I start the last NVQ I want to study the optional units, "Personal Tax" and "Business Tax". I find the tax modules quite interestering.

I'll have the option to study...

ACCA - for two years, I can also get the Oxford Brookes degree. I still think this isn't quite so highly regarded as the ACA as a lot of people have pointed out (the ACA lovers seem to slightly outvote ACCA), but I also get the impression that with some experience and good work under your belt nobody really cares too much.

ACA - for three years. I may be misinformed but I've read somewhere you can only take the final exams on the third year of your training contract. This is another problem for me as my current role is completely unrelated to finance or accounting, I'm not sure I could get such a job with only two thirds of an NVQ and no relevant experience or University education.

CIMA - I know least about, I'm going to read up on some more. From what I understand it focuses slightly less on audit, is slightly more restricted than the others but is very good for management accounting. Not so good for practice or auditing but it still covers this.
 
Think someone mentioned it elsewhere but once you have eg ACCA you will get very heavy exemptions from eg CIMA should you wish to switch, or maintain both, you can have more than one active membership they are not exclusive.
My old man is both FCMA and FCCA, he took CIMA first then did ACCA with exemptions from pretty much all apart from Audit related papers.
There was some talk CIMA accountants would get the ability to sign off accounts, the body has moved on a long way since it was the Chartered Association of Cost Accountants.
Experience > all though when it comes to this sort of area, jobs will often be advertised with 3+ years PQE (post qualified experience) or more. Some may be 10 years PQE plus been at least a senior manager etc. Its their first way of short listing basically.
 
I've been in the industry for years and am qualified myself and can say for definite ACCA or ACA is the way to go. (I chose ACCA)

These days it is a little bit easier due to the final three exams not having to be done at the same time and passed in one go - that was stressful!!!!

I haven't read the thread fully but are you intending to get into audit work? If so then have a word with audit firms to see what they suggest
 
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I'm currently wondering if I'm going to be forced to sit AAT before I can start ACCA. I'm 28 (nearly) and have awful A-Level results. (1 C at A Level, an A and a D at A/S Level) and until recently I'd been working in sales or retail roles for the past 8 years. About 8 months ago a friend managed to get me an accounts assistant role in a city insurance firm, where I've been ever since, breeze through my probation, and I'm at the point that they're ready for me to start tacking my exams. I'm currently blitzing my way through the CII certificate for insurance as for some reason that is a company requirement before you can start taking your financial qualifications.

I've already applied for the ACCA membership, although I do have a slighly worrying feeling that ACCA are going to try and push me to take AAT before they'll let me move onto the foundation level ACCA qualification. Has anybody else been in a similar position and can advise?
 
Bump again...

Last part of my AAT. Four options, pick two. Think I'm going for tax...

Principles of credit management
Personal tax
Business tax
External auditing

Is this wise?
 
Principles of credit management are handy. If your going to look for a career in a business rather than "the profession" understanding this area can be seriously helpful.

Personal Tax, most relevant to you day to day, your friends etc, but then people suddenly expect you to tell them 10 ways to save money by adjusting their tax :(

Business Tax, similar to above, but with less day to day usefulness. Any company worth their salt will understand that experts on tax will save them more money than their fee in 99.99% of cases.

External Auditing, yuk auditing, yuk auditing, yuk ....

Seriously ;) though both tax subjects are "easy" if your the sort of person that can learn basic rules and then apply them. Tax is very much right or wrong, in the real world the interpretation is often argued about, but for exams its selecting the correct rule(s) and applying them. Possibly a topic of "advise someone on VAT treatment for xxxyyyzzz" but generally tax is much more "rules and maths"
My tax exam I was finishd within 1.5 hours of a 3 hour exams and passed, you know it or you don't pretty much.
 
robskinner said:
Seriously ;) though both tax subjects are "easy" if your the sort of person that can learn basic rules and then apply them. Tax is very much right or wrong, in the real world the interpretation is often argued about, but for exams its selecting the correct rule(s) and applying them. Possibly a topic of "advise someone on VAT treatment for xxxyyyzzz" but generally tax is much more "rules and maths"
My tax exam I was finishd within 1.5 hours of a 3 hour exams and passed, you know it or you don't pretty much.
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Is that how it is at AAT? Heh. By the time you get to CTA the only right answer to any tax question is "It depends".
 
Sorry confusing when I read that back :)

It was my CIMA tax exam that I blitzed, so you can kinda ignore that comment I guess, the overall principle holds however, tax type stuff is normally easy if you know what your doing, know loads of people that have left tax exams early and passed.
One of my ex staff was doing AAT and hence why I commented that both are "easy", they are straightforward I guess would be better terminology.
 
alex_tank said:
Bump again...

Last part of my AAT. Four options, pick two. Think I'm going for tax...

Principles of credit management
Personal tax
Business tax
External auditing

Is this wise?
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Depends what you want to go for.

I thought doing the two tax ones would be best as being similar subjects....... WRONG!

Plus my dumb tutor put me in under the new scheme but was still on the old scheme so had to take 4 tax exams in total! Doesn't help that our local tax rules were totally different though!

If you want the easy way I would probably do audit and business tax. Probably best option for most sorts of accounting roles and give a good basis for ACCA if you do go on to study that.
 
If I want to go in accountancy from engineering what will be my options? I already have an engineering degree so at what level I can start in accountancy ?
 
WingZero30 said:
If I want to go in accountancy from engineering what will be my options? I already have an engineering degree so at what level I can start in accountancy ?
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Same level as anyone with a degree - apply to an accountancy firm for a training contract. Usually 3yrs (as you need exams + experience).

Take a look at some of the careers pages on the larger accountancy firms - they give you an idea of what it is you're getting into.
 
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