Accounting geek question - ACCA or ACA?

[heezay]

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?

Hiya mate, I was in the same position last year. Although I never really studied past GCSE and even then did crap. Depends which route you want to go down, due to those reasons Ive gone down the "Mature Student Entry" route, although this means that wihtout the relevant qualifications you dont get exempted from any papers, it does allow you to start fresh from the beginning, only requirements down this route is, you pass F2 and F3 within 2 years. After that all the same rules apply to everyone such as completing everything within 10 years and once Professional papers have been completed, you still require 3 years practical experience (whether it be future or past experience taken into account) to be fully completed and be certified as a qualified accountant. I plan to get out of here so ACCA suited me the best although I heard that ACA is harder but ACCA have quite a big global recognition and based almost everywhere. In all honesty if you still wanted to do ACA, you can be ACCA qualified and still do ACA, obiously you'll be exempted from quite a lot of papers but option still there.