Any Accountant Types in the House?

cat_with_no_tail

It looks like work will shortly be wanting me to do ACCA quals.

Looking at the college down the road, they offer ACCA and CAT.

Apparently if I do CAT first, I can skip the "knowledge" part of the ACCA.

If you've done these, how would you reccomend going abbout it? Take CAT seperately, or combine it all with ACCA. It's all very confusing.

FWIW, I have no formal accountancy qualifications, and I guess, fairly basic knowledge of the area.

Cost not an issue as they're happy to pay for either option.

Also, how long would you expect it to take, I'll obviously be working full-time while doing them, I'm thinking 4 years purely at a guess and going off what the college estimates?

Just realized I've never actually asked a question in the hub before. Yay

Thewaylander

Wouls say AAT is a nice way to start, can do it in 2 year and it virtually clears the first year of ACCA. then you should about 2 years of acca exams left. but if you have a degree and are pretty sharp with being able to swap I'd go straight ACCA, you will be playing catch up but if your determined its not to bad.

Further more what type of accounts do you want to begin working in, if you prefer management accounting and reporting maybe CIMA would be a better body to study under?

Not really sure where your trying to get too so hard to recommend a way.

cat_with_no_tail

Hmmm, will have to look into that.

Essentially, the job is working with FP&A as a regional marketing analyst. I've got all the other stuff I need to do it, they just said an accountancy qualification is desirable, and as they're paying, I'm not one to argue.

I do think that CIMA sounds more relevant. Will look into that.

Thewaylander

I would say for that job Cima definately sounds more relevant.

Won't make a huge difference overall but it will provide you more of bias towards your work so. thats a way forward.

tlw1

Cima is high level accounts - is that a route you want to take?

Other option is do an MBA, esp if work are paying. It covers finance to a reasonable level but also all other areas too

CraigXXL

The CAT is 10 papers of which a few can be done computer based exams. ACCA foundation is 3 papers which can be done easily within a year.
I went the CAT then ACCA route and wished I'd just done the later. There is a lot of overlap between the two qualifications meaning wasted time. If you have no former accountancy experience then I suggest the Franks Woods Business Accounting Volume 1 which will give you a good understanding of double entry bookkeeping through to the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet in easy to follow steps.
CAT and ACCA exams are taken in June and December so if you start with the Frank Woods book now and go to college for in September for the December exam sittings and do ACCA F1 and F2.

cat_with_no_tail

Sweet!

Cheers for all the advice. Think my best bet at this point is going to be for me to try and get some clarification as to EXACTLY what I'll be using this for. Then I'll have a better idea of what sort of level to go for. See with me being a noob, I was rather naively thinking there might be like 1 "standard" thing to go for. Comprehension fail on my part I feel :P

Thewaylander

matthew h wrote:

Cima is high level accounts - is that a route you want to take?

Other option is do an MBA, esp if work are paying. It covers finance to a reasonable level but also all other areas too

yeh make sure you know what you do need, as with the MBA suggested here your not at level high enough to sign off.

t4tomo

Do either CIMA or ACCA, the syllabuses (?syllabi?) are pretty similar and both quals similarly recognised.

As long as you are reasonably bright, then skip the AAT / CAT and go straight into the relavent foundation course.

Have a word with you management / financial accounts teams, see if / where they are studying / studied - it might be that one is better for the revision courses etc than the other