Hi, I have recently joined this forum, as it seems a really helpful site. I am currently studying the Technician stage of the AAT, so fingers crossed i should qualify this august. And i really want to carry on to do ACCA or cima. I dont have much experience i have worked for companies doing purchase ledger work and credit control stuff but thats pretty much it. I really want to set up as a self employed bookkeeper once i have qualified with the AAT. Would any suggest how i could possible get some vital bookkeeping experience, i have been looking for a new job for the last year but it is really quite on the job front. Any help!!!
Once you are MAAT MIP you can pretty much do most things that an accountant can including signing accounts (for sole traders and smaller limited companies) and giving tax advice.
If you then took the ACCA route although you would have exemption from the first three ACCA papers due to your AAT status, you would be subject to the more draconian ACCA rules on what you can and cannot do so you would only be allowed to do bookkeeping to trial balance, do VAT and Payroll.
Having AAT combined with Credit control and Purchase ledger experience should open doors for temp work. Have a chat to your local Reed offices and tell them what your attempting to do. When they've met you and put a face to you they will genuinely try to sell you into a relevant position.
Be flexible on the money you want for starters. Be nice to the agent and fingers crossed you should be in a relevant position in no time.
You could really do with finding properly supervised roles as your going to need one year supervised in order to get your MAAT status.
Good luck with everything and I hope that this short reply helps.
Kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thank you for your reply. I will get in contact with an agency, hopefully they can help. So is it actually worth doing acca or cima then if you cant do the work because they wont let you, thats a bit wrong isnt it!!
very wrong especially for those who were permitted to do the work before starting the advanced studies.
I believe CIMA is more lenient than the ACCA. CIMA however is more management accounting and ACCA more on the financial side.
You may find that MAAT is all that you will actually ever need from that side. Why not finish the AAT then go on to do ATT to become a tax technician as well as an accounting technician.
You could take your ATT as CPD so basically put the cost off against your business rather than the money coming out of your own pocket.
If you enjoy the tax side then perhaps you could then go on to CTA to become a Certified Tax Accountant which is just as well thought of as ACCA's but you don't go through the anguish of not being able to prepare accounts for five to seven years!
Trust me, take the time that you think ACCA will take and double it. The pass mark is only 50% but most exams only around 30% to 40% of students get through each paper!
If you want to have a look at any of the old exam papers paper F5 is financial reporting so would be a good one to get a feel for what the questions are like at the next level up.
Have a glance at the past papers for F5 on the ACCAGlobal website. They're free to access.
Wishing you the very best of luck,
All the best,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
afraid that I don't know on this one. Robs our resident ATT person but he took his exams some time ago and the exam structure looks to have changed a lot since then.
From what I can make out there are seven exams to sit and each one comes in two parts.
The books are seriously expensive. BUT, you don't need a training provider so you just self study and sit exams twice a year.
ATT is a very, very strong string to your bow and the perfect accompaniment to AAT.
Have a firk around over on http://www.att.org.uk/
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
thank you for your reply, I have been looking at BPP website, that was the first to come to my mind, don't really know much about them.
To complete your ATT, you must do all of the following:
Core papers: Paper 1 - Personal Taxation
Paper 2 - Business Taxation and Accounting
Paper 7 - Practice Administration and Ethics Non-core PapersTo complete your ATT, you must choose one from the following four:
Paper 3 - Business Taxation: Higher Skills
Paper 4 - IHT, Trusts and Estates
Paper 5 - VATPaper 6 - Business Compliance
It also said that you can choose to take exams separately, and do just the ones that you feel are relevant, but to be fully qualified ATT then you have to do the above.
-- Edited by lor on Sunday 4th of April 2010 01:01:36 PM
