Hi,

I graduated in 2010 with a BSc in Computer Science, but decided along the way I didn't want to pursue a career as a software developer. Since graduating, I've been getting some good office experience working for insurance companies and banks, but applying for accountancy (mainly audit) jobs/training contracts in the meantime with very little success.

So I've started to think about independent study as a means to build up my knowledge and look more pro-active, and it seems CFAB is a good choice for this as it requires no work experience to complete. If I managed to land an ACA training contract with a firm during or after qualification it would also provide 6 exemptions, although I think I'd actually prefer to work in the public sector and with charities so I know CIPFA would be the optimal route but they offer no 'introduction' qualifications that I can see.

So, I was wondering if people would recommend CFAB to someone in my position, or are there better ways/more suitable qualifications that I should be investigating? One thing to note is that I've looked into doing a masters course for Accounting & Finance, a few of which exist in the UK that are tailored to someone who isn't from a finance background, but this is a big commitment due to the cost as it would pretty much eat up my entire life savings!

David

Hi Shaun,

Thanks very much for the reply.

Firstly, I *think* I would like to work in the public sector, simply because it opens up the way to work for the civil service and international bodies, as well as charities, and I think I'd prefer working in that kind of environment over working in industry (CIMA territory from what I gather), although I don't think I'd be adverse to working in practice either. However, as CIPFA training vacancies are very limited, I thought my best bet would be to start off on ACA or ACCA, or at least 'introduction' courses offered by these two organisations i.e. CFAB and the ACCA foundations one to prove my commitment and show I'm being proactive in learning accounting rather than just waiting to find a job that will give me all the training for free. I'm assuming if I then went on to be fully or partially qualified with ACA or ACCA, I would be able to make the move into CIPFA and working with public bodies far more easily than the situation at the moment where I have no relevant work experience or qualifications.

With regards to the ACCA foundation certificates, as you mention it they're broadly equivelant to CFAB from ICAEW. However, it seems like CFAB offers more variety in the subjects covered (such as law & tax modules), and it also looks like the foundations for accountancy certificates offer no exemptions to the full ACCA course, so CFAB definitely seems like the better option of those 2.

AAT is something I have been looking at , but a lot of vacancies for these positions are aimed at school leavers and they don't want graduates applying. Nevertheless, this is an option i'm definitely open to, although not 1 I think I'd do self study as I'd need the relevant work experience to qualify and I'd hate to do all the exams and be stuck needing work experience as I couldn't actually say I had *any* qualification despite passing the exams, which could be the same situation I would be in doing ACCA independently. If I were to do the 'diploma in accounting and business' offered by ACCA, I guess that would provide some exemptions from ACCA which I could then go on to study independently whilst also being able to say I had some qualifications, so it really seems like a tossup between ACCA diploma or CFAB.

Sorry this post has just been mostly rambling, it's just there's so many qualifications and sub-qualifications and entry level qualifications and routes to get them all (I haven't even touched on fulltime courses offered by universities to get these qualifications, or specialist tutor firms that offer long-distance learning like Kaplan or BBP which I'm consider going with), it's almost impossible to know which is the right way to go and it's all very confusing. I'd say at the moment it's looking like CFAB (which is basically the first 6 exams you'd study for ACA) vs ACCA diploma (which is the first 3 exams of full ACCA). What do you reckon? Am I just complicating matters when in fact there's very little difference and post-qualification opportunity between the two?

Thank you again,

David

Yeah I'm aware of that too, which is another reason why going ACA/ACCA at the moment is the best choice considering the lack of job opportunities in the public sector. Hopefully things will pick up in a few years time.

Hi David,

looking forwards to chatting lots with you on your journey to qualification.

On the taking 2 papers in June. Another way to look at the first few ACCA papers is that its the equivalent of the entirety of the AAT syllabus which takes 2-3 years to achieve so even though the first three papers are comparitively simple when when looks at them compared to papers after F3 they should not be taken lightly.

Look at your first sitting as mocks and if you pass then so much the better.

The first three papers in real world terms are :

F1 Accounting Theory

F2 Management Accounting

F3 Financial Accounting

For each one the subject matter is huge but you won't get a real feel for that until your later studies (F3 leads into F7 and F8, F1 leads straight to P1 and P3, F2 leads into F9).

For your first sitting aim to do either F1 and F2 or F1 and F3. Doing F2 and F3 together is too much for a single sitting for someone new to this as management and financial accounting are quite different beasts but you will need to become equally proficient at both of them.

These first three papers will form the foundations of almost everything that follows so although they are relatively straight forwards, really make sure that you understand not just how to do things but why things are done in the way that they are.

On the ACCA front be aware that once you sign up you become severely restricted as to services that you can offer on a self employed basis (refer to ACCA regulation 8 which is the bug bear of many a bookkeeper holding or studying towards an ACCA qualification).

kind regards,

Shaun.

Hi KTC,

we were talking there about ACCA and David sitting as an independant but I know what you mean as I've seen that sort of attitude prevelant amongst some managers.

Also of course major firms expect people working for them to pass first time but they don't expect to hire people based on having passed first time, they're really not interested. They want either experience or people straight from Uni. If you've got the experience they need then the qualification is the gravy and they don't care how many times it took to pass the exams.

Another issue of course with the quality exams is that they are essay format and hence a lot of passing is down to pure luck of getting a marker who got out of bed on the right side that morning.

I've seen people who I've had dumped on me who I wouldn't even trust to cross the road unaided but they have sailed through their exams and conversely I've had people who were basically running accounting departments get shock failures. As such I give absolutely no credence to the pass first time mentality and if someone has passed the exams then I would be perfectly happy to interview them then it's all down to the "Could I spend the next six months of my life sitting opposit this person" test... You would be surprised at how many people who are perfect on paper fail that one abysmally.

At one client site the agency was filtering candidates based purely on CV's and what we were getting through were not basically fit to sharpen pencils without risk of them hurting themselves. After several quite high profile site removals the senior management was getting concerned that they needed bums and seats quickly and got me to speak with the agency about what was going wrong and this led to me reviewing the cv's that were being rejected.

I took the role on myself of staffing the project rather than letting the agency reject on our behalf. I did 400 telephone interviews, 60 face to face interviews and of those all but two ended up being offered positions and the contribution of the 48 who accepted resulted in the project being a major success.

All of the people that I employed had been rejected by the agency for grounds similar to the pass first time issue that you speak of (plus issues with agencies looking for specific words rather than equivalents... This is the issue when you get trained monkeys reviewing CVs!).

All in all I'm not convinced that the pass first time is anything for David to worry about so long as he get's a pass. The only time that pass first time comes into play is where an employer is paying for the training and you fail in which case some of the bigger boys cut down the number of trainee's that they have purely on that dubious and often very unfair basis. (I've lost people that should have remained and been stuck with people that should have been given the push but got passes).

Anyway, all in all I don't believe that passing first time is anything for David to worry about. He just needs to pass and then try and get some interest without experience which may be a serious stumbling block in Davids plans.

Kind regards,

Shaun.

Where are you thinking of travelling to David?

I can highly recommend Thailand for a time out year.