Hi Shamus,
Many thanks for the detailed explanation around the Sage courses. I have gone through these links now. These indeed helped me in understanding sage courses better.

Having completed my old course material on Book Keeping from Home Learnin college, I would like to get on with Sage 50 Accounts (assuming Sage 50 gives more job opportunities). Before I buy and practice the course material and work for the certification, could you please give me an idea if there are any prerequisites to take up the Sage 50 Accounts course.

Thanks very much for all your inputs.

Lakshmi.

-- Edited by lakshmisri on Sunday 25th of March 2012 06:01:34 PM

Hi Lakshmi,

no prerequisits at all.

the Sage 50 courses come in three levels and should ideally be attempted in sequence as each level builds on the last.

Level I is very straight forwards just going through the basics. There is nothing at this level that you should not have covered with Sage instant accounting.

Level II is slightly more complex covering VAT, Bank recs, yearend procedures, management reports, etc.

Level III as you would expect is the most complex level and covers stock control, month end reporting, foreign trading etc.

Actually, on the Sage instants front after posting earlier I cam accross this on Amazon which includes the workbooks and certification for the 2012 version (didn't think that they made this anymore)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sage-Instant-Accounts-Study-Course/dp/1906048495/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332696238&sr=1-3

And the Sage 50 version (all three levels plus certifications and a 180 day trial version of Sage line 50 2012).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sage-Accounts-Workbooks-Stage-Bundle/dp/B006FDSFSU/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1332696447&sr=1-1-catcorr

HTH,

Shaun.

Hi Lakshimisi,

whilst it shows that you've taken the time to get a qualification in using the software its not actually manadatory to complete any of them.

Employers tend to be interested in experience rather than qualifications in the software but Certification shows that you have been able to master a peice of software. Employers though are really more interested in your qualification with a supervisory body such as AAT (You didn't mention which bodies exams that you took with HLC).

The job markets still not brilliant in this area with a lot of bookkeepers and accountants out there without work. The only group virtually able to guarantee work are Chartered Accountants and Tax professionals (ACA & CTA) which is an area where there are always more jobs than people to fill them. (by the way, don't confuse ACA with ACCA, or AAT with ATT, all totally different ).

There is an expectation that you will be able to use Sage and Excel unsupervised. That aside it's all experience that matters.

I think that I can see where you are coming from with your learning requirements so I'll fit a bit of career rather than Sage advice into this reply.

Rather than spending a fortune on all three levels of Sage certification get yourself trained in the basics of Sage 50 (maybe the level I course) and then use your professional qualification with whichever supervisory body you went with to find some short term temping positions in Sales or Purchase order processing through a company such as Reed.

The temping jobs will not be where you want to end up but they will give you the software skills that you need to move onto something better as you will have the experience to sell yourself.

Do your home finance planning using Excel and keep playing with all of it's functions including pivot tables and Vlookups so that everything about it is second nature to you.

Another advantage of doing only level I Sage is that you could attain the other levels whilst working and get the 180 trial for each new version so, planning ahead :

Stage I - Sage 2012

Stage II - Sage 2013

Stage III - Sage 2014

Or even do them one year out of Sync if you can pick up a 2011 version cheaply now. (Whilst front ends change, under the bonnet Sage never really changes that much but like Excel they just move stuff around to make seemingly with the sole purpsoe of making it more difficult to find!).

All in all it's important to understand how to use Sage but it's equally important to remember that it's just one peice of software amongst many and the companies that you end up working with may use something completely different such as Quickbooks, IRIS, SAP, their own bespoke system or any number of other peices of software.

All of the above assumes that you are interested only in permanent work, for self employment the advice would be given from a different angle (See almost every other post on the site!).

If it will help your confidence to pass all three levels of Sage then by all means do it and I wish you luck but at the end of the day there are no guarantee's of employment no matter what you do but hopefully the above will help you to take a step in the right direction.

kindest regards,

Shaun.