Change of career at 44! - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Change of career at 44!

Matt45 · Member

Hi,

I am looking for advice on a change of career. I have worked in London for 20 odd years in finance, I am qualified ACCA since 2002 so now FCCA but my career stalled for various reasons and I ended up contracting/temping, all sorts of roles from FC to MA back to FA again, not to mention a project accountant as well!!! The last 6 months of my last contract were at home and it was a real eye opener to be with my kids etc etc. For these reasons, I am considering becoming self employed. After some investigation, I am astonished that ACCA don't let me do much without a practising certificate! From what I can ascertain I am only allowed to do bookkeeping, payroll, VAT returns (submission not allowed though?), Management Accounts (if not relied on by a third party). This is ridiculous, I am not allowed even do self assessment, corporation tax returns or accounts filing????

I really want to give self employment a go but it seems there's not much breadth of services to offer clients, has anybody been in these shoes and what did they do?

Thanks

Matt

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Matt,

welcome to the forum and sorry to hear about your anguish over regulation 8.

To make you even more annoyed if you were qualified overseas with a chartered body but an ACCA student in the UK regulation 8 doesn't apply.

The get around clause is if you have supervision by someone deemed suitably qualified then you are allowed to work as an accountant.

Many ACCA's disappear off to the IFA or AIA both of whome welcome them with open arms as you get fully trained top notch accountants which is certainly helping to increase the way that the IFA is viewed as a serious professional body.

Downside is that if you take that route then you lose your FCCA status as the more draconian regulation 8 always takes precedence over everything else.

The irony of some of the situations that this creates is tragic in that you can have someone such as yourself with 20+ years experience and fully qualified ACCA but is able to offer much less service to clients than someone who has done a few weeks or months getting to AICB status basically making the more qualified and experienced person unable to offer a quality service to clients.

I appreciate that the ACCA needs to make their qualification difficult to achieve otherwise everyone would have it. The problem is that in many cases they are making it near impossible to stay ACCA even though those with the qualification desperately want to keep it.

Personally I've got supervision but I am also now with the IFA and at each ACCA renewal dateit becomes more difficult to justify my annual subscription when the body that I subscribe to is actively making life difficult for me rather than helping.

When the 2012 change came to regulation 8 I excitedly assumed that it had been fixed but the reality was that it seemed to just be the if you are qualified overseas then as a student you can still practice in the UK.

My assumption is that change was included to appease the American institute that they joined up with last year.

The only way the ACCA will fix regulation 8 will be if enough members leave but who wants to be one of those to leave when the qualification is too hard won.

Afraid this is a reply with no answers but just to let you know that you are certainly not alone in your anguish... Go to any IFA meeting and you will find a room half full of ex ACCA people in exactly the same boat.

Good luck moving forwards,

kind regards,

Shaun,

Matt45 · Member

Thanks Shaun. So the solution is to ditch ACCA? Personally, I feel I get little benefit from the membership. Can I leave ACCA for the period of self employment and rejoin at a later date if I ever needed to? So supervision means working under someone in an office, something I am keen to leave behind? I'd like to hear from other ACCAs who made the leap to self employment also.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I'm back.

Wow... there is so much really dangerously bad advice out there espechially on UK Business forums that seems to just have a bunch of people that make it up as they go along!

Aweb had some better posts but not really perfect answers for what I was looking for (Basically, resign, practice, reinstate later).

As always the best place is the ACCA's own site which is where I acquired the following from:

to gain reinstatement they want :

- Any outstanding fees owed at the time you were taken off the register of members
- Subscription fees for all of the years you were off the register
- The current years subscription fee
- The reinstatement fee (currently £49)

So, according to that if you have been an ACCA member and leave in order to practice you can return.

The longer it is, the more expensive it becomes as it's that you are reinstated as though you had always remained a member (can't see any mention of the charge of interest on missed payments).

Also the way that the ACCA bits n bobs read it also sounds as though you need to prove CPD for at least the previous 12 months (cannot find any wording to say that the CPD is not for the entirety of the period that you were absent).

The problem of course is that if you resign now what guarantee is there that the scheme will not change and you might not be able to return?

Now my issue, call me paranoid if you like but if you resign in order to practice self employed and then reinstate as though you never stopped being a member would you then find yourself in a whole heap of trouble for being self employed whilst not a member as return to membership effectively rewrote those years as though you were always a member.

Too many if's, and's, but's and maybe's in this whole work around idea for me to be at all comfortable with it as a viable option.

kind regards,

Shaun.

p.s. even though there is only myself answering at the mo there are plenty of other ACCA people here... And all of them suffering regulation 8.

Matt45 · Member

Thanks fo your help Shaun. As you mention, some input from ACCA qualifieds would be good and how they became self employed. With all due respect, it seems crazy I can't offer anything over and above 'lesser'' qualifications! I passed AAT in the mid nineties and it seems passing ACCA means no extra benefit! it beggars belief ACCA have not positioned themselves adequately in the world of self employment.