Chartered vs. Certified

conky_05

Recently graduated from a business degree, and applied to near every firm in the Dublin area as a graduate for the ACA. Unfortunately have only gotten one interview so far, which I haven't heard back from yet; sign of the times !

Anyway, got a call from one of the big firms recently, and got an interview scheduled. The thing is it's to do ACCA, not ACA. The area I'd be working in if I was to get the job seems very interesting (SME's), and it's mainly audit I'd be doing AFAIK. Basically, the starting pay would be the same as if it was ACA's and I'd get eduation payed for, study leave etc.

I had initially had my heart set on chartered, but when push comes to shove will it really make any difference in the ling run if I'm ACA or ACCA ?

Beggars can't be chosers either !

dbran

Hi

There is not much to chose between them although the ACCA offers more flexible training opportunities then ACA.

However there is definetly a certain snob element to the ACA with certain top jobs reserved (unfairly) for the ACA candidates.

Kind Regards

dbran

conky_05

dbran wrote: »

Hi

There is not much to chose between them although the ACCA offers more flexible training opportunities then ACA.

However there is definetly a certain snob element to the ACA with certain top jobs reserved (unfairly) for the ACA candidates.

Kind Regards

dbran

Thanks for the reply dbran.

I did get the impression that some snobbery was involved !!!! :rolleyes:

Interyurauldone

First of all, dont be too put out by the lack of response from the big 4. I worked on the graduate recruitment process this year in UL for my firm and I was flabergasted by the high standard of candidates. If i was going through the process this year I wldnt have even got an interview with the big 4 let alone a job!

Now to get to your dilemma. I was in your position 4 years ago in the end i chose ACA and passed my FAE's this year so maybe i'm slightly biased.

At the end of the day the qualification is irrelevant it is the person and what they do with it that counts. The most successfull accountants in Ireland come from across all the qualifications. Historically ICAI is the longest established and thus statistically because they are the largest will have more people in prominent positions in Ireland.

If you are going to Australia like every other Accountant at the moment, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) is the body that assesses the qualification status of accountants for immigration purposes. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) is an Approved Overseas Accounting Body, and ACAs can apply for membership of ICAA by doing some additional 'bridging studies' in Australian Tax and Company Law. ACCA is only a partially recognised overseas accounting body, and it is necessary to study Australian Tax and Company Law formally at an Australian university to be able to apply for membership of ICAA. So ACCA certainly has lower status for getting a visa to emigrate to Australia. As far as i know the same applies to NZ.

If I were advising a family member of mine I would probably advice them to go down the ICAI route. As is reflected by some of the comments on this thread ICAI do an abseloutely brilliant job of building brand belief and confidence into their students. For any accountancy student to become a succesfull professional they have to believe in themsleves. ICAI do this really well and ICAI members have unfailling belief in their qualification and will defend it no matter what.

Both are relatively equally recognised. However ACA does hold a more prestigous standing at the moment and personally i think this is down to the fact that a lot of CEO's and FD's are ACA's which again i think is down to the ICAI's brand building.

Both are of a relatively similar standard of difficulty. However the ACA's are getting harder year on year. CAP 1 & CAP 2's had only 50% pass rates this year. FAE's were at a 75% pass rate and i have been informed that they will stay at this level for the next few years.

The high failure rate in ACA over the last few years i think has got to do with the removal of compensation and the bar being raised by the ICAI.

The high failure rate for ACCA I think is clearly attributable to 2 factors:
1) Amount of study leave. You get more time off to study for ACA exams.

2) The quality of candidates; a large percentage are not accountancy graduates, and also the top level of accountancy graduates study ACA through the Big 4 (that's not to say that strong student's dont study ACCA!)

Best of luck, but either way if you get ur exams you'll have a great career ahead of you.

mickbyrne

As an ACCA with my own practice I would highly recommend it as a qualification. Along the way to where I am today I worked in industry as well as practice. If I had chosen ACA I would not have had the flexibility at the time and definately the experience I gained in industry has helpped me to be a better accountant.

smcgiff

conky_05 wrote: »

I had initially had my heart set on chartered, but when push comes to shove will it really make any difference in the ling run if I'm ACA or ACCA ?

You would be chartered. A chartered certified accountant. The Queen of England has given the chartered nod to ACCA just as well as ICAI, ICAS or ICAEW etc. There are naming traditions with ICAS having the most pure recognition as they were the first to get chartered.

When ACCA applied to change its name from Certified Accountant to Chartered Certified Accountant in the 90s the ICAEW objected on the basis that Chartered Certified Accountant sounded better than just Chartered Accountant :rolleyes:

ICAI does have cache, but you'd be foolish, imo, to turn down an ACCA opportunity on this basis alone.

I do believe the ACCA exams were harder than ICAI. They had open book for starters. Plus the failure rate for ACCA finalists was still way higher even though these students had been successful at earlier stage exams and therefore battle hardened as it were. But that's just my opinion.

SJOB

Honestly I do not know if ACA is "better" than ACCA. I am currently doing ACA just passed my CAP 2's and will start studying for the FAE soon. On numerous occasions I have been frustrated by ACA, and even looked into switching over to ACCA but given that I am in the BIG 4 Audit it is not really possible.

However I understand ACCA seems to be more flexible in a sense that you have 10 years to complete the exams (14 in total), you can do as many as you like in any sitting, and you can do your exams outside of your contract. This is not possible with ACA, although they have launched the new Elevation programme - you still cannot choose how many exams you sit each time.

So basically my advice is to go for that ACCA job you have nothing to loose. Plus if say in 5 or ten years time or whatever when you were fully qualified with ACCA I wonder what would you have to do to become qualified also with ACA? I mean I would imagine you would be exempt from most of the exams as they are pretty much both the same so maybe you would have to do very little work? If anybody else knows how to go about this please feel free to post?

smcgiff

SJOB,

I don't know the specifics, but normally it's best to stick with the institution you started with.

However, a couple of things. The 10 year rule, although generous enough as it is, will never apply. That's because every time ACCA change its syllabus the 10 year rule starts for everybody again.:D And as ACCA change their syllabus every few years it's a rule that I can't imagine ever being an issue.

If I were starting out again I would consider the following. ACCA is a more flexible qualification with a very good brand. However, ACA has a better brand.

If an employer was neutral they may prefer the ACA candidate pre interview but would not rule out the ACCA candidate from interview, and from there it's up to each candidate. However there are more ACA's in Ireland than ACCA's (although ACCA is catching up) and may prefer their own brand.

However, I'd not lose much sleep if I were offered a job that required the study for ACCA rather than ACA.

Also, as an ACCA member for 5 years you can now get ICAEW membership (the largest Chartered Accountant's body in the world) by taking a simple exam (you're given an almost identical exam by post to practice on). ICAEW are playing the numbers game and the last I heard not many ACCA's have taken up the ICAEW on their offer.

Finally, unlike the ICAEW qualification I'd be interested in the ICAI qualification because it's Irish, but far too lazy to take the FAE which is what I believe I'd have to take to join.

hoon

I went the ACCA route and my main reason for choosing it is it's international recognition. In the country I'm from the ACA would not have been fully recognised and I would have had to take additional exams to become a member of a local chartered institution. With regards to the ACCA the exams are the same worldwide (if you choose the international vs. local GAAP) so it is easy to transfer accross different countries.

SoulTrader

Really don't think there's much difference between ACA and ACCA. As mentioned above, the reason one might choose one designation over another is mostly just snobbery.

The high failure rate for ACCA I think is clearly attributable to 2 factors:
1) Amount of study leave. You get more time off to study for ACA exams.

Think it depends more on the employer than the organisation, so maybe Interyerauldone is speaking from personal experience. As far as I'm aware, the ACA demand a certain amount of study leave for their candidates, whereas the ACCA only recommend it, not demand. I trained in a small practice where the employer gave ACCA students as much study leave as ACA students.

Not sure about all this "brand" nonsense - I think it depends upon your own experience - you may be inclinced to go a particular route because a friend or a family member chose that same route, or advice from a career guidance counsellor or employer.

Either way, as other people have said - it's the quality of the candidate really that will make all the difference to your career. There are differences between the two, but none so telling that it merits all the snobbery between the members of the organisations.

slave1

This is an interesting debate, but a debate had time and time again in this forum.

It was well outlined earlier
ACCA = ACA both of which > CIMA

ACCA = flexibility
ACA = snobbery

Everyone here is biased as few (if any) are both ACCA and ACA

I'm ACCA and happy with my choice.

smcgiff

slave1 wrote: »

ACCA = ACA both of which > CIMA

Too much of a generalisation as in circumstances CIMA > ACCA or ACA

JD Dublin

Yes you can say that ACCA has a lower pass rate. That does not necessarily mean a whole lot unless you analyse the following factors:
1.People doing ACA are likely to be BComm / Bach of Bus Studies graduates with strong credentials in accounting, usually with 2.1 honours. On the other hand anyone that has the money can look to apply to do ACCA exams.
2.ACA students have to do 'approved' courses set up by the ICAI, using some of the best lecturers in the country. They monitor attendance at lectures, which some people get over by getting colleagues to sign them in for lectures ( I'm not sure if this still goes on ). ACCA people go to commercial organisations who will sell a course for money, and whether you go or not is up to you.
3.ACA people get guaranteed paid study leave - ACCAs may have paid study leave, or may have to take unpaid leave.

Also ACA people have a training contract. Now the odds are still stacked in favour of the employer, however it is not always easy for them to fire a trainee. ACCA people usually are there on a month - to - month basis.

Just to give you some background - I am an ACA, my father did ACCA and he reckoned I shoud do ACA - why beat yourself up by doing ACCA when you can go the 'easy' route and do ACA? I too had the option of doing ACCA - there were plenty of jobs in the last recession when I was looking for a job. But why would I spend 3-4 years getting my degree and then take my chances on a month - to - month ACCA 'contract'?

Take my advice and continue looking for an ACA contract, wait a year if you have to, ACCA is more difficult to get through, and at the end, rightly or wrongly, ACA is percieved to be a better qualification. A lot of that is due to the snob value of being associated with the large accounting practises where 80% of ACAs train. Nuff said.

The CCAinsider

I am both ACA and ACCA. I agree with most of what was said above except a few points of clarification:

The international recognition bit is irrelevant. You will not be signing audit reports in Australia when you are over there on your 1 year visa. If you move there permanently AND you decide to work in practice, you will want to do local tax and local company law just to keep up to speed but the chances are that you will work in industry or banking and will have no interest in getting an Australian qualification because by that stage in your carer it is what you have done at work and not your qualification that counts. ACCA has offices in 70 countries including Australia but ACA has an association with lots of chartered bodies of varying degrees of respectability in lots of countries as well. By the time you go to a particular country the mutual recognition may have changed.

With ACA you do your exams in Ireland only. Get a transfer in work to Siberia (or should that be a punishment) and you have to come back for exams. With ACCA you can do your exams in pretty much any country in the world, including Russia. Want to take a year off studying – you really can’t with ACA, with ACCA you can. The flexibility in the timing and location of your exams is a big difference between both qualifications.

The ACCA 10 year rule will be more strictly enforced in future, apparently all future changes to the syllabi will be incremental rather than big bang. But if you can’t finish 14 exams in 10 years (and 20 exam sittings) you probably should have done accounting technician.

In terms of numbers of students and members in the Republic of Ireland CAI (they changed their name from ICAI) has 16,969 and ACCA has 16,963; both figures per the IAASA annual report. So the person who said that CAI was bigger was correct but only by 3. Worldwide ACCA has 120,000 members and CAI have 17,000. 51% of all accounting students in Ireland are studying ACCA

Lower pass rates in ACCA are partially caused by a number of non native English speakers taking the exams in Ireland. There is also less pressure to pass exams, if you fail ACA 2 or 3 times you are kicked out. An ACCA student might enter for 3 papers, change to a high pressure job and decide to just do 1 paper seriously and make a good attempt at the other two, but just concentrate on 1 paper. Also only worldwide pass rates are published, Irish pass rates are higher and pass rates for B. Comm and other accounting type degree people are comparable to ACA. Anybody can start ACCA, so an unemployed solicitor could be doing the exams and may find them more challenging than somebody who did a relevant degree.

Interyurauldone

The CCAinsider wrote: »

I am both ACA and ACCA. I agree with most of what was said above except a few points of clarification:



In terms of numbers of students and members in the Republic of Ireland CAI (they changed their name from ICAI) has 16,969 and ACCA has 16,963; both figures per the IAASA annual report. So the person who said that CAI was bigger was correct but only by 3. Worldwide ACCA has 120,000 members and CAI have 17,000. 51% of all accounting students in Ireland are studying ACCA

In my professional opinion as an ACA i think the difference is actually 6 and not 3!! (CAI has 16,969 - ACCA 16,963). Clearly the ACCA have comprimised your ability to subtract!!

Only joking before people start going mental with me!

smcgiff

LOL JDDublin. I love the spin you put on indenture. Plus I've heard enough ACA students complain about their lectures to not fully endorse your view of the ACA lecture system.

siobhancoyle

would ACCA, chartered or CPA give anymore benefits if you intend to go the auditing route....Ill not be going to Auz or Nz but I would see myself working in both Ireland and Northern Ireland...Ive heard CPA are easiest of all the exams ...is there any truth in this?

Or is this all irrelevant talk as we-ll have to go with whatever Inst. our employer is linked to!!!!

smcgiff

siobhancoyle wrote: »

would ACCA, chartered or CPA give anymore benefits if you intend to go the auditing route....Ill not be going to Auz or Nz but I would see myself working in both Ireland and Northern Ireland...Ive heard CPA are easiest of all the exams ...is there any truth in this?

Or is this all irrelevant talk as we-ll have to go with whatever Inst. our employer is linked to!!!!

The CPA exam structure can make passing them very tough. I think you've to take all exams subjects at the early stages together and pass the final stages each in four sittings (2 years) or lose all passes. Reason enough not to do CPA imo.

Would suggest Chartered route, either ACCA or ACA if given the choice, but your employer may have a preference.

The Nice Jumper

smcgiff wrote: »

CIMA > ACCA or ACA

Agreed.

ACA is generally just for practice.

You get variations of the same questions on papers from all of them, CPA included. Apparently CPA is the more highly thought of in the USA, as in most people over there have never heard of the others.

Sand Wedge

Once again it has to be pointed out that CPA in America is not affilated with CPA Ireland.

KlausFlouride

I did ACCA (4 years I'm never getting back) and have worked in industry but in any interviews I've done, the qualification has only been mentioned in passing if at all. Employers and agencies are more interested in what you have experience of doing. If I had it over I've have done the Tax exams, at least that's something you might use even if they don't seem as employable. Suppose ultimately you have to have a CIMA/ACA/ACCA qual but I'd be amazed if anyone found them worthwhile other than as a foot in the door at interviews. The stuff you cover ACCA is so general as to be useless.

smcgiff

The Nice Jumper wrote: »

Agreed.

Thanks, but you are misquoting me

smcgiff

KlausFlouride wrote: »

I did ACCA (4 years I'm never getting back) and have worked in industry but in any interviews I've done, the qualification has only been mentioned in passing if at all.QUOTE]

Would it be fair to ask what type of work you are interviewing for?

dbran

Hi

I would suspect that without the qualification you wouldn't have been at the interview at the first place.:D

dbran

KlausFlouride

Would it be fair to ask what type of work you are interviewing for?[/quote]


Manufacturing/Industry jobs rather than audit or FS. Not exactly the future but you have to start somewhere!