Graduating and considering the accountancy route

Jayo180

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before.

Im graduating from an honours business degree come June and im unsure what direction to go for. Accountancy is a route ive considered for some time and just wondering what the best way to go about becoming a qualified accountant.

Would you reccommend trying to get an accountant to take me on and get experience and complete the relevant exams? whats the likelyhood of this happening? My degree exempts me from certain exams as ive completed bits of accounting during the course.

Thanks in advance for your advice,
Jayo

MonsterMob

the applications for the big 4 accountancy firms are in november so you've missed the boat for starting with them next year. you can always apply to smaller firms though if you want to go the ACA route. you could also apply to the banks/industry and sit the ACCA exams.

Jayo180

Cheers, im going to send out a few cv's and see what happens, if no opportunity arrises i will apply for the big firms when their applications open up again.

As regards the different accounting associations (CIMA, ACCA etc...) is there any one better than the other or more regarded in industry. im aware it depends on what branch of accounting your looking into, but from the point of view of having a qualification is there any of them prefered over another?

The Big Red Button

Jayo180 wrote: »

Cheers, im going to send out a few cv's and see what happens, if no opportunity arrises i will apply for the big firms when their applications open up again.

As regards the different accounting associations (CIMA, ACCA etc...) is there any one better than the other or more regarded in industry. im aware it depends on what branch of accounting your looking into, but from the point of view of having a qualification is there any of them prefered over another?

There really is so much on this forum about the different ways of getting into accountancy, and the differences between ACA, ACCA, etc, I found it really useful when I was in final year in college and really clueless about the whole thing! It would definitely be worth your while doing a few searches here, there's loads of information from different threads over the past couple of years.

Cyrus

Jayo180 wrote: »

Cheers, im going to send out a few cv's and see what happens, if no opportunity arrises i will apply for the big firms when their applications open up again.

As regards the different accounting associations (CIMA, ACCA etc...) is there any one better than the other or more regarded in industry. im aware it depends on what branch of accounting your looking into, but from the point of view of having a qualification is there any of them prefered over another?

aca and acca would be the tow highest regarded, aca maybe a little more so but there wouldnt be much in it, cima is a management accountant qualification.

Hackysack

If you're going the Big 4 route, you will be forced to do ACA. If this is the case, I highly recommend you do a Masters in Accountancy to get CAP2 exemptions (those exams aren't easy in the slightest). A masters will have you exempt from CAP 1 & 2. Which means you will only have to do one set of exams to complete your academic professional training.

I'm sure a masters will also exempt you from a lot of the ACCA exams as well. Either way, the studying isn't over, and it's a lot easier to do the masters (where you focus exclusively on your exams) as opposed to working and studying as well.

Pisco Sour

Hackysack wrote: »

If you're going the Big 4 route

Don't!

Jayo180

Jayo180 wrote: »

Cheers, im going to send out a few cv's and see what happens, if no opportunity arrises i will apply for the big firms when their applications open up again.

As regards the different accounting associations (CIMA, ACCA etc...) is there any one better than the other or more regarded in industry. im aware it depends on what branch of accounting your looking into, but from the point of view of having a qualification is there any of them prefered over another?

It depends really on what you want - if you don't care about statutory accounts or auditing and are more interested in say project accounting or costing then ACA / ACCA is less relevant than CIMA.

If you see yourself as a controller then ACA / ACCA would be a better route.

(I'm a CIMA working as a financial accountant in industry)

Jayo180

Hackysack wrote: »

If you're going the Big 4 route, you will be forced to do ACA. If this is the case, I highly recommend you do a Masters in Accountancy to get CAP2 exemptions (those exams aren't easy in the slightest). A masters will have you exempt from CAP 1 & 2. Which means you will only have to do one set of exams to complete your academic professional training.

I'm sure a masters will also exempt you from a lot of the ACCA exams as well. Either way, the studying isn't over, and it's a lot easier to do the masters (where you focus exclusively on your exams) as opposed to working and studying as well.

Thanks for the advice it may be another route to consider. Is there anyone that has completed their exams while working? how did you find it?

ianuss

Jayo180 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice it may be another route to consider. Is there anyone that has completed their exams while working? how did you find it?

Seriously frikkin hard!!

stepbar

Certainly CIMA seems to be a broader than the likes of ACA, ACCA. I'm seriously thinking of doing CIMA in the next year.

tenchi-fan

hi

If you always wanted to be an accountant, congratulations! it's a brilliant career. If you wanted to do something creative but did a business degree, accounting is a great fall back career! especially during the recession when everyone else is losing their jobs.

Now is not a good time to be a graduate I guess. Too many people looking for any sort of job. some one who was thinking of being an accounting teacher may now look for a job as trainee accountant.

But once you get your foot in the door in one job, there's plenty of choice ... financial accounting, management accounting, fund accounting, auditing, risk and internal audit...

I don't know what the situation is like for new entrants in this climate. But I can tell you of my experience.

I went the acca route because it was preferred by most smaller practices due to its flexibility. It takes 3 years practical experience. There's a bunch of exams with generous exemptions for business/accounting degrees.

I worked in Dundalk. This was a few years ago when there was supposedly a boom, but there were still few trainee positions and the pay was atrocious.

I started as a trainee in an acca practice on 12k and it was increased to 13k after one year. Not even minimum wage.
my friend is an acca finalist with almost 2 years experience and he's now on 15k.
Another friend of mine is an acca qualified accountant with 4 years PQE (post qualified experience).. he's on 34k.
You won't be rich any time soon in a small town practice!! But if you are lucky you will get a nice cushy number in industry in your town. Otherwise, you might need to look towards the capital (Dublin!)

The main qualifications are (and correct me if I'm wrong!)
ACA - chartered. Best in a chartered practice. It has a certain snob value, although newly qualified chartered accountants were hit badly by cutbacks in the big 4 - none of them are on the bread-line.

ACCA - certified (that's me!). Good in practice and industry. Pretty flexible, regarded well, 3 years exp which you can complete in any company, a bunch of exemptions from exams. Not as highly regarded as chartered in most instances.

CPA - public. Less preferred in industry than acca, but other than than much the same. you will see a lot of good jobs advertised as aca/acca. but public is fine for practice and many companies.
CIMA - management accountant. Often preferred in industry, particularly manufacturing.

The best way is to start applying for jobs as soon as possible - even if it is just for summer work (filing shredding and doing the odd bank rec... it will give you an advantage on your cv). Your employer will usually tell you what route they want you to go. Sometimes it's the bias of a manager, sometimes managers split trainees between acca and cima to stop study leave falling around the same time, others will give you the choice. Chartered usually advertise for graduates. Once you qualify, acca and cpa have an arrangement that you can switch from one to the other. You will only need to do this if you qualified as acca but get a job in a cpa practice.

Hope that helps

PS I should probably say, when I did my finals I had to pass all three at once. Now there are 4 finals and you can do them in your own time. So I left work and did them fulltime. reason being, work refused to give me time off to attend lecturers in Dublin and there was no way I was going to risk failing them.

Jayo180

Cheers Tenshi, thanks for your reply, a great help!! I must send out a few CV's during the week and see what happens! fingers crossed something turns up