Course conversion into Acountancy from Engineering...help

CompNewb

Hi lads,

I have recently been made redundant and would like to get into Accountancy.

I have a degree in civil engineering and i qualified 5 years ago and i was working in construction up until now.

I have been doing some research and i know the ACCA's let you be come a chartered accountant.

With my background is there any advice on what course to do? Or would i better off doing a post grad in accountancy and then start from there?

Or which route is the best for both salary and career

I was looking at a post grad course like this http://www.dcu.ie/prospective/deginfo.php?classname=PDA&originating_school=#

is there any part time ones?

tenchi-fan

ACCA lets you become a certified accountant.
ICAI lets you become a chartered accountant.
CPA is for public accountants
CIMA for management accountants.
(They're all much the same really!)

That course looks pretty good. There's a good chance you could get a decent graduate job by having an engineering degree and a good accounting diploma. At least, at the moment you have nil chance of getting a job in accounting because there are so many unemployed business graduates.

The only problem is even when you do complete it you will still have a lot more study to do to get your professional exams. You would also be on an atrocious trainee salary. There's no way around this unfortunately. I know people who are newly qualified and haven't gotten a payrise! I also know a chap who's a second year trainee in Dundalk earning €11,500 and no mileage expenses even though he often uses his own car at work.

smcgiff

CompNewb wrote: »

I have been doing some research and i know the ACCA's let you be come a chartered accountant.

With ACCA you'd call yourself a Chartered Certified Accountant. i.e. As chartered as much as any of the others with charters.

CompNewb wrote: »

Hi lads,

With my background is there any advice on what course to do? Or would i better off doing a post grad in accountancy and then start from there?

Or which route is the best for both salary and career

I was looking at a post grad course like this http://www.dcu.ie/prospective/deginfo.php?classname=PDA&originating_school=#

is there any part time ones?

That you're a qualified engineer I can say you'll be able to manage any of the exams fine.

If you can get a contract you could do CAI exams. ACCA is another option that doesn't require a contract. If you feel you want to work in industry then you could do CIMA.

CPA is a smaller organisation than the three mentioned above, but would also be found in practice and industry.

I would recommend going straight into the professional exams (i.e. not a post grad) and start your career.

I think your engineering degree/experience will stand you in good stead when looking for industry/practice work.

Good luck

tenchi-fan

smcgiff wrote: »

I would recommend going straight into the professional exams (i.e. not a post grad) and start your career.

I'd usually recommend this to someone who was considering doing a 3 year degree from scratch.

However, this is only a one year, fulltime course which gives exemptions from cap1 for icai and F1, F2, F3, F4, F5*, F7*, F9* in acca (*depending on modules chosen). I know I'd prefer to get a lot of exemptions than to waste all my evenings for the first 1.5 - 2 years on fiddly early stage exams.

The accounting dip, engineering degree and exemptions could land him a pretty good job if the right opportunity came along.

It seems like a better alternative to going in at the very bottom with an irrelevant degree and competing with tens of thousands of other graduates of various disciplines who think accounting would make a good fallback career.

tenchi-fan

smcgiff wrote: »

CPA is a smaller organisation than the three mentioned above, but would also be found in practice and industry.

I'm not saying to avoid cpa.. however, a lot of employers in industry in Ireland are acca, aca or cima qualified and generally don't favour cpa. I saw a lot of jobs advertised as "aca/acca only"

If you need to choose between acca and cpa, you should probably pick acca.

rustev

id look into getting a 3 year training contract with a company.

you should be able to pick up a contract, a lot of companies like engineering as a background.

i graduated in civil engineering a year ago and recently decided to go the accountancy route and was offered two trainee contracts doing aca.

smcgiff

tenchi-fan wrote: »

However, this is only a one year, fulltime course which gives exemptions from cap1 for icai and F1, F2, F3, F4, F5*, F7*, F9* in acca (*depending on modules chosen).

He could be exempt from 7 ACCA exams after one year's study? :eek: Can you link to the exemptions as it does seem very attractive.

smcgiff

tenchi-fan wrote: »

If you need to choose between acca and cpa, you should probably pick acca.

You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment!

tenchi-fan

smcgiff wrote: »

He could be exempt from 7 ACCA exams after one year's study? :eek: Can you link to the exemptions as it does seem very attractive.

Here ya go.. just look up "DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY" "PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN ACCOUNTING"

https://portal.accaglobal.com/accrweb/faces/page/public/accreditations/enquiry/main/EnqInstitutionsTable.jspx

It looks like it's possible to get 7 exemptions just by doing this course. Of course you need to already have a second class honours degree in a non-accounting subject.

smcgiff

tenchi-fan wrote: »

Here ya go.. just look up "DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY" "PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN ACCOUNTING"

https://portal.accaglobal.com/accrweb/faces/page/public/accreditations/enquiry/main/EnqInstitutionsTable.jspx

It looks like it's possible to get 7 exemptions just by doing this course. Of course you need to already have a second class honours degree in a non-accounting subject.

That does indeed look excellent - I suppose it needs to be taken into account how difficult ACCA exams can be if you get exempt from the earlier papers.

Also, whether he'd be better off having 1 years work experience, and say 4 exams or 7 exams and no work experience (assuming he can get work!).

On the whole it's a definite possibility. It depends on whether the OP wants to start earning or is happy to go back to uni (lucky bugger!)

DolphinTales

I made this change a few years ago. I also had an eng degree and got a job as a trainee with a big 4 firm. As you'll read all over this place the money is poor.

I did the CAP 1s which to be honest, were easy enough I felt in comparison to the Eng exams. I must say the CAP 2s were far harder than anything I'd ever sat though, lucky to scrape through.

I felt getting into practice was the best option as in such a situation I would be earning as opposed to shelling out for the course and associated costs. And I would have the 3.5 year contract regardless.

And also the work of a first year is not that complicated and if you've your wits about you learn quickly on the job. And will be given responsibility if you're up to it after your first year.

As someone with a non relevant degree I prob put a bigger effort into getting the basics right, I was shocked at the number of business graduates who failed the DEBK exam and still struggle with it apparently.

A mate of mine(also an eng grad) did that course in DCU and I don't think he'd do it again to be honest.

As the other posters say different bodies are more or less the same when it comes down to it.

I think KPMG are actually recruiting for this autumn, at least according to their website.

There's a lot of negativity about accountancy trainee contracts on here. It's tough going but you learn a lot, and will be much more employable after.

I spent ages talking to people who'd done the training contracts and knew what I was letting myself in for. So the hardship wasn't a surprise, it's not that hard anyway and anything worth doing is gonna involve hardship.

Best of luck with what ever you do.

BERBA

tenchi-fan wrote: »

I'm not saying to avoid cpa.. however, a lot of employers in industry in Ireland are acca, aca or cima qualified and generally don't favour cpa. I saw a lot of jobs advertised as "aca/acca only"

If you need to choose between acca and cpa, you should probably pick acca.

imo the above is absolute rubbish , might have been that way 10 years ago but not anymore.

tenchi-fan

BERBA wrote: »

imo the above is absolute rubbish , might have been that way 10 years ago but not anymore.

thanks for you imo! just do a jobsearch and you'll see "aca/acca" being advertised over cpa

levi

I studied engineering in UCD but knew it didn't want to work in it so I applied to the big 4 in November of final year.

Got offers from 3 out of 4, all offered to pay for me to do the postgraduate diploma in DIT. I decided to do it as I felt 2 years of exams while working was enough. I'd recommend doing it if they'll pay for it - you know what you're doing a bit more when you go in and don't have to teach yourself double entry.


Anyway, I don't mind it so far, some people don't like it at all but sure each to their own.

May11

Hi Guys

I'm a final year structural engineering student (DIT). I'm interested in going down the accountancy route also. However, my final year isn't going exactly to plan at the moment and there's a chance I may come out with a 2.2. I'm just wondering do you think I still stand a chance of getting interviews via the milkround (I'll be applying in Sept) and/or one of the postgrad options (DIT/DCU)? Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks.