Finance - ACCA or CIMA

RuggieMuffin

I have recently moved from a trainee accountant position to finance assistant. I had been planning on studying ACCA however now I am wondering if CIMA may be better. I would appreciate some advice on the matter.

Many thanks!

smcgiff

finance assistant? What does the job entail?

RuggieMuffin

I'm mostly going month end accounts prep and reconciliations as well as billing.

smcgiff

It's still hard to give advice from the limited info you are giving. Both ACCA and CIMA are excellent bodies to qualify through.

cocker5

Both ACCA and CIMA are an excellent qualification to have, so i can only advise you from my experience.

I am finishing ACCA at present (waiting on my final exams - due out tonight :eek: ) and my main job is Month End Management accounts, Year end and some Audit work also.... I found ACCA help me alot especially F7, P2 and P5 in my current role...

A colleague of mine did CIMA and he works more in Treasury

Hope this helps!

mr_edge_to_you

I'm a Cima head.

there's very little between the 2 to be honest.

I would say acca has a little bit of an edge in the sense that it gives practice v industry options, the best of both worlds for some.

working in practice never appealed to me and the slightly broader commercial side of Cima was more interesting to me. Hopefully it'll afford me an opportunity to side step out of accountancy later in life.

either/or I'd say. I think there is a better level of mutual respect between both bodies.

the cima qualification also gives the CGMA designation which is a joint partnership with American CPA. That's a big plus for me.

RuggieMuffin

Thanks for the insight guys!!