Audit career path

Visaquestion

I have an interview next week for an audit graduate programme and would love to hear from anyone who has been through one and whether or not they would recommend it.

What is a typical career path for someone training in auditing?

In the interview I will be expected to outline whether I intend to study for the ACA or ACCA. I have tried to discover the main differences between these but really I am none the wiser. Can anyone enlighten me or recommend one over the other? Is one more suitable for a career in auditing?

From the bit of reading I have done I gathered that the ACA is perhaps seen as being more prestigious and has a higher pass rate than the ACCA. Is this accurate?

Thank you

CIARAN_BOYLE

accs gives you more freedom. you can do 1 exam at a time upto 4 times a year.

aca is more of a structured path. you do cap 1, then cap 2 then fae.

tanit

Visaquestion wrote: »

I have an interview next week for an audit graduate programme and would love to hear from anyone who has been through one and whether or not they would recommend it.

What is a typical career path for someone training in auditing?

In the interview I will be expected to outline whether I intend to study for the ACA or ACCA. I have tried to discover the main differences between these but really I am none the wiser. Can anyone enlighten me or recommend one over the other? Is one more suitable for a career in auditing?

From the bit of reading I have done I gathered that the ACA is perhaps seen as being more prestigious and has a higher pass rate than the ACCA. Is this accurate?

Thank you

The passing rate for ACA vs ACCA is relative. Most people that are doing ACA are working and most of them they are working in practice. It means that the things you are studying are the same kind of stuff you are working on. So it kind of makes it easier in a way, plus people in training contracts have in a very, very generous study leave and that helps a lot when you are studying for professional exams. People doing ACCA might be mostly in industry and without that and regardless of having just one or two exams it makes a hell of a lot of difference.

The other thing is that if you are not in a training contract you don't have the thing that you need to pass the exams and you tend to leave the studying for the last minute as you don't have the pressure of having to pass the exams to keep working.

So there is a higher passing rate on the basis that you are under more pressure to pass them. In big firms they watch you like hawks that you go to class, do the mocks and interims and the like so that kind of puts people into a study mood vs having to create yourself the motivation to study if you are not in training and doing ACCA. If you couple that with the fact that some subjects should always be studied at the same time like Financial Reporting and Auditing that might be the reason the passing rates for ACCA are worse.

The syllabus are similar more or less in all bodies, and the difficulty level is going to be same approximately I'd say. The problem with ACCA is that you will have to do on your own a bunch of things you will not have to do with ACA: organise yourself to go to classes, find a provider and get the materials, motivate yourself, organise your study leave (this one is very, very important). They look like little things but depending on your personality it could be the difference between passing or failing

ACA has even nowadays more prestige than ACCA but at the end of the day what it matters is how good you are and if you are good the number of Cs doesn't matter.

I particularly like the way ACA organises the whole studying thing and I made numbers with the providers I could get lectures for ACCA and from the money point of view there was no difference if I accounted for all the expenses with ACCA. I think ACA was marginally cheaper like 100 or 200 euros. The only thing is that it's easier to pay ACCA, you pay little by little every year but that was the only advantage I could get from them.

At the end of the day it's going to depend on who is paying the fees and they will be the ones that will push you for one or another

From the point of view of Auditing what it matters is how much training you can get in the firm.

I'd say that you should consider how easy it is to get to the classes as very important. The location would be better if it's close to either where you live or where you work regardless of having a car. And if you go for ACCA that the schedules they have suit you and your work.

Visaquestion

Thanks so much for the detailed response.

I am leaning further towards the ACA now as I think the structured learning would suit me better. I assume the firm would pay the fees but that wasn't made clear in their brochure.

Thanks again for your reply, it was very helpful.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Visaquestion wrote: »

Thanks so much for the detailed response.

I am leaning further towards the ACA now as I think the structured learning would suit me better. I assume the firm would pay the fees but that wasn't made clear in their brochure.

Thanks again for your reply, it was very helpful.

usually a firm will pay aca fees (as it is an annual program) or acca fees upto an annual limit.