Chartered Territory (My Experiences and Advice)

Name: charlieuk

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Product:	My Experiences and Advice
Date:	28/06/02 (239 review reads)
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Advantages: Rewards in future career path and opportunities, Choice of jobs and location excellent once qualified

Disadvantages: Gruelling examinations, Balance of job and study may prove too much for some

INTRODUCTION

I finally have the answer to that common interview question, 'What is the hardest thing you have ever done?' 'Chartered accountancy exams, hands down' is usually my response.

At school I passed GCSE and A level exams without too much fuss, and managed to come out of a three year degree course in finance fairly comfortably whilst mixing the maximum amount of pleasure into my student years. At 21 I needed a career path that would allow progression and earn a bucketful in the process. Qualify as an accountant I thought, it can't be too difficult. Oh how wrong I was. I was actually quite proud of the fact that I had never failed an exam before. Cue huge disappoint time just around the corner :(



OVERVIEW

A number of different qualifications are now available to students wishing to pursue a professional accountancy career. Several bodies exist that offer a recognised accountancy qualification; Certified, or Management accountancy, for example. In all honesty each route is very similar in terms of material. I shall concentrate on my qualification, which as the subject indicates, is the Chartered route.

So why choose Chartered? Well, for a start it is permanently ranked at the top of the earnings charts. What further encouragement did I need? At the time additional exclusivity was also offered by the pre-requisite of a degree for admittance to become a trainee Chartered Accountant. Times change, and a degree is no longer required, as I shall discuss shortly. So how do you become Chartered? Read on to find out.

Most Chartered accountants complete their studies and training in 'practice'. Practice work is defined as working for a firm of accountants, preparing sets of accounts for clients. Of course there is far more to it than simple accounts preparation; tax planning and advice, business development, and ad-hoc project work are all routine assignments.
The other side of the fence is 'industry' This role is working for an organisation as their accountant. The difference is simple, the industry based accountant has only his employer's financial affairs to be concerned with. Salaries are usually more generous within industry, however responsibilities and hours are somewhat less sociable.



ROUTES TO QUALIFICATION

Qualification is a two-fold event, and involves gaining relevant experience in addition to passing examinations. Therefore to fund the (very expensive) examination programme and gain necessary practical exposure, candidates normally seek out a training contract with a firm.

The most common route to becoming a Chartered accountant is joining a firm in practice on a training contract, post-graduation. All medium to large sized organisations have a dedicated recruitment programme to this effect. Yearly intakes are usually around September-time. This is the path I chose. And yes, although I had a relevant degree, I do feel that this was little or no advantage to me whatsoever. In fact, statistics constantly prove that the best performers in these examinations have a non-relevant degree; anything from Geography to History to Sciences are commonplace. Perhaps it is because they have no real pre-conceived ideas of what accountancy really is. Believe me, a finance based degree is so littered with theory that application to the real world is almost impossible.

Non-graduate routes are also available, as the Institute seeks to establish a broad membership base. The Chartered website, www.icaew.co.uk , is an excellent reference for all your questions regarding qualification. The following page www.icaew.co.uk/tbp/graduate/entry_academic.html , is a great starting point, as it lists many professional qualifications that permit entry to the Chartered training programme, and may even offer up a few exemptions from exams if you are lucky!!!




EXAMINATIONS

So, lets get to the exams. They are impossibly difficult. Well almost. Each year the Institute changes the syllabus, and often revisits the whole structure of the exams, for example previously there have been three sessions in existence. Material often moves between papers and sessions as the Institute seeks to balance out each examination. Currently two main sessions are to be overcome; a professional and an advanced stage.

The professional stage consists of six papers, on topics ranging from audit to tax to business planning. In addition to this, assessments on company and commercial law must be successfully completed. The rules for keeping passed papers are much more relaxed than they have been previously, and although not recommended it is possible to chisel away at each subject until the entire stage is complete.

Progression to the advanced stage is permitted upon passing the professional stage and completing at least two years of a training contract. This final stage contains three papers, two three and a half hour small exams, one with a business theme, the other with an audit/tax theme; and a four hour case study that may contain anything that you have previously studied. It is a lot worse than it sounds.

The pass mark for a paper is around 50%, which may sound easy, but in actual fact is surprisingly hard to achieve. Mark awards are scarce and no give aways exist anywhere. Failure rate is incredibly high.

So do you get any help? Fortunately yes. The one saving grace of a trainee position (starting salaries around £9k-£12k outside London) is the fact that it comes complete with study. Independent training companies run courses and provide material to help you get through the exams. And at around £400 to sit a full set of exams plus around ten weeks contact per year at £300 per week it is remarkably expensive. An important point worthy of note here is that as a rule firms do not pa
y for resits. And they expect you to take the time out unpaid or as holiday.

I took around four and a half years to get through this lot. OK, some people pass first time and are through in a little over two years. But consider this: A full time job forty hours per week plus professional examinations that make your degree look like a picnic is no mean feat to manage. Your social life becomes very limited as free time becomes a distant memory. The added stress of having someone to answer to (other than your parents!) is quite unpleasant if the results are not up to scratch. A fail can mean having to find around £1k - £3k to fund a resit course, inclusive of exam fees and time off work. Plus you have just missed out on that pay rise and promotion that your colleagues have just been rewarded with for passing. Of course this only applies if you are not out on your ear, and believe me it happens.

A final point on examinations is that a time-bar system is operated. From memory I think that you have around 7 years in total and no more than four years upon passing your first stage to reach qualification, failure to stay within these time limits does unfortunately mean that you cannot progress to membership.



TRAINING

Training contracts are normally three years, and records need to be kept up to date logging the type of work that is undertaken. This is easier than it sounds, as you are required to keep a time sheet to bill clients each week in any event. A minimum number of hours are recommended to be complete in a number of areas, such as tax, audit, IT skills, pior to qualification. Rest assured that even with holidays, time off and courses you should still comfortably achieve the target number of hours per area of learning. Upon passing your exams, a condensed version of your training records is sent to the Institute for approval, prior to admission for membership.



SUMMARY

Would I do i
t again? Probably not actually. The rewards are great in that the qualification does indeed have international recognition, and allows you to earn a very good salary in a stable job. But be prepared to invest at least a couple of years into this, or you will come out with nothing at all. Those unsure need not apply.

The above is a broad explanation of the path to qualifying as an accountant. If you are considering this as a career, nothing is more valuable than speaking to someone who has actually gone through the process, and understands the level of diffiiculty and the stresses that it brings. Please feel free to drop me a line if you want more advice.

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