CIMA or ACCA

System

Hi All

I was just wanting a bit advice as to which course to do next.

CIMA seems to be available at more places that ACCA. I work for the council at the moment, so I'm unsure which to do. Eventually I do want to run my own business doing peoples accounts so was just wanting a bit of advice as to which course to do next

Thanks

System

Re:CIMA or ACCA

I'd say you'd probably be best off doing ACCA if you want to go self-employed, but either will give you a good grounding - the only major difference is if you want to go in to auditing and then ACCA should be your choice.

System

Re:CIMA or ACCA

CIMA is for management accountancy, generally for work in industry. If you want to do accounts self employed and be qualified to sign them off you will have to do ACCA (inc paper 3.1, auditing) or ACA. If you go for ACCA then you can get a degree in Applied Accountancy after Part 2 from Oxford Brookes Uni. If you want to continue working within the council then you should be doing CIPFA - accountancy for the government.

System

Re:CIMA or ACCA

It doesn't matter which qualification you choose if you want to go self-employed unless you want to become an auditor or become more involved with tax. In which case ACCA may the better choice.

However be aware it is more difficult to gain a practising licence with ACCA. Not only do you have to sit even more exams once qualified you also have to complete post qualification work experience at an approved centre. Not sure on what CIMA's regulation are.

Personally I would look at each syllabus and decide what interests you more as well as what is going to help you to achieve your career goals.

Michelle

System

Re:CIMA or ACCA

Hi

Following on from ‘Krispi’/Michelle’s and LesleyC’s postings, you WON’T have to do ACCA inorder to be a self employed accountant and ‘sign off’ accounts. Also, option paper 3.1 – Advanced Auditing in ACCA is only needed if you wish to be come an auditor (which requires additional training in an approved practice also), it is not a general requirement for self employment.

CIMA do provide a practising certificate sheme and the main differences between ACCA and CIMA is that ACCA provides more on tax and audit, whereas CIMA provides more on business management. Also, ACCA’s practising certificate is much more stringent (including requirements to work for an approved employer in practice or industry after gaining the ACCA) and without such a certificate you could be severely limited in what the ACCA rules and regulation would allow you to do.

With regards to signing off accounts, there seems to be quite a bit of misunderstanding (at least on the forums) about who can sign off accounts/what signing off accounts actually is. Statutory accounts (Ltd companies etc) are not signed off by an accountant, they are signed off by the directors of the company as it is the directors who are responsible for the accounts of a company. An accountant who is an auditor will sign the audit report (if one is needed), but wont sign off the accounts, of which the audit report would form. An accountant’s report will normally be included in any formal accounts (in absence of an audit report) but this is to state that the accountant prepared them from client records, this is to indemnify the accountant rather than gove a seal of approval. Accounts prepred for HMRC can be signed by (according to another post) anyone appropriate, banks/building societies will have their own requirements which may depend on size/turnover of the business.

Neil