ACA v ACCA

JoannaA

Could someone please explain to me the difference between these 2 courses/qualifications???

sebastianforbes

hi there joanna

with aca, you will need a financial employment contract. your employer is expected to provide you with a mentor and help to monitor, as well as encourage you whilst gaining beneficial experience... most probably after you have finished university.

anyone can study with acca anytime, anywhere and anyhow !!! it's for those of us who can't walk into an equivalent finance post.

as to their value, you can make your own judgement. i know which one i want and, i know which one i can't have !!!

phunkyphantom22

ACA and ACCA both make you a chartered accountant and CIMA makes you a management accountant - all have equal value and are equal qualifications. What matters is the type of job you do - i.e. an employer may prefer someone who is CIMA qualified if the role is based on management accounts. However that is not to say someone who is ACA/ACCA qualified cannot do a management accountant role - all make you a fully qualified accountant and most accountancy roles contain an element of both management and financial accounting.

As sebastianforbes says - if you want to study ACA, you will need to be working for an employer who can give you an ACA study contract, mentor etc. One employer that I know of is Royal Mail, but if you check out the ACA website I'm sure you will be able to find a list of sponsored employers there. www.icaew.com

As for ACCA being "for those who can't walk into an equivalent finance post", I'm not quite sure what you mean? I already work as an accountant in my job and have 5 years experience - I am choosing to study ACCA after AAT because I want to, not because I cannot study ACA.

In my experience, the majority of people working in practice seem to do AAT and then ACA and people working in industry seem to do AAT and then ACCA/CIMA.