Difference: working in industry’ and ‘working in practise’
salfordman
Registered Posts: 32 Regular contributor ⭐
I currently working in a Local Authority and I probably sound a bit thick, but I have never really understood what ‘working in industry’ and ‘working in practise’ is.
Can some one please explain, with examples so that I can understand the difference.
Thank you in advance
Can some one please explain, with examples so that I can understand the difference.
Thank you in advance
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Comments
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Industry: you work for a company or organisation and deal internally with their accounts. There's likely budget variance analysis and other management malarkey to be done.
Practice: you deal with the general public doing year end accounts and tax work, bookkeeping, VAT, payroll. At the upper end of the scale you might get into audit.
That's it in a nutshell
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management Malarkey..... how beautifully put monsoon
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I have done both, 10 years ago, I was working as a company accountant for a recruitment firm, where I dealt with things like bank recs, posting to ledgers, accruals/prepayments, journals management accounts (and other management malarkey!!), I didn't really enjoy the environment, resigned and set up my own practice in 2001, where I have been ever since.
I now deal on a daily basis with accounts prep, personal tax, corporation tax, VAT and just about anything else they (my clients) can throw at me. It can be quite nerve-wracking working for yourself as you don't have the safety net of colleagues etc. to fall back on, but with aat and the forums support etc., it is the best thing I have ever done!0 -
How difficult was in to set up your own practise, having come from industry?
I have worked in industry for about 5 years now but would love to work in a practise. I finally got an interview a couple of weeks ago, really liked the sounds of the role I would be doing.. however my salary would be halved and I couldn't afford to do that!0 -
Me
I work for a local authority doing budgets, variances, costing breakdowns, reports for managers, accruals, prepayments etc, which is management accounts.
According to the above posts does this mean that I work in industry?0 -
Esme - I think you have partly answered your own question - it does take time to build up the practice to match previous earnings, I was lucky in that my wife could support us to start with. Settibng up is reasonably easy, with the aat's members in practice scheme - getting the clients is the harder bit. What some people do is set up alongside a current job and then build up the practice side gradually. In my case I dealt with very simple affairs for my initial clients then dealt with more complications as my knowledge/experience increased with the support of a mentor0
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Hi Salfordman, like me a nd lots of others, you do not work in practice, nor do you work in Indusry. You work in the Public Sector.0
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Industry: you work for a company or organisation and deal internally with their accounts. There's likely budget variance analysis and other management malarkey to be done.
Practice: you deal with the general public doing year end accounts and tax work, bookkeeping, VAT, payroll. At the upper end of the scale you might get into audit.
That's it in a nutshell
Yes I agree with this! I worked 1 year in industry and now almost 3 years in practice, the above tasks are exactly what I'm doing (and I did).
Personally I still prefer to work in practice, even sometimes you don't get the chance to do some report/budget analysis that you do in industry.0 -
But don't forget, even in Industry and the Public sector, accountants have to prepare annual accounts, annual reports and tax returns in addition to all the management account and transaction processing stuff!0
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I agree. We may not handle the more complex tax or payroll situations, often preferring to employ the specialist skills of external accountants, but I think we can pretty much cover most of the other financial work those in practice do, just not to the same volume of different scenarios or customers.
And don't underestimate the credit controlling otherwise none of us would be business! Why is it so many practice accountants are simply awful at timely collecting their own debts?!0 -
And don't underestimate the credit controlling otherwise none of us would be business! Why is it so many practice accountants are simply awful at timely collecting their own debts?!
what about keeping in order their books? they are so concentrate to do their clients' accounts and theirs are such a mess....0 -
And don't underestimate the credit controlling otherwise none of us would be business! Why is it so many practice accountants are simply awful at timely collecting their own debts?!
I don't know but it's true! We outsource our credit control now and it's MUCH better.
As a general observation (and sorry for going off topic a bit) I think a lot of accountants in practice are accountants - not business owners. I much prefer my role as a director to my role as an accountant but it took me a while to realise that half my job is running a business as well as doing debits and credits.0 -
what about keeping in order their books? they are so concentrate to do their clients' accounts and theirs are such a mess....
I dunno about that, I'm meticulous at keeping our records up to date. I think I'd be a nervous wreck if I didn't! I do leave all the petty cash receipts in a pile as long as possible though
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what about keeping in order their books? they are so concentrate to do their clients' accounts and theirs are such a mess....
Yes, but that's their business just as a bicycle seller sells bicycles however someone still needs to make sure they receive the pennies due to them from their services they're providing and I've known more than one accountancy practice who don't seem too interested in this. You all want paying at the end of each month, don't you?
Or maybe all practice accountants are millionaires, don't really need the money and just work for fun?!0 -
yes that's right! however once I was dealing with a practice that couldn't let me know how much we were due to them...they couldn't send me a statement of account, probably because their accounts were not in order...
I don't know, if you set up your own business, you need to make sure that also your books are in order so you know how much and when you should get paid!0 -
salfordman wrote: »I work for a local authority doing budgets, variances, costing breakdowns, reports for managers, accruals, prepayments etc, which is management accounts.
According to the above posts does this mean that I work in industry?
Further to what the others have said, your working for a local authority means you're working in the public sector. But also public sector accounting is a lot closer to accounting in a commercial/industrial business than a traditional accounting practice.
So much so that my CIMA course is roughly evenly split between those in commercial companies and those in public sector organisations (especially the NHS). Quite why they're not doing (public-sector specific) CIPFA I don't know.0 -
What about "PUBLIC PRACTICE experience from an Accountancy firm"?
What does it mean? that it's not a private Ltd practice, but from the government? do they exist? never heard about...0 -
What about "PUBLIC PRACTICE experience from an Accountancy firm"?
What does it mean? that it's not a private Ltd practice, but from the government? do they exist? never heard about...
I think 'public practice' is just another name for a regular accounting practice. Aren't practices set up as partnerships anyway? Or is it just a terminology thing.
(eg the John Lewis Partnership is really just a Limited Company that calls it's employees 'partners' because they're also effectively shareholders)0 -
Bookworm55 wrote: »I think 'public practice' is just another name for a regular accounting practice
Wondering why they are making it confusing so....if they put the word "public", that means you work for public sector, ie government, not?
Lots of practices however are limited companies.0 -
Oh man - so confusing.
As I work for a local authority they want me to do CIPFA but I wanna go on to do ACCA. I have heard that CIPFA is a just limited to the public sector whereas you have more options if you do ACCA.
Dont want to work for LA for the rest of my life.0 -
CIPFA is very specific, I believe.
If you want more options then ACCA is a much better bet.0 -
Wondering why they are making it confusing so....if they put the work "public", that means you work for public sector, ie government, not?
Lots of practices however are limited companies.
I don't think it works like that. It's a public practice like a public house is public: not owned by the state, but open to use by the general public (for a fee).
And some accounting practices are Limited Liability Partnerships, and some have more complex legal structures. For instance parts of the business are strictly speaking a seperate legal entity.As I work for a local authority they want me to do CIPFA but I wanna go on to do ACCA. I have heard that CIPFA is a just limited to the public sector whereas you have more options if you do ACCA.
Dont want to work for LA for the rest of my life.
Then I would suggest CIMA over CIPFA. AFAIK, the one thing CIMA people can't do that ACCA can is audit. (CIPFA can't audit either) A lot of CIMA is applicable to the public sector and the experience is more transerrable between public sector and commerce/industry than public sector and traditional practices.0 -
Bookworm55 wrote: »
Then I would suggest CIMA over CIPFA. AFAIK, the one thing CIMA people can't do that ACCA can is audit. (CIPFA can't audit either) A lot of CIMA is applicable to the public sector and the experience is more transerrable between public sector and commerce/industry than public sector and traditional practices.
Agreed.
There really isn't anything in ACCA that deals with public sector.0 -
There is much in ACCA that is relevant to the public sector.
About one third of ACCA's membership work in the public sector, also ACCA has the second biggest representation of CCAB members in the public sector, second only to CIPFA, but currently has the most registered students in the sector. While CIPFA is public sector specific, has very succesful CPD provider, publishing and statistic collection arms, as well as the status of setting statutory regulations, it currently is struggling in providing student training in all regions. Students and employers select other bodies over CIPFA mainly due to cost and convenience.
Over the last ten years public sector accounts, particularly local government accounts, have become more and more compliant with UK GAAP to the extent that they are now fully compliant with all relevant UK standards (standards relating to earnings per share are not relevant for example). As from 1 April 2009 Central Govt., and from with 1 April 2010 Local Government, have to be fully compliant with relevant International Financial Reporting Standards and we are now starting to consider Accounting for Sustainability issues.
Public Sector accounts are now very simlar to private sector accounts, we are also very involved in budget monitoring and forecasting, and because of the move to delegated budgets and in house services, we operate various internal trading accounts. These developments have resulted in all the CCAB bodies and AAT being very appropriate and relevant to the public sector.
I am an ACCA and AAT member holing a senior position in local government and I find that my qualifications are as relevant as any other accounting qualification in my area of work. In fact, in some cases, more relevant.0 -
You misunderstand me stevef. What I meant is there is nothing specifically about public sector.
As you have mentioned the accounting standards (and costing) that we deal with is universally used by all sectors in accountancy.
As I understand it the treasury management etc that public sector workers deal with is very different to what industry and practice deals with and that is the type of thing I was referring to.0 -
I've noticed changes in the courses local authorities and PCTs have sent students on.
17 years ago CIMA was the most popular by a long way, now CIMA remains the most popular over all but local authorities have moved towards CIPFA. To the best of my current understanding the only course West Sussex council will now definitely send students to study is CIPFA. CIMA students have to go through an application for non ring-fenced training fund.
Students I've taught in recent years have tended to find that other local authorities still prefer CIMA.
The hospitals still favour CIMA, but we have students on both CIMA and ACCA.Sandy
sandy@sandyhood.com
www.sandyhood.com0
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