ACCA practice

dantray

Hi,

I am due to start studying ACCA in Sept providing AAT results come in next month (fingers are firmly crossed) with the end goal to practice under ACCA.

I've heard that in order to obtain practicing licence from ACCA I must have post qualification experience, which is fine, but someone has said that I must also have a certain amount of experience in an ACCA approved practice.

Can anyone please clarify this for me. I have been writing to local firms of accountants in the hope of being taken on by an ACCA approved practice but so far, no takers. I have had interest from firms of ICAEW/ACCA accountants but when i have contacted ACCA to see if they are approved I have been told they aren't so I've been reluctant to persue these ones until I know for sure.

However, if it turns out that there is a way round this whereby i can gain the experience in a non approved firm and still get the licence then I'm going to go for it.

Thanks in advance - really appreciated.

Dan.

NeilH

Hi

If you want a general practising certificate, it is actually an approved EMPLOYER, which can be either practice or industry. If you want the certificate with audit qualification, it will need to be a practice and a third of the experience counting towards the certificate will need to be audit.

The requirements are three years with an approved employer, 2 of which must be post qualification - so you can use a year of the experience you count toward the ACCA qualification.

Neil

PGM

NeilH wrote: »

Hi

If you want a general practising certificate, it is actually an approved EMPLOYER, which can be either practice or industry. If you want the certificate with audit qualification, it will need to be a practice and a third of the experience counting towards the certificate will need to be audit.

The requirements are three years with an approved employer, 2 of which must be post qualification - so you can use a year of the experience you count toward the ACCA qualification.

Neil

So the EMPLOYER doesn't need to be chartered? Is there a series of catagories that you need to fulfill to the criteria, or just the period of time?

NeilH

Hi

Have a look at the ACCA website http://www.accaglobal.com/members/professional_standards/prac_info/practisingcertificates/ for details of the training record and http://www.accaglobal.com/employers/approved_employer/ for details of becoming an approved employer.

Neil

PGM

thanks

dantray

Hi Neil,

Thanks a lot for the links, they were really helpful.

I do have one other question:

The ACCA state that in order to gain the audit certificate, of the 2 years post qualification experience, 30% of this must be in audit in an approved practice.

So, saying that I don't manage to get into an approved practice and instead gain my experience in industry under an approved employer, obtain the certificate and set up my practice...

Is it acceptable for me to offer services for free as a subcontractor to an ACCA approved practice in order for me to get the required amount of audit hours, say 1 day a week for however many weeks/months/years and then upgrade my certificate to include audit?

thanks for all your help.

Dan.

NeilH

dantray wrote: »

Is it acceptable for me to offer services for free as a subcontractor to an ACCA approved practice in order for me to get the required amount of audit hours, say 1 day a week for however many weeks/months/years and then upgrade my certificate to include audit?

thanks for all your help.

Dan.

Hi

The ACCA used to allow subcontract work to count towards the general work experience requirements, I assume they still do but I'm not sure if they do for the practice certificate.

I actually did CIMA, so am a little out of touch with ACCA requirements.

Neil

dantray

Hi Neil,

Thanks, I might give them a ring tonight and discuss with them.

FYI - anyone who's interested - I've found the following information in the ACCA practicing certificate guidelines:

As a guideline, ACCA would expect you to obtain at least 924 hours training in audit work during a post-membership training period of two years.

So works out at roughly 62 7.5hr days per year or just over 1 per week.

Thanks again for all your help.

Cheers
Dan