ATT Training provider (or not)?

anniem

OK, signed up and been accepted; any recommendations on training?

Have done everything for AAT via distance learning? Should I sign up with Tolleys/Lexis Nexis or just buy the book from BPP??

Do Tolleys do ongoing assessments and online study modules too?

Other people's experiences/recommendations and suggestions much appreciated.

Anna X

Monsoon

Woohoo!

I've bought the text books from BPP and teaching myself. Reason being its consolidating existing knowledhe and tax makes sense to me. As opposed to when I started AAT, double entry was a foreign language and so I needed tuition. But that's just me.

I assume you're going to be doing your first exam in Nov in Southamptoon? If so I may see you there, am doing the ethics paper then

anniem

At the moment plan to start studying personal tax pdq for Nov 11, see how that goes and start studying for a 2nd exam in Nov 11 when I'm reasonably confident I stand a chance of passing the first.

Was hoping to do Tax, Higher Business Tax and VAT, but half wonder about studying the other subjects for the knowledge, even if not to take exams.

I know you did business tax before realising AAT exemption, what else are you taking Jenni?

andrewtdk

With tolleys you get the training manual, a revision question bank, and 3 exams which you send away to be marked. Im guessing the bpp book is the same other than the papers you send away to be marked so its probably down to whether you feel practise exams will be worth the extra money.

I liked having practice exams so i could check my progress, especially as ATT dont update their past papers so you cant really use them.

If your not bothered about the practice exams tolleys probably do not provide you with much more for your money other than a forum but that said i did find their study material to be very good.

I really should start replying to other threads, i feel as if i only ever get involved on ATT threads lol

Edit: Also tolleys sell the yellow and orange legislation to their students for £60 which is a big saving so if you are going to buy these anyway it may be worth considering

Monsoon

anniem wrote: »

At the moment plan to start studying personal tax pdq for Nov 11, see how that goes and start studying for a 2nd exam in Nov 11 when I'm reasonably confident I stand a chance of passing the first.

Was hoping to do Tax, Higher Business Tax and VAT, but half wonder about studying the other subjects for the knowledge, even if not to take exams.

I know you did business tax before realising AAT exemption, what else are you taking Jenni?

Annie have a look at the Higher BT paper and ask yourself if that's relevant to your target client base. It may well be, but I realised a lot of it was waaaaay above any client I was interested in and so opted to take VAT instead for my option, as it is far more relevant to me.

Andrew, I have the 2007-08 Yellow tax books, do you reckon I can get away with using those and making a mental note of the major relevant changes? I really don't fancy forking out for more - I only looked at the book once in my last exam and I don't really 'get' how to use them anyway (I do realise that's part of the point of studying though!!:D)

andrewtdk

If i was doing it all again i dont think i would buy the books if im honest.

I highlighted a few points like the current penalties incase my mind went blank i could quickly look them up but the exams were so time pressured i think you would struggle to look up anything major. I did see people using them but i dont think i looked at mine once, and i didnt even bother taking them to one exam because it was a hassle carrying them all over. That said you could look something up and get a much needed extra mark.

anniem

Jenni, I think I'm going to sign up for P.Tax with Tolleys and get the orange and yellow book at the joint price of £65, just so I have them. You can borrow my yellow book for the exam!

I take on board your comment about Higher B Tax, probably not appropriate, so perhaps I'll do VAT and Ethics, although I can see merit in doing IHT.

See how it goes with P Tax, before I decide whether to do the rest just using the BPP books. I'm quite lucky that I can 'learn' stuff quite easily from books, but as Andrew says, it's probably worth signing up and getting the orange/yellow books at a good rate too.

Monsoon

Thanks guys.
Andrew I turned up with a (very heavy) suitcase to my last exam

I think I'll not bother, or take up Annie's kind offer of a loan :-)

I wasn't planning on doing more than one option. If I was to choose a second it would be IHT, not because I want to go into it (I think it's pretty specialist) but because a better working knowledge of it may come in handy. I might buy the book for the CPD at least but can't see me taking an exam in it. Maybe!

How much is it to sign up with Tolleys?

My BPP books should be arriving at the end of next week. Is it sad that I'm excited?!?!

Monsoon

Oh Annie, just to pick up on what Andrew said about the exams being time pressured. I'm a quick exam-er, I typically used 1.5-2 hours of the 3 allotted in AAT exams. I was writing right up to the bell for the ATT exam I took :ohmy: Just a heads up!!

anniem

With Tolleys

P Tax - Correspondence is £206 + £20.60 VAT
P Tax - Online Corres £175 + £17.50 VAT (but you need to print all the information yourself)

Business Tax, Higher BTax, IHT, VAT and Business Compliance - same as PTax (although both BTax units can be purchased together at a discount!)

Practice Administration and Ethics - Corres £140 + £14 VAT. Online Corres £120 + £12 VAT

Yellow & Orange tolleys List £189.90, as Tolleys student £65, students can only purchase 1 set of yellow/orange at discount rate.

There are other schemes, guaranteed pass, etc, but I haven't put the price for these.

Monsoon

Thanks hun.
I think I got my 0708 books off Ebay for £75 last time. Didn't realise the list price was so high!!!!! :ohmy:

jilt

Right that's it second draft of unit 10 done and being posted to Premier tomorrow and pleeeaaase don't let it come back for more tweaking! If not then that's AAT done thank goodness, and it's taken me long enough.

After reading these recent ATT threads I've now got my books and notes back out and realised I should have submitted an exam paper last week, oops!!

Hope it's not too late. haven't really done much studying yet, but if I can do MAC in 6 weeks start to finish am hoping 12 weeks may just be enough. I'm actually really pleased to get back to it.

Happy studying guys :001_smile:

Monsoon

You'll be fine Jill

Are you still planinng on doing Higher BT as your option?

jilt

As its the one I've bought from Tolleys I haven't really got a choice, although I'm wondering whether to defer that one until November and do personal tax in May. Depends whether Tolleys will let me. Did you say you were doing VAT May?

andrewtdk

Monsoon is the VAT book one of the ones that you have ordered for the May sitting? If so when you have started to study it would you be kind enough to let me know how relevant you think it is for a practice the size of yours as im thinking about studying the unit myself although i doubt ill sit the exam.

Even though I work for a small practice i think it will probably be a very useful book, i probably should find a book shop and have a thumb through it to see what aspects it covers

Cheers

Andrew

Monsoon

Jill I'm doing VAT and PTax in May, and Ethics in Nov.

Andrew yes, I ordered my May text books last week.

Remind me in March/ April when I'm through it and I'll be happy to let you know what I think.

My practice is small and aimed at "basic" small businesses, all of whom could encounter some complex VAT issues. I get on ok with VAT so hopefully it will be ok!!

jilt

For some unknown reason I'm thinking PTax may be easier than Higher BTax but now I'm thinking that's a daft idea so maybe best just asking for anew timetable from Tolleys and sticking with HBT.

But then again it would be good to do PTax when I know at least 2 other people that are doing it as it's good to help eachother. If I did I think I'd just buy the book and do it myself, thats how I did AAT most of it anyway.

Monsoon

I talked myself into VAT and out of higher BT because I thought it would be easier, if that helps

No idea how it compares to PT, in theory I should be ok for PT apart from shares computations which I've not done in 5 years and tax credits which are new. In theory!!

jilt

I'd quite like to do VAT and IHT also so may do those for CPD but not sit exam. I chose higher BTax cos i thought it relevant but we'll see. I really enjoyed doing tax at AAT and DFS but theat damn unit 10 I hate!

Think I'll speak to Tolleys tomorrow then make a decision on which to sit in May.

Monsoon

Unit 10 is eeeeevil!! I'd be a FMAAT this year if it wasn't for that *mutter grumble curse*

I'd be interested to hear your verdict on Higher BT. I'd initially thought it would be the obvious choice for me but when I saw the past papers I realised a lot of it was way above my level. I'm sure a lot of it would be helpful but I freaked out when I saw the paper so opted for the easy option instead, lololol.....

andrewtdk

Jilt tolleys are very good for moving the practise exam times, i had to do it a few times.

I liked business tax higher skills because with tolleys it essentially means studying for business tax at the same time even though you may be exempt from the exam which is good for a bit of a refresher. I found there to be a lot of stuff that i dont think i will ever come across though whereas on personal tax i felt that it could all come up at work. Though i guess maybe thats why one is a core paper and the other is optional.

With the practise exams for personal tax i was generally scoring 15-20% higher than i was for higher business tax which i felt to be much harder. I dont want to put you off higher business tax though because it may just be me who found it to be much harder and ive also heard people say theyve found vat to be difficult aswell.

jilt

Andrew - thank you, I'll let you know what Tolleys say. That's interesting, I think that having to study p2 and p3 so to speak may be why I thought Ptax p1 would be easier. As I've paid for p3 I'm obviously going to sit it but may well sit it in November.

Jenni - I'll let you know my thoughts on Higher BTax when I do eventually sit it. I'll let you know the outcome of my phone call to Tolleys tomorrow.

jilt

Higher BTax it is, Tolleys said I should be fine so will be sitting in May.

Monsoon

jilt wrote: »

Higher BTax it is, Tolleys said I should be fine so will be sitting in May.

It's good, we will all come to you for advice in more complex scenarios

jilt

monsoon wrote: »

it's good, we will all come to you for advice in more complex scenarios :d

lmao

Monsoon

jilt wrote: »

lmao

Don't laugh, it's serious business!! :ohmy:

jilt

Monsoon wrote: »

Don't laugh, it's serious business!! QUOTE]

I knew I was in the wrong profession

On a more serious note, how many hours you putting aside for study a week. I was thinking of about 6 in the week and some at the weekend. I might struggle a bit cos work keeps encroaching into evenings and weekends.

Monsoon

jilt wrote: »

Monsoon wrote: »

Don't laugh, it's serious business!! QUOTE]

I knew I was in the wrong profession

On a more serious note, how many hours you putting aside for study a week. I was thinking of about 6 in the week and some at the weekend. I might struggle a bit cos work keeps encraoching into evenings and weekends.

Oh I haven't even thought about it. I winged the last exam... I was just going to do some study... I probably need to think about it a little more constructively!!

Monsoon

Oh god.

I've just spent the morning with my bookkeeper who's taking the AAT Personal Tax exam next week doing some PTax revision, because I need to revise some of the stuff that's covered in the AAT unit. Out of interest, we looked at a past paper for the ATT PTax unit. O M G.

OMGOMGOMG.
And I think I'm going to do VAT as well in the same sitting? I'm having a giraffe.

All I can say is "Complicated" and "I hope BPP deliver my text book soon" !!!!!! :ohmy:

jilt

No no no, don't want to hear that, my studying is going well. Well in terms of I'm actually doing some lol

Me thinks I'd better check out a past paper 3

anniem

Oh dear Jenni, that's a bit alarming especially as you're dealing with a lot more of it than some of us. Glad I've got my books ordered for November, plenty of time to study.

Wonder if I'll have a life between now and then