what to do next???

Primble

so i've sat my last exam so all going well i will be qualified. I've always said I would do CIMA but to be honest I am not the most suited to exams. I can do the stuff in life but sit me in an exam hall and well, i don't know what happens. it took me 4 times to pass my driving test!!

I've got good things coming at work which will give me a lot of experience. I wondered about bing a MIP but being in industry I'm not getting the experience required to do it. i just thought it would be nice to see things that might be different to what i would see at work. So thats not an option.

Work are always offering training but more general things like people skills etc. 1day course sort of things. I'm not against these but i'm after something a lil bit more relevant and more recognisable.
so my question to you is what is out there for me? I've been reading about the Sage ones (my manager is doing one) and i think work would pay for it. i wondered about payroll. i am meant to be learning it at work at some point (incase my manager gets hit by a bus- says HR) would the sage one help me?

Rachey

Sage - probably not. By the time your manager gets hit by a bus it will probably be very outdated. Your company might even decide to change software, you never know. Is there a time limit on CIMA like there is on ACCA because you could just do 1 exam per sitting, you're exempt from 3 of them anyway xx

Primble

i think you have to do 2 per sitting. i'm just worried that if my work load does go up which i want as i'll get loads of exprience that study time will be short

Rachey

Primble wrote: »

i think you have to do 2 per sitting. i'm just worried that if my work load does go up which i want as i'll get loads of exprience that study time will be short

If you already have AAT and all this new experience, you'll go very far. Watch this space....!!!!

Primble

i hope so. i will take over the world mwahahahaaha

anniem

Payroll - definitely learn payroll as it is one thing that a lot of small businesses aren't very good at.

There is nothing to stop you setting up as an MIP as well as what you do at work and adding to your skills portfolio will only help you!

You are in an ideal position to start working for local businesses and the more transferable skills you have the better.

I work three days a week to give me a known income whilst I build my MIP business as my MIP income is a bit unpredictable at the moment, and I certainly couldn't rely on it to feed my family!!!!!

Rinske

Primble wrote: »

i think you have to do 2 per sitting. i'm just worried that if my work load does go up which i want as i'll get loads of exprience that study time will be short

You don't "have" to do anything for CIMA.

CIMA says you got unlimited time to finish their qualification and get the experience needed. However I did read somewhere that it is actually 10 years instead of unlimited, but I'm not sure if that is true.

The two exams per sitting is somewhere recommended as it gives you enough time to build up the work experience (if you pass it all in one go) without taking forever and without taking your whole personal life away! (Instead just for 8 months a year or so).

So if you consider CIMA, don't write it off yet, just because you think you need to sit two exams per sitting.

As for what to do next, it really will depend on what you want to achieve.
And don't forget, you can just wait and see what your experience is and take a bit of a break studying and go back to it once you got a good grip on your workload!

I can't suggest what you should study next, I also don't know what the best option is, payroll will be a good one, especially if you do want to establish as a MIP, just like Anniem says, but I'm sure there are other good alternatives as well!

Luby

Sage

I'd personally recommend sage, it may be that your company changes software however sage is released every year keeping it updated and can do quite a lot. Its incredibly good for book-keeping of records, the firm i work for use sage for all our clients who require book-keeping and have a lot of information and we reccomend a lot of our clients use. A lot of whom struggle to understand what it is there doing on the software, but like i say once you get a grasp of the program it can incredibly useful. A fellow student i know works at an accountants firm who hardly ever used sage yet own the software and once she had learnt to use Sage at college now prefers it to whatever she used before (I think she just used excel).