Becoming a Licenesed member

Danny_Mutes

Hi All,

I am MAAT qualified and I have a few people from my local area that are self employed and have asked me to do their accounts. Most of the work will mainly revolve around annual accounts and tax returns. I have only ever worked in industry so I have not had much professional exposure when it comes to these areas. I am assuming for me to be licensed I will need to be able to have these areas covered within my CPD. Is there anyway other way to be able to attain adequate experience for AAT to be able to grant me a licence without necessarily having years of experience in these areas? The theoretical knowledge is there I just haven't had the opportunity to put the knowledge to practice as my expertise are in management accounting.

Many Thanks

Daniel

David Ballantyne

In my discussions with AAT Membership Support, I have learned the following:

If there are areas in which you do not have experience, you can provide the service as long as you don't charge for it. Once you have a reasonable amount of experience you can then apply to AAT to have this added to your range of licensed (and therefore chargeable) services.

A "reasonable amount of experience" appears to be at least six months or at least six to ten clients for whom you have provided a particular service.

There is a specific form that Membership Support can provide you with in order to record this experience and apply to have it added to your licensed services.

The AAT is unlikely to check with the clients for whom you have provided services outside your license (in order to gain the experience), although they reserve the right to do so.

It would be wise to ensure that your professional indemnity insurance covers all services you provide whether you charge for them or not.

Neillaw

Have you considered working with a mentor until you have the necessary skills.
I'm from industry but did some work for a certified accountant with his own practice.
I asked him if he'd do a spot of mentoring and he agreed. The area's I'm not to sure with I ask him, even if it takes a small amount out of your profit margin it's worth it in the short term. They could also provide you with a reference to AAT when you want to add that skill onto your list.
On the other side he's now starting to get clients who require margin analysis!