Self Employed Accountant????

System
System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
edited June 18 in AAT student discussion
Hello all!

Thinking of completing AAT through diploma path possibly distance learning in order to set up own accountancy business when completed in around 3 years!

I would like to know your thoughts on whether you think this is possible/achievable in terms of the experience the qualification would give me.

Also if its not too cheeky your thoughts on proceeding through a college or FTC Kaplan

kind regards

Chris

Comments

  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Do you have any accountancy experience or are you starting from scratch?

    8)
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    No accountancy exerpience as such but qualified as a Financial Adviser

    Deal with business' on a regluar basis, upto date on tax issues etc and I'm able to read and understand accounts and trends along with clients needs, wants and benefits etc.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    The course will give you a really good grounding, but you will still need experience to back it up if you want to become s/employed. Also, in order to get your AAT qualification you need someone to sign off 1 years worth of relevant work experience.

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    As i'm not working in an accountancy practice i'm looking to go the diploma route so as far as I know don't need to complete a portfolio.

    Please correct me if i'm wrong!!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    I dont know about the portfolio but i still think that the requirement for relevant work experience stands - have you tried contacting student services?

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????
    Lyon wrote:
    No accountancy exerpience as such but qualified as a Financial Adviser

    Deal with business' on a regluar basis, upto date on tax issues etc and I'm able to read and understand accounts and trends along with clients needs, wants and benefits etc.

    A financial adviser who fully understands accounts... now there's a first! :lol:

    Regards

    Dean

    p.s you seem to be getting good advice, so thought i'd just throw that one in there :wink:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Tut tut Dean - do I detect a note of cynicism?

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    :P

    Bank managers are another one :lol:

    Regards

    Dean
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Ah - dont get me started on bank managers - or "Relationship Managers" as some of them like to be called - it gives connotations that you are sleeping with them :shock: - no, lets not go there :lol:

    And shall we leave HMRC as understood? :twisted:

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Oi! Myself and my colleagues all work in a accountancy practice, but we all manage a bank together. We're not bank managers as such... but we do know how to read accounts!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Gem - I am not sure that I understand you - do you work in a bank or do you work in an accoutancy practice - surely it cant be both? :?

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    I work in a practice but we're agents to a bank. So, we manage the bank, but because we only have one person who works in there as a cashier I often end up cashiering and doing general 'bank' duties as well. It's difficult sometimes because I want to get as much accountancy experience as possible but then banking opens another door for me :)
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Do you live in the ar- sorry back end of beyond? I live in a small and sleepy Norfolk town and manage to have both accountancy and bank side by side not one and the same.

    Do you not have conflicts of interest if they ask the "bank" to recommend an accountant? :shock:

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Well I work in the heart of Devon, so it is quiet compared to most places but busy compared to most other places in Devon! Most of the banks customers are personal customers rather than business, and we've yet to be asked to recommend an accountant. However, I imagine if we were asked to recommend an accountant we would obviously give them some information about ourselves and arrange an appointment for them to see the partner, rather than advise them ourselves. But the only business banking customers we have are our clients in the accountants anyway! It sounds confusing but it's not really!

    Gem
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Whhhhhhooooooaaaaaaahhhhhh there...! Sorry, to be a voice of caution here, but...

    Quite surprised that no-one has said to the original poster Lyon, that qualifying as a MAAT doesn't allow you to call yourself an accountant. While it should make you a pretty good book keeper, you can't legally use that title unless you have gone much further than mere AAT!

    A quick analogy! Taking an advanced driving course now doesn't mean that in three years time, you're gonna be driving a Ferrari in Formula One!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    At the moment, anyone (qualified as anything or nothing) can call themselves an accountant. In Ireland they are currently trying to change legislation so that an "accountant" is a legal term, whereby you can only call yourself one if you belong to one of their proscribed professional bodies.

    Whether or not this will happen in England is anyone's guess - and if so, what will happen to us AAT's :?

    There is also another thing that may or may not be happening here - and that is that Revenue regulate people that submit anything to them -

    Though as they cannot keep up with their current workload and are making 250ish people redundant, I am not entirely sure how they could cope with the extra work :roll:

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Thanks for that Claudia, I guess I was misadvised. However, when I asked at college they did say that you're not allowed to call yourself 'accountant' unless you've formally qualified as one. The press stuff by CIMA, ACCA also seem to support this. Maybe this is why in many businesses, the chief accountants are actually called Finance Managers or similar as they're not formally (or legally) entitled to do so?

    I guess much like the word 'doctor', it's a term used by all, qualified or not.

    However, I still say that calling yourself an 'accountant' and touting for business, when you're formally not, could be a recipe for disaster and lead to major trouble!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Doesn't it say on this site that once you've achieved the qualification you can call yourself an Accounting Technician?

    However, I know that I have read elsewhere that you can call yourself an accountant - perhaps with a small 'a'.


    :roll:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Exactly - what is an accountant? We are certainly not Chartered or Certified Accountants - but are we accountants? :wink:

    Claudia
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Surely as Baggybrooks has just said we are fully qualified accounting technicians. Nowhere in the qualification does it say accountant.

    Be proud of accounting technician status!!

    Annette
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    I will be chuffed to bits with MAAT - I don't want to have to buy a grey suit!

    That was a joke. Prove to me that Accounts do have a sense of humour!

    Helen

    :wink:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Hmm

    Thinks this topic has gone off at a tangent slightly!

    To go back to what 'Lyon' originally posted, you dont need to do a portfolio for the Diploma route. However, the portfolio on the NVQ route is to gather evidence towards the qualification (be it simulated or work based). The work experience requirement for full membership is seperate requirement from the NVQ or Diploma. Diploma and NVQ holders all need a minimum of 1 year full-time (equiv. part-time) experience to apply for membership. Also, if you want to be taken seriously by clients and actually learn how to perform accounting work you will need some accountancy experience. Accounting isnt something that can be taught by a training course alone.

    However, to add my tupence worth on the 'accountant' issue - the ICAEW website (at least the old one) actually did say that in the UK anyone can call themselves, also the lower case or capital "A/a" has no baring what so ever. Generally the AAT dont refer to AAT members as accountants, but I have come across the odd article from them that says "AAT Accountant". Also, the cover story of the Sepetmber issue of Accounting Technician is about an AAT student and the title refers to her "..training to be an acountant". So the AAT aren't upfront about it, but they do have the tendency to refer to AAT members as accountants.

    Further more, if being an accountant or not is down to having passed some more advanced exams and having gained a few more years experience or not, then this sort of says its a title of academic meaning. A qualification will say you can pass exams/assessment, which can have little or no bearing on actuall professionalism and ability. Ive met AAT and complete non qualifieds who know more about accounting and finance and who can do a better job than CCAB accountants that I have met. If the term accountant is going to be restricted (either formally/legally or by 'rules of play') then it should be restricted to those that can back it up with the work they actually do/can do competently, rather than the framed paper on the wall.

    Neil
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????
    If the term accountant is going to be restricted (either formally/legally or by 'rules of play') then it should be restricted to those that can back it up with the work they actually do/can do competently, rather than the framed paper on the wall.

    I couldn't agree more! I've met "accountants" that have had qualifications i've never heard of before!

    Least the AAT is recognised for accountancy. It also needs you to pass a tax paper to qualify. In my mind you strictly can't/shouldn't call yourself an "accountant" if you know nothing about Tax. Where ever you are in the world the first thing that any "norm -mo" (those who listen to radio 1 will understand that term :wink: ) ask's you is "can you complete my tax return!"

    If it were to be clamped down on, I still think AAT's should qualify to call themselves accountants, but restricted to "FMAAT" status with a full CPD log.

    Regards

    Dean
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    I couldn't agree more either, but trying to see it from a potential client's point of view, I think I would still like to know that the person completing my extremely sensitive accounts is a properly qualified professional rather than a just highly knowledgable "amateur".

    Having the framed certificate on the wall shows that you have met certain recognised criteria rather than the person who doesn't have one but assures us "they just know what to do". I'm sure in 99% of cases, they probably will know what to do, but using a different analogy, would you trust someone who "knows a thing or two" about medicine to mend your broken leg?!
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    As you say, back to the point. I suppose you can run your own business as soon as you're qualified Accounting Technician. However I really do think that that to enable you to advise people and handle problems as they arise you will need some good grounding and experience working for an Accounts practice for at least a year. If people phone you with queries they will expect you to know the answer or enough and back it up from the Inland Revenue. Hearing 'I don't know' to anything they ask isn't professional.

    Just an opinion :wink:
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    On the calling your self an accountant topic, just advertise your services not what you are ie.. ABC Book keeping and Accountancy Services or something along those lines.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????
    I will be chuffed to bits with MAAT - I don't want to have to buy a grey suit!

    That was a joke. Prove to me that Accounts do have a sense of humour!


    Have you ever looked up MAAT on Wikipedia? Actually, try Ma'at or Maรƒยกt- the ancient Egyptian concept of Law and Justice, personified as a deity of the same name. Thought I'd throw that into the mix.
  • System
    System Posts: 100,534 ๐Ÿค– Admin ๐Ÿค–
    Re:Self Employed Accountant????

    Thanks for all your comments really appreciate it

    One last question though if I may?

    How do most accountants charge is it by hour, percentage of turnover or any other method?

    If possible please give me an idea of what you are used to and any examples of cost would be great

    Cheers

    Chris

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