Accountant Qualifications

[Andrew@Wisteria]

As would I Odd that...

Depressing thing is, as I approach late 40s and look at career #2, its the same my-qualification-is-better-than-yours all over again in another word.

When I was training, ACCA passes didn't get you any ACA exemptions - but if people fail ACA they can take other credits to the ACCA exams :-)

[Sockpuppet]

Don't worry about it to much. My accountants are AFA, which to be honest I have no idea what that is or if it's any good. But it wouldn't matter if they were ACCA or ACA because I always go and ask them a question knowing the answer (or have a rough idea of how it works) and anything I get told by them I double check with another source.

My last accountants were certified chartered accountant who got my invoice wrong 3 years in a row. Each year the same issue they calculated VAT wrong so that the Net + VAT didn't equal the total. Not once, but three years! Each time I pointed it out to them when I collected the invoice but they carried on making the same mistake. That is why I left.

At the end of the day I'm a contractor, I put in roughly 20 invoices a year and maybe 100 receipts and a fifth of what's left to the Government. Its not as if I need KPMG I do all my VAT myself and my PAYE and know a fair bit about IR35 having done this for the last 8 years. In short the accounts are my problem so I make it my business to be able to complete them myself, I just let my accountants check them. Last year I think I had 6 journal entries that needed to be done for depreciation, corp tax and accruals to the year end accounts. None were because I'd made a mistake.

Also I've never been trained to do my job. Still doesn't stop me being bloody good at it. Qualifications while a good in some ways are lacking in others.