As you may or may not know, depending on how much of this website you have read, I am currently studying for my ACCA Accountancy qualification.  I wanted to share some of the information I find during my studies, this should help anyone wanting to get into accountancy or anyone already studying.  If you have something to add to what I’m saying, please leave a message at the bottom of the appropriate page.  I am also keeping a blog of how I feel my studies are going if you are interested – you will find it on the right of this page under the “Accountancy” category.

From what I’ve read, most people make the decision between 3 accountancy qualifications:  ACCA, CIMA or ACA.   CIMA seems to be directed more at people who want to work in industry as management accountants.  ACCA and ACA give much more scope with what you can do with your qualification, from Finance Director to Auditor to Management Accountant.   ACCA seems to be the most international qualification, although generally a few extra exams will allow you to convert to a country’s local qualification.  The Institute of Chartered Accountants (who do ACA) have different bodies depending on where you live – ICAEW (England and Wales), ICAS (Scotland) and ICAI (Ireland).  Most of the big firms offer you the choice between ACCA or ACA, although in my experience people who don’t have a degree or any other accountancy qualifications generally do ACCA.

Update: Found this article from Accountancy Age on How To Select A Training Provider.

I chose ACCA partly because I don’t have a degree and didn’t want to do another qualification first so I could do ACA, also because I am living in Malta at the moment and don’t have the opportunity to go ACA.  This may seem like I had no choice to make, but I made the decision do to ACCA – if I had chosen ACA, I would have put myself in a position to be able to study it!

Please see the sub-menu above to see pages with information on each of the papers in ACCA.  There won’t be any information on this site based around ACA, CIMA or any other accountancy qualification, although if you do a search, there may be some info based on a particular subject area for you to read…