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Juggling CIOT exams with a career

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30th Jul 2014
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Juggling a busy accounting career while completing a three-year CIOT course and examinations is no mean feat. But senior client manager at bdhc Chartered Accountants in Chepstow and Cardiff, Katie Bladen, has done just that. In this article, she talks to Rachael Power about her experience of studying while working. 

As a senior client manager, Bladen looks after various clients, specialising in looking after agricultural clients at the Cardiff office. 

Her accounting career started when she was on work experience in secondary school: "I had an auntie who was an accountant and I wanted to go down that route too, so I decided to see what it was all about," she said.

Bladen said she loved working at the firm so much, that when they asked her back after her work experience had ended, she went on to work school holidays for them. 

In addition, she went down the route of obtaining an accounting and finance degree from university, so that she could “experience both the practical and theoretical parts of the job”.

Upon leaving university, she joined the firm to start her ACA training and has recently spent three years studying for the CIOT - something Bladen said she did out of personal interest, as well as to benefit the firm.

"As part of being in a smaller practice, you get to see VAT, payroll, all the elements at work and that [tax] was the one I was interested in the most." 

It took Bladen three years to study for her CIOT, something she had to juggle with a busy and varied working life.

Financially, her firm helped her out by paying the course fees, which she repaid over time. "I wouldn't have been able to do it if I had to pay for it up front, they were really supportive with that and with time off," she said.

Her work didn't suffer too much either as she said it kind of 'fitted in' around the busy periods of November to January. According to Bladen, there are two exam sittings a year - and the course starts in February. "I then had a quieter period when I could concentrate on exam revision. It's worked out quite well, really." 

As well as being for her personal education, Bladen said that having someone in-house to deal with tax queries rather than relying on external advice, is one positive result for the firm of the three-year course, in addition to bringing on staff so they know even the simpler tax issues, and making them aware of certain elements at a lower level.

To aid this, she is putting together an internal learning pack for the more common queries, for staff guidance.

Bladen advises other accountants who are considering studying while trying to hold down a full time job, to simply keep the finish line in sight. 

"It is hard but you have just got to remain focused on your end goal, that's what kept me going throughout it. I was doing it for me - sometimes firms ask you to do things for them but if its something you want to do, just keep focused to the end goal really." 

Bladen said in addition to keeping on top of the latest CPD and education, she and her firm are advocates of the latest technologies, too.

The firm has adopted cloud accounting in recent years and find it makes things easier for both them and their clients.

"People seem to have less and less time to do the accounting side of business and the cloud makes their lives easier and cheaper. We can log in at the same time as them and look at exactly what they're looking at," she said.

"I think cloud changes the accountant/client relationship a lot as you don't get as much contact face-to-face. It's all online or over the phone. But it is making things easier for both sides."

Bladen's aim for the future is to keep on top of her CPD and one day, to eventually make partner.

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