Getting into practice

Getting into practice

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Hi everyone. 
this is my 1st post - sorry if it's not in the right place!

I have been interested in setting up my own practice (I am qualified but no PC yet) and I have read some of the past posts on here. 
I know a lot of people have always suggested that practice experience is essential for setting up . 
 

Can anyone advise the best way of getting into practice? I have only industry experience and the few jobs I saw advertised (before the pandemic) wanted people from a practice background. Bit of a catch 22 situation. 
 

if anyone can advise the best approach? And is having that practice experience crucial / absolute deal breaker needed for setting up on my  own one day? 
 

Many thanks! 

Replies (26)

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By seandrowe
19th Aug 2020 09:11

Practice experience isn't essential, but will be required if you want to keep your qualifications.
The 2 main areas that industry training does not normally prepare you for are taxation and dealing with clients.
It does not matter how much tax you covered in exams, this is no replacement for the practical experience of trying to implement this in practice dealing with HMRC and clients.
To run a successful practice you also need to have the skills to deal with clients, something that comes from years of experience of learning from the mistakes of others.

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By Paul Crowley
19th Aug 2020 10:32

I regularly get offers to work for free to get practice experience.
Practice experience is an item of value

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FT
By FirstTab
19th Aug 2020 10:41

Join an accountancy franchise in 5 weeks ( 2 weeks marketing) training. You are ready to hit the ground running.

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Replying to FirstTab:
Slim
By Slim
19th Aug 2020 11:47

Do you have franchise experience?

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Replying to Slim:
FT
By FirstTab
19th Aug 2020 14:10

Yes and understandably the community here convinced not to move from one terrible franchisor to another franchisor although okay, their management fee and their joining fee just did not make it worthwhile.

There is only one winner in this relationship and that is not the franchisee.

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By sallycox
19th Aug 2020 11:49

You say (Not in any offence) BUT it is insulting to people like me. I have been working in practice for 47 years (apart from 2 3-year stints in industry) and am AAT & ATT qualified.
If you seriously think that just because you are ACCA qualified you can just start a practice, think again.
As others have said, it takes years of experience in dealing with matters that just don't come up in industry to run a practice.
I wonder exactly what qualities you would bring to your prospective clients.

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Replying to sallycox:
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By Yasmink
19th Aug 2020 12:13

My comment was meant, as I didn’t want to double up on my studies (and as I’m paying for the course myself - my fees) which is in effect, the same thing.
A lot of what is covered in ACCA, is the same, just covered in more detail. Hence, why I said, No offence - because I didn’t mean it as any offence. I didn’t want to basically do another course which is more or less, similar to what I have already done.

My comment wasn’t meant as an offensive or a catty comment. Yours on the other hand, was.
“If you can think because you’re ACCA qualified, you can start your own practice, think again”... not the most helpful.

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Replying to Yasmink:
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By Paul Crowley
19th Aug 2020 12:25

Yasmink wrote:

My comment wasn’t meant as an offensive or a catty comment. Yours on the other hand, was.
“If you can think because you’re ACCA qualified, you can start your own practice, think again”... not the most helpful.

Unfortunately the comment is accurate. Qualification without practice experience is worthless. You would be a danger to the reputation of the profession.

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Replying to Paul Crowley:
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By Yasmink
19th Aug 2020 12:50

I agree. This is why I wanted to gain practice experience and wrote my original post on wanting to gain this.
It’s the comment above that I found slightly rude! Especially as I meant no offence to begin with.

I appreciate your reply and will continue trying to gain that experience. Thank you.

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Replying to Yasmink:
paddle steamer
By DJKL
19th Aug 2020 13:17

Given you have not worked in practice at all, one really important point is to very carefully examine why you want to, what you expect, why it is your goal?

For a lot of people the ability to work for yourself beats all the shortcomings, but there are shortcomings with the role and I expect the next 10-20 years in practice is going to see even more changes.

Personally I prefer industry, I feel more involved in driving my employer rather than being driven by clients, a mix of both is pleasant (what I did up to last year), but when I was full time in practice in the 1990s it did start to feel a bit like a hamster in a wheel and the intervening twenty odd years appear (from comments on here) to have made the smaller practice even more of shovel it in, tweak it, spit it out, rinse and repeat, in addition advances in tech suggest to me this is going to become more of its core activity rather than less.

The grass may look greener from over there but I would ideally really chat through with any friends you trust who already work in practice.

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Replying to DJKL:
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By Yasmink
19th Aug 2020 13:40

Thank you for Your reply. Do you still have your own practice or employed?
Always interesting to get these different opinions.

My goal is to set up my own practice. Not easy but always been my long term goal. And without that practice experience, it will be hard to achieve.

Those catch 22 situations!

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Replying to Yasmink:
paddle steamer
By DJKL
19th Aug 2020 13:59

I still have a couple of FD roles, my main on paper three day week one and a more spasmodic average ten hours a month one, but my part time practice ceased last September- frankly I think the straw that broke this camel's back making me give up my PT practice was needing to embrace MTD record keeping for multiple small clients, fine with my employers as I control everything but sorting out client records, ill thought out and badly executed, into satisfactory MTD layout etc just did not appeal.

I, like an earlier poster, have been counting beans for a fair while now, ignoring university it will be thirty five years in six days from now (my indenture in practice started on the 25th August 1985).

But as I said, the drive to be self employed may be the main driver for some, for me I am happy to be employed providing I get autonomy in my own realm (finance) get input in the overall business direction, am listened to by my owners and am well rewarded for my efforts- but each to his/her own.

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Replying to Yasmink:
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By Mr_awol
19th Aug 2020 13:42

Yasmink wrote:

I agree. This is why I wanted to gain practice experience and wrote my original post on wanting to gain this.
It’s the comment above that I found slightly rude! Especially as I meant no offence to begin with.

I appreciate your reply and will continue trying to gain that experience. Thank you.

I don't think you were trying to cause offense at all - and whilst I can see why the respondent got a bit prickly at the comment, I think they perhaps jumped the gun a little there.

That said, they (cant remember who it was, sorry) have pointed out that they have 40 odd years experience in the area you are asking about and made a very valid point that your qualification on its own doesn't automatically give you all of the skills to set up in practice. Perhaps focus less on the perceived 'rudeness' of a blunt response and more on the fact that someone far more capable (at the moment) in this area is giving some advice.

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Replying to Mr_awol:
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By Yasmink
19th Aug 2020 14:15

Very true. You make a valid point and I appreciate it.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.

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By Mr_awol
20th Aug 2020 10:11

We have various grades of staff, all with different experience and qualifications. When we start out, we are very focussed on exams and qualifications as it does give some sort of measure of our progress, in a way, and some employers can link it to pay rises etc. In fact however it's all pretty meaningless in the long run.

Once you do your A Levels, your GSCEs become less important. Once yo9u do a degree, your A Levels become less important and your GSCEs largely irrelevant. Once you complete your accountancy exams, maybe your degree is of limited value but the earlier stuff now insignificant. Once you've been doing a job for 20 years, your qualifications mean very little really - especially n the current climate with new accounting standards and some pretty major tax reform over that period. If you'd qualified 20 years ago today, nearly everything you passed your exams in would have changed - apart from the very basics, and those you'll have learned a lot more about through experience than from your studies.

We have AATs, ACCAs, and ACAs, part and fully qualified. We also have some staff with no formal qualifications who aren't studying and at their point in life never will. Some ACCAs earn less than some AATs, and in fact we have at least one AAT earning more than and ACA. Some non-quals create more income for the firm than qualified staff, and are paid accordingly.

The point of the above (unnecessarily protracted) post is, of course, that real life experience is much more important in practice - and probably in life - than pieces of paper. In fact my qualifications are probably more of a burden to me than an asset in some ways, since the give me more admin to bother with and the opportunity to by publicly fined and shamed if I make a right old mess of things. They would only really be of any use if I wanted to apply for a job somewhere.

To answer your actual question, I would say that practice experience is not 'absolutely essential' IF you are prepared to start basic, and stick to what you know. You are more than capable, I'm sure, of doing bookkeeping and VAT Returns. You can probably prepare perfectly adequate accounts/tax returns for many clients. You may be able to prepare Tax Returns (most of them aren't exactly hard, to be honest). It is the unknown unknowns that will get you though. It will be harder for you to be successful and offer a competent service as a qualified newbie than it would be for an unqualified veteran of the game.

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By YourCloudAccountant
20th Aug 2020 09:56

Hello,

A wide range of responses here. Ranging from insulted to gatekeeping.

I set up a practice recently and it is going really well. Admittedly, I did qualify in a practice but I was working in industry before setting up my own.

I moved from Industry to set up my own practice. I focused on a niche which I enjoyed, researched the latest way to run a practice and used my people skills gained in industry to add value to clients.

Obviously, with no practice experience it can be hard but I found the main barrier was self belief.

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By seeroo
21st Aug 2020 19:48

You would probably have to take a large pay cut for someone in practice to take you on however your life experience and other experience could be attractive (if you're cheap enough). Whatever you do don't tell them you want to start your own practice as they will not want to invest the time in training you for you to leave and potentially set up in competition/take some clients with you.

If you do take a pay cut I would negotiate that your salary increases after X amount of time as you will have some level of experience/study already so will come along quicker.

Also a lot of practices are setting up outsourcing departments (bookkeeping, payroll and VAT processing) and you will look good on paper to them. Don't be tempted to accept a role like this because you will be stuck doing this and you won't gain the relevant experience that you need.

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