Unfortunately as I was in industry since completion I dont have a practicing certificate. Having review the requirements I can meet most of them but some would only be achievable in practice. My former boss will sign off any backdated experience. My only issue then is whether my former employer will agree to become approved employer and if acca will allow that to be back dated. ( I think from prior enquires they will but may have changed)
I am in the fortunate position that my father in law is a ACA practicing accountant so my plan is either to ask him to let me look at a couple of peices of work to complete my experience.
My other idea (if I need to log 2yrs experience)is to for him to front a new practice and be the effective principle while I do the work, which will automatically give me the experience. Having looked at the guidelines I assume I could set up a new ltd and have him act as director ( presumably i could own shares). This would allow me to use my ACCA in my signature etc and charted in the company name/ trading style and allow me to carry out public practice work. I am unclear if everything would need to be signed off by him first or simple a adequate system of controls.
Is there away of being supervised without setting up an ltd?
Replies (15)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
Your FiL would have to have >50% of the voting shares and would need to sign off all accounts etc. He would be responsible for the PII and it would be his name/reputation, so he may not want to do all of this.
Quite right too.
For a reason.
I would have thought checking with ACCA would have been the first question, rather than software.
Can you not get a job with FiL?
I could work to help out short term but not long term as doesn't have volume to justify. Only occurred to me this morning that the 2 yr experience might not be eligible from a time point of view. If I don't need time just exposure to certain tasks I can get this helping out for free over a month or two which is fine. If I need two years practice experience it's not really viable
Yeah of course it would need to be a discussion how comfortable he would be. Might be better to set a trading style of existing business until I get certificate
When you say small niche, what exactly do you mean? Is it something that requires you to state that you are chartered?
The practical experience hurdle can be a tougher nut to crack than it first looks. Btw, it's a practising certificate, not practicing, here in God's country. Although you are quite correct in stating that you will (or, indeed, might) be in practice.
Sounds to me as though your father-in-law might be the originator of this particular plan. And it's a canny enough plan alright; but allow me to offer you an even cannier alternative: tell your father-in-law that unless you are guaranteed a decent salary then his grandchildren, not to mention his own daughter, will suffer and perhaps be in dire financial straights. Given he isn't likely to stand by and watch his said descendants park-benching it, then he (your father in law) is, whether he likes it or not, going to have to bankroll any shortfall in your finances. So he might as well come up with a more attractive / lucrative / viable package for you otherwise he's only chiselling himself. Or, at the very least, his own purse.
That puts you in the driving seat. Enjoy!
Thought you might have mentioned "principle" as well. Looks like I have now.
Some ACMA/ICAEW qualified people have resigned from their institutes on the basis that they weren't getting much for their money and found that plenty of clients just want a good accountant and are not obsessed with the letters. Some of these have applied to become members of eg AAT to speed up eg mortgage approvals.
That might be too much for you to swallow.
Regardless of the letters, it's tough getting set up in practice, and you'll need some savings behind you.
You need to brush up on your practice experience pretty quick regardless of a certificate.
Maybe try another industry role? Although, I can imagine it being difficult to land opportunities right now due to the pandemic. A lot of businesses have cut back on recruitment due to the economic uncertainty or drop in revenue.
Accountancy franchise.
Given your own experiences, I'm astonished on that recommendation.
I'm sympathetic to your need to earn a living, but honestly I really wouldn't encourage you to try setting up a practice without two real years of practice experience. There are a huge number of regulations and pitfalls which industry will not have prepared you for at all. I became registered for my practice pretty quickly after two years real and quite intensive experience and frankly I don't think I could have been trusted to do this type of work sooner than that.
If you can get your FiL to support you all power, but to my mind that only works if he's actually involved in helping you run it compliant with regulations and is really properly reviewing all your work. If you start out into practice completely fresh and don't have someone competent and knowledgeable checking your working papers you are guaranteed to make serious errors or develop very bad ongoing habits.
+1.
I moved from practice to industry shortly after qualifying. I wouldn't like to be responsible for anyone's tax return but my own.
Thanks everyone. I have heard back from the ACCA and i dont need to have worked for an approved employer unless I am requesting an audit cert which I am not.
Thanks everyone. I have heard back from the ACCA and i dont need to have worked for an approved employer unless I am requesting an audit cert which I am not.