How to start your career in accountancy in the South West

The South West of the UK is an area of outstanding natural beauty with a thriving tourism industry and is a great place to live and work. It is therefore an ideal part of the country in which to start your career in accountancy, with lots of successful firms looking for the brightest new candidates.
Accountancy is basically the practice of reporting and recording the financial transactions of a business. Here are some tips on how to get started on the accountancy career ladder.

Think about your specialism

This is not something that you need to have identified even by the time you start doing the accountancy certifications, however, it is worth thinking about so that you can make decisions about your chosen specialisation. There are two basic areas of accounting: management accounting and financial accounting.

Management accounting is: “The process of preparing management reports and accounts that provide accurate and timely financial and statistical information required by managers to make day-to-day and short-term decisions.” Whereas, financial accounting is “A field of accounting that treats money as a means of measuring economic performance instead of as a factor of production.” Once you choose one of these, then you can specialise even further into budget and financial analysis or working as a controller.

Certification

The next step on your way towards becoming an accountant is to start an AAT course. AAT stands for Association of Accounting Technicians and is the foundation qualification required for entry into the profession. There are three AAT qualifications across three levels, all of which you will need to complete before moving onto the more advanced qualifications. LSBF offers free online tuition for the AAT Level 2 Foundation Certificate entirely online. That means that you can work at your own pace, whilst gaining a professional qualification.

Beyond the AAT, there is the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) and the CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants).

Accountancy apprenticeship or work experience

This is a career that, while the qualification is essential, you cannot get into without some relevant experience or taking on an apprenticeship. Whether you’re doing a university course or an online course, you will need to get in touch with accountancy firms to see if you can get some experience and training. Summer internships are another good way of getting experience, as well as gaining connections in the sector. In Plymouth, alone, there are many firms sure to be looking for high-quality trainees.

Getting the job

Once you have successfully completed an apprenticeship the firm is likely to take you on as a permanent employee. If you didn’t complete an apprenticeship or the firm didn’t take you on upon completion, then you will still have plenty of useful experience under your belt that you can refer to when applying for jobs. When you are applying, you should highlight any projects you have completed as part of your course, or on the work experience gained because they will reveal the breadth of your skills, from accountancy to leadership and working as part of a team.