Sharing my life experiences including the ACA qualification
This blog is for those of you who are studying for the ACA qualification independently or for those whose employer offers the choice and flexibility over your exams. For me, my exam sittings and exams were predetermined by my employer. However, now that I have sat all 15 ACA exams I am able to provide …
If only becoming ACA qualified was as ‘simple’ as passing all the requirements and automatically receiving the formal certificate. In order to become officially ACA qualified, you must submit your ICAEW training file yourself. Although I had met all requirements of the Level 7 Apprenticeship early in September, it was only a few weeks after …
In all honestly, I have not found balancing studying and working full-time very difficult to manage. To give you some background, I work in audit at a Big 4 firm. I sat the first twelve ACA exams within one year of starting my graduate scheme. This involved sitting three Professional Level exams at a time …
This is a blog post I cannot believe I am writing but I am so excited to share this news with you… I have written and published my first book!! It is a pinch me moment for sure but honestly, so much time and energy has gone into this book. If you are starting the …
The ACA qualification has much more to it than the 15 exams alone and there are in fact many different routes to becoming ACA qualified. The route available through my graduate scheme in audit at a Big Four firm was the Level 7 Apprenticeship. This seems to be becoming a more popular route across UK …
Besides being asked how difficult the ACA exams are, I would rank this as the second most common question I am asked. There are many different ways to sit the ACA examinations. I have touched on this in my earlier blog posts in terms of the order of exams, which sittings are available for which …
After months of revising having put your heart and soul into doing evvvverything you could to pass an exam, the exam still goes badly. It went so badly that you wish you barely revised at all considering it felt as though it did not make much of a difference anyway. The exam was nothing like …
I would say I have sat a LOT of exams in my 25 years, including more recently the 15 ACA exams. With every exam comes exam stress to some extent. To make matters worse, there was even the added pressure with the ACA exams that my job could be on the line if I performed …
The ICAEW ACA Ethics Learning Programme is a key requirement to becoming ACA qualified. Ethics is constantly drummed into you throughout your ACA studies. This is done through examining ethics within each ACA exam and through the Ethics and Professional Scepticism tab of the training file. This is an element of the ACA qualification that …
Before reading, please note that this is an extremely subjective blog. What I find difficult another person may not and vice versa. Find the details of my academic background here if interested (no prior accounting experience). Therefore, this is my personal opinion on how hard the ICAEW ACA exams are. I will also include ICAEW …
What is the ACA? The ACA, different to ACCA, stands for Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA). It is a professional qualification (similar to a masters), which for me came as part of my graduate scheme in audit. However, this qualification is also part of many other graduate schemes within the financial sector. The ACA covers a …