General ACCAPracticing Certificate

You need to choose P2 (UK) and P7 (UK) to get a practicing certificate from ACCA, if you intend to open your practicing firm then you need at least three years of experience recorded with the ACCA.

I am curious.Do you need P7 even he you don't intend to offer audit and assurance services?

Obviously you will need P7, without that you will not get the practicing certificate.

Thanks for your replies :) Does this mean that without a Practicing Certificate I can not work as a Self-Employed? I don't intend to work in Audit however I do wish to pursue a career as a consultant for accounts/tax services? Can I do this without the certificate? How should I choose my options then? Thanks again.

@gabriel2013 said: Obviously you will need P7, without that you will not get the practicing certificate.

Basically,the whole thrust of my question was whether you would need P7 pass even if you just required non-audit practice certificate in the UK.

@accountancyweb said: Thanks for your replies :) Does this mean that without a Practicing Certificate I can not work as a Self-Employed? I don't intend to work in Audit however I do wish to pursue a career as a consultant for accounts/tax services? Can I do this without the certificate? How should I choose my options then? Thanks again.

I am also curious about this question.I think I will email ACCA and attempt to find out the answer.

I think the services you could offer without a certificate would be severely limited and are open to interpretation.Basic bookkeepping gun trial balance seems to be allowed.Personally, I would suggest you try to get a practice certificate he possible.You also,in addition to experiential and qualification requirements,need to obtain professional indemnity insurance in order to acquire a practice certificate from ACCA.

@mrjonbain said: I think the services you could offer without a certificate would be severely limited and are open to interpretation.Basic bookkeepping gun trial balance seems to be allowed.Personally, I would suggest you try to get a practice certificate he possible.You also,in addition to experiential and qualification requirements,need to obtain professional indemnity insurance in order to acquire a practice certificate from ACCA.

See these two links below: https://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-members/practisinginfo/ACCA_PI%20handbook%202013.pdf https://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/ACCA_National/au/mem/Practising-Certificate-factsheet.pdf

Thank you for the links.

Regardless of what we have said above and even after reading all these material available the fact is I am still confused :( Like some of the forums I read - people were talking on both fronts - why one should and should not take PC? I don't get it. Can someone please explain in simple words???

The information is quite clear No practicing certificate - limited to - Bookkeeping - Maintaining records for VAT purposes (because these are taken from sales records which are a basic bookkeeping function) Practicing certificate - everything else - Audit - Tax advice - Preparing tax returns - Income verification

Personally, I would get a practicing certificate (non-audit).This would allow you to offer a much wider range of services as alkemist indicates in his post.Basically, everything apart from audit,insolvency and investment business services.

Thank you all for your answers. This discussion is quite helpful.

Still waiting for a response to my email.I will update with the response when it arrives.

@Accountaholic : Best way is to ask ACCA themselves. From what I searched, if you do not intend to audit, just a general practising certificate, then P2 INT is fine, but I am not sure if P7 is required in this instance; But if you intend to sign off the audits, you need a practising certificate with the audit qualification, which requires UK variants for both P2 and P7.