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I’ve got a job as a trainee accountant for a start up finance company. It’s a really awesome opportunity as the company could be a big player in the market in five years time and I’ve got in before the growth stage. Currently they are planning on putting me through my ACCA qualifications. Trouble is, I much prefer the idea of CIMA as I don’t want to be purely a financial accountant. I eventually want to work in management and business strategy, I studied entrepreneurship at university so that world appeals to me much more than being a bean counter. The ACCA syllabus seems pretty dry and much more tailored for tax, audit and financial reporting than business management and strategy.
So my question is could ACCA act as a first step towards more financial strategy and general business managent type rolls or will I find that hard because I did not study CIMA? I already do a lot of management accounts in this company and I guess being here as it is grows will give me a lot of indirect experience of business management and strategy as I see how the company evolves.
I wouldn’t dismiss ACCA just because of your future career focus on strategy and management.Although ACCA lap more of a financial accounting flavour to its syllabus and CIMA has more of a management accounting and industry flavour to its syllabus ACCA is flexible and does cover management and performance accounting as well as strategic management.You could also tailor the course more to your interests by selecting the optional papers P4 Advanced Financial Management and P5 Advanced Performance Management.After doing ACCA or CIMA you could also consider taking an MBA to further your strategic management knowledge and skills.
I have worked in all areas of accounting, most companies in industry are not fussed about which qual you hold
personally, I think the knowledge gained through ACCA allows you to be more flexible, I know many CIMA students who claim ‘I dont want to be a financial accountant’ , and tend to be weaker in general accounting. But this is bread and butter knowledge applicable to any finance department. In my experience, I have seen more people in senior and management roles that come from an ACCA background than a CIMA, not to say that both cant apply
Thanks for the responses. You’ve both given me the answer I was hoping for! Good to know that doing ACCA will not restrict my career prospects if I hope to go into a management role.
I’m also keen to know just how far you can take your career with ACCA. I’m an ambitious guy and would love to have a ‘high flying’ career in the city or in another financial center. How flexible is the qualification for use across the spectrum of financial services such as asset management, banking and brokerage?
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