Accounting Courses
ICB Full Qualifications
ICB Short Courses
CIMA Full Courses
ACCA Full Courses
Both bookkeeping and accounting have very important and significantly different roles. Bookkeeping is essential for the efficient running of a business. Bookkeepers must keep track of income and expenses and process payroll. They must also prepare the information that the accountant will need to compile the financial statements.
Accountants need to design and manage the financial systems that the bookkeepers use. They compile the monthly financial statements and the tax returns at the end of each year. They are also often responsible for creating budgets for managers and proposals for bankers and cost analyses.
ACCA is the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Their courses are aimed at people who want to work in an accounting position at a small or medium sized company.
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) have courses that focus on analysing information, formulating business strategies, identifying and managing risk, planning and budgeting. Management Accountants combine accounting, finance and management in order to make educated business decisions.
The ICB (Institute of Certified Bookkeepers) train students to work in any area of bookkeeping. They offer courses for people who want to become a Junior Bookkeeper or Senior Bookkeeper. Those qualifications lead the student towards becoming a Technical Financial Accountant.
You need to decide what you want to do. Do you want to be a bookkeeper who keeps record of all transactions, making sure they are recorded accurately? Or do you want to become an accountant who uses all the information about transactions to create budgets and financial reports?
An accountant must take all the information about money and assets that is written up in the ledgers and books by bookkeepers and write it up in a way that other people can understand.
You get two main types of accounting: management accounting and financial accounting. Management accounting means that the information must be useful to the people within the company, like the CEO, the board of directors, the employees etc. This is also called internal accounting. External accounting, or financial accounting, means that the information that the accountant writes up must be useful to the investors, shareholders, financial analysts, and so on. These are all people outside the company.
If you like bookkeeping and want to improve your financial knowledge a bit more, accounting may be just what you need. If you want to work for a financial company and you want to make sure you have a good chance of getting the job, and you want to make sure you will be great in your job, accounting will help you a lot. Many other companies need to have their own accountant a resident accountant, someone who works only for that company and keeps all their financial records. If that is what you want to do, accounting is for you!
