Time for an update.

Well Dear Readers, it has been over a month since my last missive, but I have great news to impart!

But first, a small recap.  I started in my current position in February 2012, at the time I was studying for my AAT qualification and from day one was encouraged to continue with my studies once I had passed by moving onto either CIMA or ACCA.

In December I received confirmation that I had passed my final AAT exam and was therefore AAT qualified.  I informed my Department Manager who congratulated me and then told me to think about further studies over the Christmas break, this I did and decided that I would study CIMA.

As my employers were going to be part funding my studies I made enquiries with training providers to find out costs and dates and passed all the info on to my manager. And waited. And waited

And so on to my news.

I have finally received confirmation of my funding.  Unfortunately this was a month past the registration deadline for CIMA so I made the decision to switch to ACCA.  Again, training providers were contacted and costs and dates checked out and decisions about modules and training types made.  The training provider would invoice my employers directly, and they in turn, would deduct my contribution from my wages.

However, also in my office, I have a colleague who is a band higher than me and therefore earning more money than me who is still only part way through their AAT and our manager was able to negotiate a free course for them to complete it (approximately another 18 months worth of training and exams) so it will not cost them a penny! But I'm not bitter.

So I started my training last Sunday with a full day of F8 International Auditing.  Being in class on a Sunday did take a bit of getting used to, especially the bit about having to get out of bed at the time I would have been getting INTO bed 20 years ago or so.  I was then back in work for two days and then back training, this time F6 Tax, for three days.

As I have my AAT qualification, I only have to sit 11 of the 14 ACCA exams to obtain my qualification, I am exempted from the Foundation level exams, however I do have to pay for the privilege of NOT sitting them, this cost is not included in the work's funding, neither is the cost of my subscriptions nor any resits.

These are the materials for just one of the 11 exams that I am sitting.

As well as part funding my costs, my employers are giving me half the time I need for my studies too, in other words, for every day that I have to attend training, I only have to make half a day up in extra hours.  As I am studying partly in the week and partly at weekends, I only have to make up 3 days for these first two modules that I am studying, for future modules I may try and do more weekends, that way I won't have to do so many extra hours at work.

But having said all that, I am actually enjoying myself.  Scared at the amount of knowledge that I am going to have to absorb for my exams, but I just need to apply myself.  The exams are all 3 hours long (plus reading time) and I 'only' need to score 50% to pass each of them.

I am not back into training now until Sunday 24th March, so plenty of time to get through the mountains of homework, online tests and interim assessments that I have to do!