[TW]Fox;17138135 said:
That would be because CIMA is for Management Accounting rather than Practice Accounting.
You don't say?
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alex_tank - if you want to keep all your options open, avoid CIMA as you cannot sign off accounts as an auditor with CIMA. Should you do CIMA and decide you want to do audit work at a later date, you'd have to join the appropriate institute and take any further required exams. You can still work in practice i.e. prepare accounts, returns etc. and sign off accounts for entities with up to ~£6m turnover as an examiner, but not as an auditor.
That said if you need more info about CIMA just ask. I've found CIMA to be very relevant to business in terms of the practical commercial problem-solving that you will be asked to perform by managers and FDs (not to say the other qual's are not).
I did Acctg & Finance at Warwick then CIMA soon after. I was on a graduate scheme for a while then left the company and moved to the country, where I work for a friendly medium-sized pharmaceutical company as a management accountant doing commercial reporting as well as statutory accounts.
I did part of an undergrad. placement with Deloitte before leaving for the Unilever scheme, and although Deloitte was a great company, having got a taste for some of the initial (i.e. audit in the main) work of financial accountants, I decided that I'd rather try and develop within a position in a business, especially after vastly preferring the nature of the commercial side of things at Unilever.
Whatever path you go down, don't think it's set in stone, as plenty of people have converted between institutes. Besides, the exams are all easy anyway when you practice enough questions
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