HELP! Accountants-Professional Body Membership??

[StaceyLacey]

Hi Guys!!

I am currently a student of the ACCA in Ireland, and am emigrating to Aus(pending my visa being approved) at the end of the year. I was wondering, on arrival, should i look into becoming a member of one of the Australian accountancy bodies to finish my qualifications or continue with ACCA? I've heard the employers aren't too fond of ACCA qualifications and prefer potential employees to have ACA or CPA qualifications!

Would love to hear from someone with some knowledge or experience in this area!!

Thanks,

Stacey

[NicF]

Hi Stacey, I'm not an accountant and I'm not even studying one of chartered accountancy qualifications but I have looked in to this a bit because I am studying AAT at the moment. I believe if you are ACCA qualified you can transfer your membership of ACCA to one of the Austalian accountancy bodies. If you google 'accountancy bodies australia' you should be able to find the sites and some good information about this. I'm not sure if you would be able to complete your ACCA in Australia as they would need to have exam centres to allow you to do this, but you could contact ACCA and find out if this is possible or not (I can't do AAT exams there). If you can't finish ACCA you should still be able to get recognition for prior learning with one of the Australian accountacy bodies.

[Freckleface]

As an employer I only employ 'Accountants' with either their ACA or CPA. Without one of those quals you could pick up work as a more junior finance officer but you would struggle to get very far.

Good luck

[benthomas010]

As an employer I only employ 'Accountants' with either their ACA or CPA. Without one of those quals you could pick up work as a more junior finance officer but you would struggle to get very far.

Good luck

To the OP.. how are you getting your visa if you haven't finished ACCA?

I am studying CIMA with the intention to migrate once I am qualified, this is transferable to the CPA qualification, all I need to do is a few 'loca' exams.. I know Tax is one of them which makes sense as the rules are obviously different. As freckleface says - some people will only employ those with Aus qualifications, doesn't make a great deal of sense to me but meh... if you've gone through 15 odd exams to get your UK qualification, what difference is it going to make to take another 2 exams to get a local qualification.