Any book keepers/accountants on here? Opinions needed

Me and the missus have both worked in accoutancy for years and haven't heard of the IAB. I've known plenty of people who've done AAT, and you can use it as a springboard for going on to do CIMA and ACCA accounting qualifications.

I'd go for AAT

Thanks. I hadn't heard of the IAB either, although I had heard of AAT. It's also a third of the price.

I've already spent money on a waste of time Sage course this year so I don't want to make another mistake.

Hmmm..tough one. If you were wanting to get a job in book keeping, your best bet might be to have a word with possible future employers. Or other firms that emply people in the same line of work. Ask them what they would prefer to see as a qualification on a potential applicants CV.

The AAT does cover some elements of book keeping, and you can always do short courses (only a week or two) to cover the subject further. The foundation year can also be by-passed depending on your A level results. Leaving just the intermediate year and the two year technician course. It is a good qualification to have if you're wanting to get into any finance related job. But if you want to focus solely on book keeping, I'd have a word with some companies first.

Hope thats some help!

And thank you too.

It's book keeping I want to focus on specifically. We're thinking of starting a family and I would like to work part time in the future. I keep seeing vacancies for book keepers for a couple of days a week which would be ideal for me.

I look after the purchase/sales ledgers and use Sage at work and I really enjoy it but because of confidentiality I'm not able to look at much else.

At the moment I'm not envisaging taking it onto 'proper accounting'. Just looking after the day to day running of books really, end of month procedures, bank rec, that kind of thing.

That's a good idea to contact people. I could speak to some companies who advertise. I'm not in a position to do anything until the new year so there's plenty of time.