ACA training contracts are absolutely terrible

I'm doing ACA with a firm. I'm not going to say where, but suffice to say it's a major employer, highly listed in the Times Top 100. And it absolutely, completely sucks.

Sure, the working hours aren't too bad (they're still pretty crap though- see below!). Yet. But the studying after you've finished a days work is practically impossible. After you've finished a long (and boring) day, you just don't fancy coming home to grind out yet more learning on one of the most dull topics known to mankind. This is just the knowledge stage by the way. The application stage will be even worse.

The job itself is dull. Soul crushingly dull. All you will be doing in the office is working in excel, moving data from one place to another. Or you get to experience the joys of long coach trips, which are scheduled AFTER 5PM, so you can arrive at your accomodation for 9PM, in readiness for an audit the next day. Some work-life balance, eh?

All the crap about how you get to interact with senior business leaders is a load of bull. They don't care one iota about you. Not that you'd want to interact with them anyway mind, since anyone who's stuck at this job for 15 years or more probably has a personality that makes you seriously think you'd have more fun in McDonalds flipping burgers.

And one of the worst things is- while there are plenty who hate it, you always get the 20-30% who suck up to their boss, do all their work, plus extra, and seemingly live for the day when they can do more account reconciliations. They act like we're so lucky for being given this 'opportunity'. Like hell we are lucky! When I was growing up, I sure didn't dream of debiting assets and crediting cash in some account that no one will ever read nor care about! I wanted to be sat in front of my xbox during the day, with some hot big chested brunette girl on my d*ck, then going out drinking and partying at night. Lucky? Anyone who gets stuck in one of these jobs has to qualify as one of the most unlucky guys in Britain.

You don't even get paid that well for it. It's pretty much average salaries during the training contract years, then you get about 45k-50k after you qualify. After you factor in tax, NI, and the fact you'll still be paying your student loan, you'll be left with about 30k. Hardly groundbreaking. Yeah yeah you can earn more when you're in your 40's and with more experience, but who the hell wants to waste their 20's and 30's doing this crap?

Unless your dream was to look at excel spreadsheets all day, or spend all day counting up useless junk for a stock check, I'd seriously recommend you run as far from accountancy as possible. I'll get negged to hell and back for this, but it's the truth, gained from hard experience on the actual job.

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Completely agree with everything you say. The whole thing sucks!

Im really enjoying it.

I'm not finding the exams that hard, I'm getting paid a decent amount, work with some great people, find the work challenging but interesting at the moment, lots of new stuff to learn. Great social life where I am too; we go out a decent amount in our department and I meet up with the other grads a lot too. Feels more like being at uni to me a lot of the time.

Hours are usually around 9 till 530, which tends to be stuck pretty rigidly too. Busy season is obviously a whole other kettle of fish but on the other hand you're working hard in a small team, eat together, stay in a hotel then get up and on with it the next day till its over. As someone who has done a lot of team sports in the past it appeals to me a lot.

Can't wait to be qualified, can walk into a 50k+ job doing something I'm interested in, in basically any industry in the world. With a clear path to senior management and huge paychecks if I can show my value.

Obviously I would prefer to play xbox and have some girl suck my dick but those 2 things don't tend to go together. Having money on other hand...

If you don't like it, quit.

When I was growing up, I sure didn't dream of debiting assets and crediting cash in some account that no one will ever read nor care about! I wanted to be sat in front of my xbox during the day, with some hot big chested brunette girl on my d*ck, then going out drinking and partying at night. Lucky? Anyone who gets stuck in one of these jobs has to qualify as one of the most unlucky guys in Britain.

What are people's experience of tax? More or less dull? I've heard hours are more consistent. Cheers.

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I've heard it's more dull and once you start tax, it's your career for life.

Hours are less though

x

Exam time? When is it not exam time? There's very few rest periods really, and out of the little time you will get off from exams, you'll still have to go into work, where they'll probably have you working longer hours on the basis you can do more when you're not having to study.

Can anyone honestly tell me when they were 15, they wanted to be calculating cash flow, adding depreciation charges to income statements, and doing bank reconciliations?

Because I wanted to be sat in a nice hot country drinking cocktails and getting laid. Not having to go do audits at crazy hours of the day and night, then spend the little free time I do have often having to study. Sure, you might be able to man it up if there was serious reward at the end. But get this- there isn't. You'll still do the same boring crap once qualified, just at a higher pay band- and once factoring in tax, NI, and student loans, the pay is nothing special. And on a per hour basis during the training contract, assuming 8 hours study per week, you're little better off than a guy working in McDonalds for minimum wage.

I'm doing ACA with a firm. I'm not going to say where, but suffice to say it's a major employer, highly listed in the Times Top 100. And it absolutely, completely sucks.

Sure, the working hours aren't too bad (they're still pretty crap though- see below!). Yet. But the studying after you've finished a days work is practically impossible.

After you've finished a long (and boring) day, you just don't fancy coming home to grind out yet more learning on one of the most dull topics known to mankind. This is just the knowledge stage by the way. The application stage will be even worse.

The job itself is dull. Soul crushingly dull.

All you will be doing in the office is working in excel, moving data from one place to another.

Or you get to experience the joys of long coach trips, which are scheduled AFTER 5PM, so you can arrive at your accomodation for 9PM, in readiness for an audit the next day. Some work-life balance, eh?

All the crap about how you get to interact with senior business leaders is a load of bull. They don't care one iota about you.

Not that you'd want to interact with them anyway mind, since anyone who's stuck at this job for 15 years or more probably has a personality that makes you seriously think you'd have more fun in McDonalds flipping burgers.

And one of the worst things is- while there are plenty who hate it, you always get the 20-30% who suck up to their boss, do all their work, plus extra, and seemingly live for the day when they can do more account reconciliations.

They act like we're so lucky for being given this 'opportunity'. Like hell we are lucky!

When I was growing up, I sure didn't dream of debiting assets and crediting cash in some account that no one will ever read nor care about! I wanted to be sat in front of my xbox during the day, with some hot big chested brunette girl on my d*ck, then going out drinking and partying at night. Lucky? Anyone who gets stuck in one of these jobs has to qualify as one of the most unlucky guys in Britain.

You don't even get paid that well for it. It's pretty much average salaries during the training contract years,

then you get about 45k-50k after you qualify. After you factor in tax, NI, and the fact you'll still be paying your student loan, you'll be left with about 30k. Hardly groundbreaking. Yeah yeah you can earn more when you're in your 40's and with more experience, but who the hell wants to waste their 20's and 30's doing this crap?

Unless your dream was to look at excel spreadsheets all day, or spend all day counting up useless junk for a stock check, I'd seriously recommend you run as far from accountancy as possible. I'll get negged to hell and back for this, but it's the truth, gained from hard experience on the actual job.

Your opinion and your experience. It's not for everyone, nor is any job.