During my bachelor degree I had my first touch with ACCA, when we had auditing classes and a professor informed us about the career opportunities that the ACCA professional qualification may offer. Furthermore, my father, who is a professional accountant, advised me that a career in auditing may offer much more professional prospects compared with accounting; so it all begun. Now that my ACCA courses have been completed successfully I understand their urge to follow this path.
The period of 4 years that it took me to complete the 9 out of 13 ACCA exams was very challenging for many reasons. First of all, as a fully employed auditor in a Big 4 firm I had few free time to allocate to studying. In order to surpass this limitation, I scheduled my weekly studying hours long before the exam date. Although the schedule could not be followed strictly it was a good way to keep me in touch with the paper. Having passed all the ACCA exams in the first sitting I believe that the good studying plan was my key to success. Another factor that contributed to my achievement was the classes. Face to face teaching was much more constructive due to the interaction with the teacher and the classmates, nevertheless, I did not face any difficulties with online teaching throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, as the teachers kept the same spirit.
When I joined my audit firm and started ACCA courses I had no experience in auditing but the studying material contributed in gaining a better understanding of this field. More specifically, Financial Reporting and Audit and Assurance papers boosted my knowledge and my confidence since they apply in almost every aspect of my daily work. In addition, Advanced Audit and Assurance was one of my favorite classes as it was absolutely correlated with my everyday work. On the other hand, Performance Management was the less relevant course with the tasks that I had to complete in my audit clients.
Having completed my ACCA exams and gaining the required auditing technical knowledge, my next professional goal is to enhance my soft skills in team and client management. ACCA professional qualification might be challenging and time consuming, meanwhile it is crucial, not only for becoming a Chartered Certified Accountant, but also for acquiring accounting, managerial and financial reporting in depth-knowledge, which will contribute to further improvement of career prospects and chances of promotion to higher levels.