Study Zone

Your Q&As

PQ asked Sarah Conyers of Eagle Education and Sandy Hood of Chichester College take a look at how the new syllabus will affect students in the transition phase

A student writes…
I’ve passed IAC, ECR, FRA and will be taking PTC, BTC, DFS, MAC this summer and in December. Please help me to get my head around the changes to the AAT course!
Answer
Depends, if your aim is to get exemptions from a complete level. So if you complete a level under the current arrangements you won’t need to resit anything. But if anything is outstanding you’ll only get credit for the bits that you’ve done. So, for example, if you were to transfer to the new standards now you’d have to do the following:
• Level 2
IAC would give you exemption to Basic accounting I and II exams. You’d need to do:
• Work effectively in accounting and finance Unit 31.3/36 would give you partial exemption to this.
• Basic costing Unit 31.1/34 would give you partial exemption to this.
• Computerised accounts There are no exemptions available for this paper, even if you’ve done 31.2/35.
• Level 3
FRA and ECR will give exemptions to Accounts preparation I and II exams and the Costs and revenues exam.
You’d need to do:
• Indirect tax Unit 31.1/34 would exempt you from this.
• Cash management Unit 15 would exempt you.
• Spreadsheet software No exemptions.
• Professional ethics in accounting and finance No exemptions.

The best advice would be to complete as many levels as you can now before you transfer.
If you get all three parts of Unit 31 done that will exempt you from Level 2 and one part of Level 3.
If you then do Unit 15 as well, that would just leave you with the new professional ethics to do from Level 3.
If you do the existing PE assessment then you’ll have Level 3 under your belt just leaving you Level 4 to do under the new system.
If you sit Unit 15 now you won’t need to do the two exams as it is one of the options at Level 4 so you’d already have it.
Definitely start the skills test now rather than wait.
You’ve only got one year left to do them. Get Units 34–36 done first, then Unit 15 and then Unit 32. Do them in that order for best exemptions.
• Thanks to Sarah Conyers and Sandy Hood

[«all Studies]