Returning to finish ACCA exams after break - advice needed!

Abbieco

Hi I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. I have a business studies degree from DCU (graduated 1999) and I initially started doing my accounting exams with the ACA while working in an auditors office. I passed all of Prof 2 and Managment Accouting and Auditing modules in Prof 3. I sat my last accounting exam in 2004.

I subsequently left the auditors office to work in the business sector doing accounts to P&L and Balance Sheet stage. I would now like to go back and finish my accounting exams with the ACCA. Based on my degree and the ACA exams I have already sat I am exempt from all the F exams except F7 and would then just have to sit the P exams. However I am worried that I will be totally lost since its such a long time since I studied accounting. I'm afraid I will be out of the loop when it comes to doing more indepth stuff at the P level. Is there a refresher course or something I could do just to get me up to date with things?

I have a lot of practical knowledge on a small business level but have forgotten alot of the stuff I previously studied. Though I still have all my old notes and stuff which I can look over but things have probably changed quite a bit since I last sat these exams! Wish I had just finished them when I was at it!

I was hoping to enrol in a course in January 2012. Also was wondering if anyone had any advice about where is the best place to study?
I have looked at Dublin Business School, Independent Colleges and Griffith College, though I am leaning towards Griffith College as they run lectures in Drogheda which would be great for me as I am based in Dundalk.

Any advice would be much appreciated, am panicing a bit about not being able to keep up! :eek:

SBWife

Taking F7 should mean that you'll be in reasonably good shape for P2, and I don't think that F7 will be too much of an issue as the material it's based on (F3) is pretty rudimentary.

P1 should be fine as it's pretty self contained.

P3 is follows on from the earlier management accounting papers F5 and F3. You might want to spend some time reviewing the F5 syllabus before attacking P3 if it's been a while.

OpenTuition.com is a good source of free notes. I'd take a look at the F5 material and from that you should be able to judge whether it'll be sufficient to get you to where you need to be before approaching P3 or whether you'll need a prep book.

Abbieco

Thank you so much SB, really appreciate the advice, you've made me feel a bit better about getting back into the study!