Accounts Assistant 20k! how can one survive!!!!

U

ubend

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I am 28 years of age .. i have 6 yrs work experience organising courses as an IT instructor

I wanted to make a change of career, i want to get work in a multinational company in the accounts department, having only 3 mths experience with accounts and a fetac part-time accounting course completed i have been told by recruitment agencys that i could expect no more than 20-21k in the cork region

How can I impove my prospects , are there courses that i could do to get experience with sap, query mgt system, oracle, pegasus

i have fantastic pc experience i thought this would be very beneficial seems not
 
If this is a profession that you want to go into, I would aim to get a job in the funds industry. There are plenty of jobs available in the sector, in a variety of locations (not just the IFSC).

I know people working for fund administrators, and they are generally happy in their jobs, which is more than I can say for most of my friends.

The hours can be long at month-end, but this is true of the accounts/finance function in most multinationals.

Starting salaries are not great (can you show me a job where no qualifications gets you a good starting salary?), but there is generally a well defined advancement scale, good bonus and benefit schemes, and a good (well subsidised!) social scene.

P.S. I work in financial services, but not in the funds industry, so this isn't self promotion!

Whatever you choose to do, all the best.
 
Ubend, I dont mean to dishearten you but I am an accounts administrator/assistant, I do all the computerised accounts up to audit level, I have over 5 years doing this and I'm still only earning 25k! That's along with doing all the office duties (filing, answering phones, payroll, ordering stationery, everything!).
Funny thing is, I was considering making a move towards becoming an IT instructor, hoping to teach the basic MOS, ECDL courses etc. Is that what you do? What is the money like in that field?

I'm at the stage now where I dont know what I should do to get up the ladder money wise....it seems to me that I have 3 options: 1. Go down the accounting technician/acca certification route (which takes a long time and I'm not really that enamoured with accounts), 2. Try and move more in to the HR side of things (I do a bit of this already and have an ICM diploma in employment law) - would I really need a CIPD to progress down this road? or 3. change tack altogether and try something new.

any suggestions, ideas etc.?

Cheers!
 
Experience with accounts software is not the pivotal requirement to make your salary move in the right direction, I dont believe employers see experience with a specific piece of software as a neccessity, if you have the accounts training you will fundamentally understand how the system works debits & credits etc., picking up the interface element of a package never takes very long.

Every one starts off on poor salaries in the accountancy sector, however salary growth can be quite fast, if you work hard and sit your professional accountancy exams, salary growth will come with the combination of experience and education!


Regards

Ikeano
 
Bluebean

If you like the work you are doing would you not find something similar that is better paid? Maybe I'm lucky but I do more or less what you are doing plus stock management, invoice discounting mgt, currency deals etc. and basically anything that crops up from creating the website to customs clearance on our imports to hoovering but I get paid about €40,000 plus bonus and get a rise every year. It's a small company so I'm basically my own boss and get to have loads of variety. I have a business degree and plenty of computer certs but no accountancy qualification (and have no intention of getting one).

Rebecca

PS Meant to say that I'm down the country where the buck goes a bit futher which helps. Hope it works out for you cos I was a bit shocked at your salary tbh.
 
Thanks MissRibena,

I am in Galway, where unfortunately your buck does not go far....It certainly does sound like our jobs are similar, I also update our website from time to time, and deal with all the contracts etc. I also do financial forecasting, cashflow, budgets etc. to the management team. There is only approx 20 people working in the company. Also, I am more or less my own boss, as in, I am the only person doing the administration, it is a software company. I am the very same as you, I have no desire to gain an accounting qualification either as I'd rather not be 'stuck' doing accounts forever. I much prefer the other areas of work - payroll, hr side of things, website stuff.

So two things come to mind from this:

1. perhaps the fact that I do not have a business degree is what is keeping my salary down?
2. It is not a multinational - I have it in my head that these may pay more??


The last thing is that when I look at jobs advertised for 'accounts assistant' or 'accounts administrator', the salary stated is almost always less than 25k.....should I be looking more at PA roles, or even senior PA roles do you think?
I think 40k is lucky (fair play to you!), but it is very encouraging to know that there are at least some people out there on that money. At the moment, I feel like I am never going to get more than 30k no matter what I do in administration.
Can I ask you how long you are in your current job, and how much experience you had before starting? Also, what was the job advertised as?

thanks so much, sorry for hijacking this topic, just felt I had to warn the original poster!
 
Hi Bluebean

I'm in my job about 4 years. Before that I had 5 years work experience in various admin type roles with the last two of the five years working in purchasing for a manufacturing company. I speak (or at least did four years ago) German and French which helped. I'm alright with computers. Have a bit of background in the company's core business area (industrial chemistry).

The company I work for is just me and the MD, so no multinational. I started on £20,000 but it's climbed a lot since then. Last year I was on €35K and the bonus worked out at €6K so that was brill.

In my career to date, I have worked in solicitors offices, insurance, admin & purchasing in manufacturing and now admin again. IMO having done payroll all over the place, the best paid jobs I have seen are sales reps for industry, sometimes their pay worked out better than the MD's and definitely outstripped any solictors, accountants etc!. I've seen unbelievable money go to these guys and that's on top of having a company car and pretending to work on a Friday from a golf course. If I could stomach the plaumausing (sp?), that's where I'd be aiming.

I took a big step down from my previous job (which was doing my head in) to this one and my title is still "only" Office Admin, so I wouldn't be led by titles or multinational. Have you tried to haggle with management? I'm lucky my boss is a decent guy and although we have our ups and downs he's a sound skin at the back of it all. :) I think my job would probably be better termed "Office Manager", though in all fairness I do as much as any accountant, general IT person and admin person and cleaner I knew ever did when all put together (no offence to anyone).

Rebecca
 
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