BPP Accountancy Courses

*BPP Professional Education*

BPP Professional Education is a company that provides training and resource materials to students; in order to aid them earning the required qualifications they need in order to progress through the business environment.

BPP offer courses and materials for several areas of business, including Accountancy, Tax and Law. In fact, according to their website they train and assist in more qualifications than any other in the world.

*Personal Experience*

In 2002 I finished studying for my A.A.T. (Association of Accounting Technicians), and throughout the three-year course, I chose to use BPP as my primary source of course materials, and they didn’t fail me. I successfully passed all units of this course and am now a qualified Accounting Technician.

Since then I have debated as to whether to continue my education with either CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) or ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), and eventually chose ACCA. As my studies are to begin in September 04, I thought it wise to begin preparing myself for the hard work ahead of me, and based on my previous experience with BPP chose to again use their courses and material.

*BPP Accountancy Course*

BPP offer courses for a number of accountancy qualifications including AAT, CIMA, AAT, ATT (Association of Taxation Technicians) and CTA (Chartered Tax Advisor), along with more regional based qualifications.

In order to access the information from BPP of the availability of courses, you can opt to choose for a brochure to be delivered to your home address, or you can browse their excellent Internet site.

With respect to these qualifications, there are a number of courses you can opt to choose from. These include, but are not limited to;

1. Classroom Courses
2. Booster Days
3. Computer Based Exams
4. Distance Learning
5. Full-time Courses
6. Home Study

I am choosing to study my first year of ACCA via the home study route, with the addition of a couple of revision courses offered by BPP.

*Home Study Course*

The Home Study Course is as intensive as a classroom based course, but you need to be highly motivated to ensure you stay on top of the syllabus work. Thankfully BPP have on hand, support from over 60 experts that are available for contact during the course.

The Home Study course also includes the following

1. Study Programme – This is the guide to the course, and is split into several manageable sections, designed specifically to help you through your studies. Each section is given a high, medium, or low priority in order to help you maximise your study time.
2. Study Text – Textbooks are also provided on the course, and throughout the text include references to exam tips and quick quizzes.
3. Multiple Choice Question Cards – for the first two papers in ACCA, you are provided with a bank of cards, which are an excellent revision tool.
4. Unique i-Pass CD-ROMS – This is a new unique addition to the home study course, and they are designed to test your knowledge and help perfect your exam technique, as they are quite literally crammed full practise tests.
5. Practice and Revision Kit - A helpful textbook, offering you a more manual approach to exam questions and answers.

As you can see, you are provided with a large amount of course material and revision guides all included in the price of a course.

*Classroom Course*

In order to choose the best-taught course for your schedule, the classroom courses are offered in a variety of timescales:

1. Day Release Course
2. Afternoon Course
3. Evening Course
4. Saturday Course
5. Friday/Saturday Course
6. Block Release Course

And with these courses you will receive the following; Professional teaching, printed course notes, tutor support and assessment, Interactive text, Course Notes and for those interested free tea and coffee!

BPP also recommend that for students following the taught courses, that they conclude their course with a revision course.

*Course Price*

ACCA home Study courses are currently being offered for GBP104.95 per paper, a price consistent throughout the many papers required to pass.

In comparison the Classroom course is between GBP295.00 and GBP345.00. Although this may appear to be a considerably saving, its is of course dependant on how you choose to study and what option works best for you. For example, my AAT was earned via attending a local college, however during the last year I found that whilst working from home, I was producing considerably better results and I felt happier in my working environment.

All course prices can be found on BPP Professional Educations website, at www.bpp.com, and when choosing a classroom course you are required to pick the study centre of your choice.

*Study Centres*

For ACCA students there are over 20 centres to choose from in the UK and Ireland, and a further 5 in Europe. For alternative qualifications this does vary, for example for AAT BPP offer a choice of 18 locations in the UK.

Study centres are located throughout the UK and Ireland, for example in Dublin, Glasgow, Reading and Manchester, to name but a few, so should be easily accessible for the majority of students.

*Why Choose BPP?*

According to the BPP website, Pass rates for BPP students are consistently higher than those achieved by other UK students, and their course material used by more colleges in the UK than any other.

They offer a wide variety of courses, as detailed above, and there is flexibility to courses for example it is acceptable to choose between a mixture of self-taught courses and classroom based courses throughout your studying.

Personally I find the BPP course material extremely easy to use, and a refreshing change from other companies. I used their books all through my AAT, and will continue to do so through my ACCA. They offer consistent good advice, including exam tips, and several exam papers and revision guides to practise from.

All that’s left now if for me to pass my exams!

Thank you for reading

Kels x