r/ukaccounting

I’ve been looking for jobs for the past year so far, going to interviews, either getting rejected or ghosted by the very few that even got back to me. Genuinely wondering, how do people get their foot in the door when you won’t even be considered without experience. There have been so many I’ve applied to, never hear from, the listing expires, but then it’s posted again months later identical?? But other than that just a complete lack of entry level roles except for the rare ones I see pop up only every few months or so. For context I’ve gone the AAT route rather than uni, currently doing Level 2. Any advice is genuinely appreciated.

Good evening everyone! I’d really appreciate hearing some opinions from people who have gone through something similar or have experience in the fields I’m considering.

I’m a nurse trained overseas and currently working in London as a healthcare assistant. Over time, I’ve realized that nursing — and healthcare in general — is no longer for me. I don’t feel fulfilled, and although it’s considered a stable career, it doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

I’m very interested in transitioning into fields like finance, accounting, or even law. I’ve also come across a Master’s program that combines Law and Finance, which really caught my attention.

My main questions are:

- Do you think it’s worth applying directly for a Master’s in a new field, even with a completely different background?

- Or would it be better to start from scratch with a Bachelor’s degree?

- And overall, do you think these fields still offer good career opportunities nowadays?

Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I've been working as an unpaid intern in a small accounting firm. I thought I've been doing well as I am regularly given work and everything seemed to be going smooth. Yesterday they gave me a client to do bookkeeping for on Vt transactions. I have a main boss and a head of office. So the head of office assigned me the work and told me to do it manually. But the thing is they assigned me 3, 2 to complete ASAP and one to do later, at once and said to do it manually so I started with one of them manually and spent like 2 hours and got 2 months completed when my main boss asked why I was doing it manually and I said cause thats what I've been told to do and didn't know that there was a CSV file. He then laughed and said that I had told the head of office you could do it like indirectly saying I couldn't maybe I'm overthinking it but I'm frustrated how is it my fault and if I was that incompetent why do they keep giving me that much work. On top of this he goes I thought you'd run away thats why I wasn't setting up an official system for you and that I was on trial absolute pisstake. Also the file wasn't even CSV it was a XLX one how was I supposed to know.

Hello, I have been offered a job at a company and completed a final interview at another which I feel confident about. I’m not sure which one I should choose, should I receive an offer for job 2. For context I graduated last year in Accounting with finance and am 22M

Job 1 - Trainee Fund Accountant

Small-Medium Accounting firm (Kind of in between practice and industry)

£29,000

2 Days available for WFH (however they’d rather me do 1 day)

30 minute commute

4% pension contribution

25 days holiday (excluding bank and public holidays)

Pay for my Accounting qualifications

Job 2 - Trainee Accountant (Tax)

Small established independent Accounting practice

Circa £25k

No WFH

Under 15 minute commute

3% pension contribution

20 days Holiday (excluding bank holidays)

Will pay for Accounting Qualifications

I’m sure I’m missing some details, so let me know if I should add anything else. I understand that Job 1 seems like the obvious choice, however after speaking to previous employees, they said that they’ve simply treated it like a stop gap. I do know some friends that work at 1 and they say it’s a nice environment to work in. However it is more management accounting based and I think I’d like to pursue a career in tax and practice. Job 2 is also more rotational in department and I got a better ‘vibe’ from them.

I know Job 2 is paying peanuts, If they do offer me the job I will attempt to negotiate but I don’t think they’ll budge too much. They do seem more laid back and are less trigger happy to fire someone if they fail their exams. There are 6 month pay reviews and it seems like a place to build a career ( there are people that have worked there for decades and the employee retention is quite high)

If it changes things, I will still be living at home so my expenses are low.

Thank you.

Hi all. I am looking for some technical insight into how HMRC’s agent portals and professional software work.

My accountant claims they requested Agent Authorisation for me on 10 February, but I never received a code and no follow-up occurred. I chased them on 8 March, they re-requested, and the return was eventually filed late, resulting in HMRC penalties and interest.

The firm is now claiming that HMRC do not provide submission receipts or references for agent authorisation requests, and therefore they have no way to prove they actually made that first request in February.

My question is whether professional tax software like Iris, TaxCalc, or Digita truly lacks any audit trail, communications log, or timestamp that shows when a request was transmitted. I suspect they missed the first window and are using HMRC system limits as an excuse. I would appreciate any advice on specific evidence or logs I should ask them to produce to verify their 10 February claim.

I remember when I first started learning it, I actually liked it. It felt quite logical and straightforward, like everything had a clear process. But the more I’ve seen of it, the more stressful it’s started to feel, especially when deadlines and pressure come into it. Now I’m a bit confused because it’s not hitting the same way it did at the start. Just wanted to understand if others went through this shift or did it settle down on it's own.

Was thinking about starting CIMA, but with Claude and other AI programmes, will management accounting roles be slowly decreasing?

I’ve been trying to get a feel for it and it's like both play a part, but I’m not sure which one actually gets to people more.

I’ve seen quite a few discussions lately around the best AI for accounting, so I wanted to share my own experience after actually using AI agents in my workflow.

Short version: the best AI for accounting isn’t one tool - it’s how you use them together.

I tested a few tools over the last couple of months:

• an AP tool for invoice capture
• a conversational invoicing assistant
• nexos.ai to connect everything together

What changed for me most is that I spend way less time on repetitive tasks now. Things like invoice checks, categorizing expenses, and monthly reviews are mostly handled automatically, so I can focus on the parts that actually need me.

One example: Supplier invoices come into a shared inbox, the AP tool extracts the details, then an agent checks them against previous transactions and flags anything unusual like duplicates, wrong amounts, or missing GST. If everything looks right, I just review and approve it.

That alone saves me a surprising amount of time each month.

I also use it for:

• Expense categorization - recurring expenses are coded automatically
• Monthly checks - it flags unusual changes or missing payments
• Client invoicing - I can prompt it to draft invoices based on previous ones

I also tried n8n and Zapier. They worked fine for simple things like “if an invoice email comes in, save the attachment” or “send me a Slack message if a payment is overdue.” But once I wanted logic like comparing invoices against previous months, spotting unusual amounts, or using different AI models for different tasks, it started to feel too manual.

With nexos.ai, I could just describe the workflow, tweak the rules, and switch between GPT, Claude, Gemini, and other models depending on the task.

The anomaly-checking agent took about 20 minutes to set up and now sends me a weekly summary. I spend less time on data entry and more time reviewing things properly.

I still wouldn’t trust AI to submit BAS, file tax returns, or approve payments without checking them first.

My advice: start with one repetitive task, see if it actually saves time, then build from there. Curious what other people are using for invoice processing or monthly reviews.

I have both hands tattooed and small tattoos on the side of my neck and behind my ears (neck and ears are to be lasered off)

Recently i've been heavily considering working towards my AAT qualification. However I am worried that even though my tattoos aren't offensive or distasteful that it could potentially cause a problem for my employability.

I currently work for the NHS and no one here bats an eye but also the culture is designed to be as inclusive as possible

I'm 32, with a poor work history. I'm currently unemployed and living on disability benefits. I'm currently doing voluntary work, but my last paid job was over a year ago as a cleaner. I only had that job for a month or so, because I broke my ankle so I could no longer do the job. I'm looking for work, but I've not had any success. I don't think I interview very well.

I'm thinking of doing my AAT level 2, but I'm wondering if I should get a full time job first, so I can get used to working so many hours. I'm also worried that they won't employ me because of my track history and I'll need to prove that I can hold down a job first. On the other hand I don't know how I would fit study around work if I was working full time. I also don't know if I would enjoy accounting or not, so was thinking of doing a buisness management and marketing degree with the Open University, so my options are more open as to what I can go into. I'm also worried about AI. Is it worth going into accounting with AI on the rise? How do I learn more about AI?

Too many VATs, EPR, WEEE, intimidating. What's one tax or compliance thing you wish someone had explained to you before you started selling to EU?

I started a tiny Shopify store with only 1-4 orders from UK now

I’ve been diving deep into the FRC taxonomy for a project I'm working on, and I’m genuinely curious: how are you guys handling the validation of the calculation linkbase when the report is massive?

I'm an engineer, and looking at how the Presentation vs. Calculation linkbases interact, it seems like a nightmare to ensure everything ties out manually without losing your mind.

I'm trying to map these into a graph structure (representing dimensions/periods as nodes) to automate the "tie-out" check, but I'm worried about edge cases where the FRC tags don't map cleanly to the underlying Excel/Docx structure.

Does anyone here have a specific "hell" scenario with iXBRL tagging that a simple search/mapping tool usually misses? I’m trying to build something that actually understands the hierarchy rather than just reading text, and I’d love a reality check from someone who does this for a living.

I’m 20 and recently moved to the UK. I have a Level 3 equivalent qualification, and my background is mostly science-based from school. I am going to join university.

Following my previous post, I’m trying to figure out whether accounting is the right path for me. Since I didn’t study business or accounting before, so I have some questions.

Q1. Which universities are well-known for accounting in the UK? Also, since modules can vary between universities, which modules are a must-have in an accounting degree that I should look out for when choosing where to apply?

Q2. How long does it actually take to become a fully qualified accountant? From what I understand, it involves a degree and then around 13 professional exams (like ACCA), so roughly 4–5 years or more.

I’d like a realistic timeline from people who’ve gone through it.

Q3. Can you work while studying? Before becoming fully certified, is it possible to work as a trainee accountant, gain experience, or even do some freelance work while studying? Since accounting isn’t tied to a physical setting like medicine, I’m wondering how flexible it is early on.

Q4. Anyone here who left their previous career and moved to accounting?

Any advice regarding accounting will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hello, I am currently working through my AAT level 2 and was having a look at requirements as I wanted to work on anything else I might be lacking.

I was looking for any sort of voulnteer work and was wondering if there was any good site to look at or any tips for getting some relevant experience while I study.

I'm thinking of going into accounting, but I'm worried about AI. I know nothing about AI. How do I learn more?

Recently got the xero certification, I had hands-on expericnce on Xero for more than 2 years so getting the certification was not a problem for me. I think that "Hands-on experience teaches things that online learning simply cannot."

I've bought £400 of vouchers off a work perks scheme for a laptop from Argos. But between the two I can't see the vat anywhere.

Anyone advise?

Hi all, just wanted to check what software most of you lot use to automate creation of tax return or company accounts. At the moment we are just using tax calc and downloading PDF statements to CSV but is there anything better?

We all know the drill: you have a perfect Excel or Word doc, and then the "iXBRL conversion" happens, and it’s a mess of manual tag mapping and validation errors against the FRC taxonomy.

I’m working on a tool where you just upload your source files, and an AI agent—trained on the specific hierarchy of the UK taxonomy—handles the mapping and validation for you. It doesn't just "read" the text; it understands the calculation linkbase to ensure the numbers actually tie out before you export.

Key features:

• Talk to your iXBRL (Ask "What was our R&D spend across all subsidiaries?") without scrolling a 500MB file.
• Auto-mapping to the latest FRC releases.
• Export-ready iXBRL.

I’m looking for a few UK-based finance pros or auditors to give it a spin and tell me if the tagging logic holds up to real-world scrutiny. Anyone interested in testing a better way to handle UK filings?