h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Five years after passing my final exams, I came up against the deadline for submitting my application for membership of the institute.

So, a couple of months ago I banged out a few pages of a career CV, explaining what the hell it is that I've been doing with my time to justify the pittance that they pay me.

Well would you believe it. This morning a big envelope turned up in the post containing a letter saying my application had been accepted, a big fancy membership certificate with stamps and scrolls attached, and a bill for £175 for next year's subs.

That's right folks. I am finally a fully paid up member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

.... and presumably your first action as a Chartered Accountant will be to claim the £175 back against income tax......

I see you've encountered accountants before.

B

Congratulations anyway, letters look soo nice after names..

Technically speaking I am a Management Accountant. And yes

Letters after names are so pretentious, you mean...

Is there a British Union of Managment Accountants?

B

No there isn't, in much the same way that there isn't a Cambridge University New Testament Society

**Red Dwarf flashback**

Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society.

B

Can't we pretend you're a chartered accountant?

"It's fun to charter an accountant..."

Oh, and congratulations

I have a qualification in Computer Literacy And Information Technologies. The initial letters of little words like 'and' aren't usually included in acronyms, and I think it's a great pity that CLAIT is an exception.

Anyway, congratulations, GD. But aren't you an ardent socialist? Is it your ambition to audit the revolution?

I'm sure we'll need accountants after the revolution.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Audited"

GD

Good show!!!

But we will be a caring revolution that will have duty of care to accountants, so will provide them with meaningful employment.

I've met two and they've both been nice people.

I think I need to explain a few things about the accountancy profession here. So please bear with me and try not to fall asleep...

There are six chartered accountancy institutes in Britain.

The first three are the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW) and then the same for Scotland (ICAS) and Ireland (ICAI). Their focus is in the auditing of company accounts to show that they are a 'true and fair record' of the company's affairs for the purposes of investors in the company.

Members of the other three institutes are employed by business to focus on its successful running.

There are people like me who are in the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) who tend to be in manufacturing and service industries; the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) who focus more on financial instutions and tax issues; and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) who specialise in public sector organisations - I am actually part qualified with this lot as well.

In terms of the pecking order, the first three do have special authority under the terms of the 1983 Finance Act to sign off on company accounts. This makes them feel that they are more important than any other group of accountants. But as we point out to them, it also means that it is they who sign off that companies like Enron are good guys and all upstanding and what-not, and end up with large portions of egg on their faces.

The CIPFA lot are a special case. They mainly work in local government and to some extent in the NHS and other ex-privatised industries. That is all well and good, but the problem is that the qualification isn't particularly portable if they decide to move on and work for some plc or other.

ACCA, well, it isn't good to speak ill of the desperate. They somehow manage to have more registered students than they do members who've passed all of their exams. This leads us all to conclude that they aren't a real accountancy body, but a scam to sell lots of dead boring and highly expensive textbooks.

CIMA? We're the ones who get things done. Companies and organisations who make things and do useful stuff, employ us to help them make things and do useful stuff



Oh and Z, I do have meaningful employment. Can you imagine what a total hash the NHS would be if we allowed doctors to run the business end of things

Of course. That's why we'd still need you after the revolution..

I hate to disappoint you Z, but there ain't never going to be a revolution. The reason being that capitalism works.

The area that we have to fight over is what you do with the proceeds of surplus production. It's whether you invest them in tax cuts or you invest them back into making the lives of those who produced the surplus in the first place better that is the question. And quite frankly for the most part *all* political parties these days, and for the last 60 years, have chosen the latter.

Don't worry GD, I do actually know.

But sometimes when I'm pissed off with the world I can cheerfully think 'oh well it will be better after a revolution,' it's a belief that I need in the same way some people need religous beliefs.

...capitalism w*rks!??.... not for all of us, love.

**

Leaves a few informative leaflets in a corner.