Bypassing AAT and starting with CIMA?

Hi Mike,

Personally I don’t think you are shooting your self by not doing AAT. If you want to go into accountancy, and become a management accountant doing analysis, reporting and budgeting then studying CIMA is undoubtedly the popular route.
On the other hand if you want to become a book keeper then AAT and studying ACCA or CIMA to go into practice is commonly done.
From my understanding, doing AAT only gives you exemptions for the foundation level of CIMA. You would then have to do three 90 min exams plus a longer case study exam for the CIMA Op level. 3 exams plus a case study for the management level of CIMA and three exams plus a case study for the final level. The foundation level of CIMA consists of four exams. So, doing AAT would require a fair amount of work, time and funding before starting CIMA. I noticed you mentioned you work in healthcare, so depending on if you have a relevant degree you may even get exemptions for some of the foundation level of CIMA.
It really depends on what type of accounting you want to do and how much time and funding you have. On a general note, I cannot lie - CIMA is hard work and staying focussed especially this last year has not been easy. On the flip side, many people have said to me over the years companies always need accountants!
There are lots of resources on YouTube so it might be worth looking to see what you think.
This is the CIMA syllabus www.cimaglobal.com/PageFiles/360026951/CIMA%20Syllabus.pdf
Best of luck.