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Association of Accounting Technicians

Association of Accounting Technicians
Association of Accounting Technicians logo.jpg
Logo of the AAT
Abbreviation AAT
Formation 1980 (1980)
Headquarters London, UK
Coordinates 51°31′14″N 0°05′50″W / 51.520520°N 0.097163°W / 51.520520; -0.097163Coordinates: 51°31′14″N 0°05′50″W / 51.520520°N 0.097163°W / 51.520520; -0.097163
Region served 90 countries
Membership 133,600
Member's designations MAAT, FMAAT
Chief Executive Mark Farrar
Website www.aat.org.uk

The Association of Accounting Technicians, or AAT, is a UK qualification and professional body for vocational accountants, with over 133,000 members worldwide. It was created by the merger of two founding institutes in 1980: the Institute of Accounting Staff (then a subsidiary of ACCA) and the Association of Technicians in Finance and Accounting (then a subsidiary of CIPFA). It is a technician level qualification offering higher apprenticeships which entitles those who have completed the exams and obtained relevant supervised work experience to become an accounting technician. The AAT is based in London, but has branches with membership all over the UK and the rest of the world including Hong Kong and South Africa.

The body is sponsored by four UK chartered accountancy bodies; CIPFA, ICAEW, CIMA and ICAS

The only UK accountancy body which does not sponsor the AAT is the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). This organisation used to be a sponsor of the AAT but broke away in order to form a rival qualification called the Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) award. The ACCA implemented this policy as it wanted a technician level qualification that offered accountancy apprenticeships based on the same business model as itself.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland is also keen to implement AAT courses into its own business model. It presently has no plans to develop an ICAS technician qualification in direct competition with the AAT's UK model as proposed in the late 1990s. It has remained a sponsoring body since the inception of the AAT.

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants decided to sponsor the AAT program offering higher apprenticeship accounting courses and it has expanded since 2011. AAT(SA) has no signatory powers for any of its South African members, this is because there is not sufficient audit content within the qualification offered. SAICA and AAT are working towards gaining authority in a number of other areas, such as Commissioner of Oaths and review status. This sort of authority does take time to approve and the new South African Company Legislation is not yet finalised.

Since 2010 every level of the AAT qualification has a number of modules, each of which culminate in a computer based assessment.


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