Institutes of Chartered Accountants of Great Britain

Accountancy is an old occupation. The emergence of the profession with a code of ethics was followed by the formation of accounting bodies. The oldest professional bodies of accountants were first formed in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the 1850s. In 1854 the Royal Charterwas granted to a society of accountants in Scotland some years later in 1880, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales was formed. Shortly afterwards there were similar activities throughout the English-speaking world and eventually everywhere. For example, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants was create d in the US in 1887 under the influence of British accounting practices.

At present there are some major organizations for accountants in the UK. Each of these professional bodies has a charter from which its authority is derived. The first three are the Institutes of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. These are quite separate from one another. Apart from that, each of these institutes has got its own rules, examination syllabus and students. However there is one important rule that unites them. According to this rule, all student members are to serve a fixed period of time under a training contract with a member of the Institute. Thus they gain the appropriate experience before they qualify. As a rule, chartered accountants work in professional accounting bodies, industry and commerce.

The fifth body of accountants is the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants. As the name implies, the members of this organization are mainly found in industry. So before qualifying they must gain experience by working in an accounting office in industry.

There is also a Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies which coordinates the rulemaking of the profession for its own members. It has two committees. The first one is known as accounting standards committee. This committee sets the detailed rules of valuation and measurement to be used by accountants when preparing accounts. The other committee is call ed auditing practices committee. It deals with the standard procedures to be followed by auditors.