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Emma Grant, Learn to Finance Ltd | Enterprise Nation

&lt;p&gt;We offer private and bespoke training and tuition for bookkeeping and accountancy students.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

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Emma Grant

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Hi, I&rsquo;m Emma and I love teaching&hellip;.. bookkeeping and all things accountancy related, but please don&rsquo;t let that put you off.&nbsp;

After 20 years working in Local Government Finance this is my story of how I found a love for training and teaching accountancy, rather than continuing my working life as an Accountant.&nbsp;

During my time at Exeter City Council, I achieved my AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) qualification (1999) and my CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance &amp; Accountancy) qualification (2012).

With 8 teachers in my family, you could say it was inevitable that I would end up going down the teaching route too.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s easy to say this now, of course, but there was a time when I would have said, no way, never!

I was way too shy to stand up in front of a (small) group of people and talk to them.&nbsp; I was, and still am, very much an introvert and I like my peace and quiet.&nbsp; That said, I do believe we make some of the best teachers as we know when to stop talking and start listening.

My Accountancy Background

Whilst at Exeter City Council I worked my way up from a finance admin role, via Assistant Accountant to Systems Accountant, the role I really relished, gaining my qualifications along the way.&nbsp;

I covered a wide range of Accountancy tasks, starting at the bottom processing invoices and inputting journals, and working my way up.&nbsp; Working in an open plan office with the Accountants of the time, was ideal as I could learn from them along the way.

Over the years, my accountancy responsibilities increased including Bank Reconciliation and reconciliation of various other funds.&nbsp; Later on, I was allocated management accountant responsibilities and started working with senior managers and providing advice to them as required.

My Training Background

This all ticked along quite nicely until I was seconded into my Systems Accountant role and my job become a lot more interesting!&nbsp; It was here that I found my passion for training and teaching others.&nbsp; I was on the project team for implementing a new finance system; I would be working with a wide range of staff and training over 80 end users.

As well as learning all about the new system, I was also involved in writing the training manuals and creating the training sessions &ndash; and loved every minute of it.&nbsp;

We started work on the project in the summer of 2007 and went live on 1st April 2008.&nbsp; After the system went live, I continued my training role and made it my own; creating further manuals and training courses to run.&nbsp; I soon found I had a real joy out of teaching but my accountancy role, less so.&nbsp; I had finally found something I really enjoyed, and amazingly it involved talking in front of people, who knew?!

In July 2013, I achieved the PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) teaching qualification.&nbsp; A short teaching course aimed at the post 16 sector.&nbsp; I had two reasons for wanting to take this course - a) to improve my training skills and b) to open up more opportunities to move into teaching.&nbsp; In December 2013, I took voluntary redundancy from the Council to move onto pastures new&hellip;

My New Teaching Story

Fast forward to the present day, I now have two and a half years&rsquo; experience teaching AAT to distance learning students through a previous employer and have decided to go it alone and create my own teaching career.

I have tutored around 250 students and seen them through nearly 450 exams.&nbsp; 96% of my students passed first time, of which I&rsquo;m incredibly proud; it was all their hard work however, that got them through the exams.&nbsp; I merely provided the additional help and support required.

I&rsquo;m especially proud to be one of two tutors who tutored the AAT&rsquo;s 2017 Distance Learner of the Year.&nbsp; He deserves all the credit however; he did the hard work to pass his exams.&nbsp;

Despite all of the above, I had been feeling restless and wanting more from my role for a long time.&nbsp; I wanted to take back control of my destiny and create my own teaching career and so, in January 2018, I made the big decision to go it alone!&nbsp; In April this year, I launched Learn to Finance Ltd.

I&rsquo;ve been where you are

I achieved my AAT in 1999, at a time before Excel and when the internet was still in its infancy.&nbsp; I even had to wait two months for the postman to deliver my exam results!&nbsp; I was looking to progress my career at the time and had heard about the AAT qualification from my colleagues.&nbsp; I plucked up the courage to ask if I could go to college to train, and they said yes.&nbsp; I will admit it wasn&rsquo;t all plain sailing at the beginning (I failed my first exam, not a good start!) but I gave myself a good talking to after that and never looked back.

After telling myself I was never going to study again, I started my CIPFA studies a few years later.&nbsp; This was a whole other ball game.&nbsp; After going to Exeter College to study AAT, this lesser-known public sector accountancy qualification was only available at a few locations around the country, including from home.&nbsp; I started my CIPFA studies as a distance learner before going to college for the later modules.

I took these studies a module at a time, with exam sittings in December and June.&nbsp; This was a big step up from AAT and I really had to plan my study time around working full-time.&nbsp; I said goodbye to my social life for a few years too.&nbsp; There were a few tears and tantrums along the way but I am so proud of myself to have qualified and achieved this qualification.&nbsp;

What Next?

I am pleased to say that since May 2018 I have been tutoring for Osborne Training on a freelance basis and I have also just started a volunteer Finance Assistant role at the MS Therapy Centre in Exeter, to keep my &lsquo;hands-on&rsquo; bookkeeping knowledge topped up.

I am writing exam revision packs for those studying AAT and am writing various other bookkeeping courses and materials.

How can we help you?&nbsp;

We offer support for AAT students and a lot more besides.&nbsp; Perhaps you&rsquo;re thinking about a change of career into bookkeeping but not sure where to start?&nbsp; AAT isn&rsquo;t the only professional body offering bookkeeping and accountancy qualifications.&nbsp;

Coming soon are our Introduction to Bookkeeping Course Books and Taster Courses.&nbsp; These are aimed at people who might be thinking about a move into bookkeeping but perhaps don&rsquo;t feel confident around numbers.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll let you into a secret, you don&rsquo;t have to be great at Maths to be an Accountant, simply enjoy working with numbers.

Alternatively, maybe you would like someone to write a finance system guidebook for you and your business, the training doesn&rsquo;t have to be AAT related.&nbsp;

I would be more than happy to discuss any bookkeeping or accountancy training requirements with you, large or small.

For more information please feel free to email me at <a href="mailto:info@learntofinance.co.uk">info@learntofinance.co.uk</a> or visit my website <a href="http://www.learntofinance.co.uk">www.learntofinance.co.uk</a> for more details.

I look forward to meeting you.

Emma

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Emma Grant

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