Level 2 Accounts/Finance Assistant Apprenticeship Standard

An accounts or finance assistant is an integral part of the team responsible for maintaining an efficient and accurate finance function within a business. You will be responsible for assisting the team of accountants with junior accounting duties. These can vary depending on the team structure and size of business. The work could include basic bookkeeping activities, working with sales and purchase ledgers, running calculations to ensure that records and payments are correct, recording of cash and data entry. Potential employers include corporate businesses, sole traders, partnerships, public sector, not-for-profit organisations, and educational institutions. Accounts or finance assistants may work in-house, or with an accountancy firm or bookkeeping practice.

You must have access to real work, which is valid and productive, providing opportunities to develop, practice and evidence knowledge and skills that have been learned.

It is a government requirement that the employer is expected to provide and support the opportunity for off-the-job training for a minimum 6 hours per week. Defined as technical and knowledge development, this type of learning is undertaken outside the normal day-to-day working environment. It can include activities such as attending College, online learning, mentoring, role play, attendance to competitions and events, or revision and assignments set as course work and homework.

The apprenticeship contains four units which are assessed individually at the end of each unit, and there is a synoptic assessment at the end of the qualification, which draws on and assesses knowledge and understanding from across the whole qualification.

Units include:

• introduction to bookkeeping
• principles of bookkeeping controls
• principles of costing
• the business environment.