Chartered Accountants Ireland Boot Camp

What is Boot Camp?

Boot Camp is an online programme of learning for students looking to develop their financial skills. The programme helps students build a strong foundation in the fundamentals of accounting and finance, while also developing their understanding of how to use financial information to make better business decisions. Students who participate in the programme will develop important, transferable financial and business leadership skills.

For Transition Year students, it is an ideal introduction, not just to accounting, but to the business and financial decision-making process. Favouring a strong practical focus, students are exposed through “real life” business simulations, to concepts like strategy, risk, sensitivity analysis and the importance of critical thinking to good decision-making. Students will also gain real life insights from senior business leaders, accountants and finance professionals.

The programme is also highly effective online revision tool for 5th and 6th year Accounting students as it provides an excellent foundation in the basics of double entry and accounts preparation.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TEACHERS: This is the "Student Version" of Boot Camp. There is a separate "Teacher Version" which is a private programme available to teachers only. If you are a teacher or TY Coordinator, please contact us by email (at [email protected]untants.ie) and we will enrol you in the Teacher Version of Boot Camp:

Is Boot Camp for you?

You should do Boot Camp if one or more of the following apply to you:

• You are interested in business and finance and, in particular, how important business decisions are made.
• You aspire one day to be a business leader, senior manager, accountant or entrepreneur.
• You want to learn valuable transferable business skills like critical thinking, financial analysis and strategy.
• You enjoy working in teams, getting to grips with problems and solving them.
• You intend taking Accounting or Business as a subject for Leaving Certificate.

What will I learn in Boot Camp?

Boot Camp comprises a core Foundation Course in Accounting followed by a Business Leadership Simulation called "The Boot Camp Challenge". These are described further below. In addition to these resources, Boot Camp also includes careers guidance on the pathways to, and opportunities for, students considering a career in accounting and finance.

The Foundation Course

In the Foundation Course, you will learn the basic building blocks of accounting and how to use them to record financial transactions. You will develop your book-keeping skills and practice how to apply them through a series case-study style questions. You also will learn how to extract a Trial Balance and how to prepare a Trading, Profit and Loss Account and a Balance Sheet. By the end of Boot Camp, you should be able to prepare a set of final accounts for a business, from basic records, and be able to make the necessary adjustments to accurately reflect both the financial performance and the financial position of the business.

The Boot Camp Challenge?

The Boot Camp Challenge is a fully "gamified" online business simulation in which students take on the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of their own business. Students who complete the Challenge will acquire essential decision-making and critical thinking skills and gain valuable experience about real-life business leadership. The Challenge is not just for students who are interested in business subjects. It is suitable for any student who has an interest in problem solving, creative thinking and analysis.

In the Challenge, students are faced with having to make a major decision which will have far reaching consequences for their business. To add a competitive edge to the Challenge, we are also running a National Competition to see which school can submit the best overall entry. We invite all enrolled students to take part in the Boot Camp Challenge and pit their business smarts against schools from all over the country. The winners will be announced in May 2021.

How long does Boot Camp take?

The Boot Camp Foundation Course is a completely self-paced online course. If your teacher is running Boot Camp in class, she/he will set a timeline for you and will provide further guidance on how to complete Boot Camp. For TY students, teachers may opt to run the programme over a period of 8 to 10 weeks (e.g. one class per week). It is just as feasible, however, to run the programme in a more condensed timeline, for example as an intensive 3 - 5 day course.

Everything you need to complete the Foundation Course is available online. You can watch the video tutorials on any device, at any time, as often as you like. You will also download a Workbook at the start which contains all of the worked examples you will be doing in between the tutorials. There are also notes summarising the key learnings plus a set of homework questions to help you embed the learnings and develop your practical skills.

The Boot Camp Challenge is structured as a real life business simulation. It can also be completed in a condensed time frame (e.g. 3 to 5 days). However, to maximise skills development, The Challenge would ideally be completed over a period of several weeks, with students working on their own time and a teacher using a weekly slot to monitor student progress and provide guidance and direction. There is certainly enough depth to The Challenge for students to immerse themselves in it (either as an individual or group project) for 6-8 weeks.