AAT Reviews 35

Purchased a VAT Course online on 3rd December. Cannot get any access to the course at all. Get a 404 error saying I don't have access. Can't get through to anyone on the phone and emails go unanswered. Really disappointing.

So disappointed with the changes to AAT 2022.
For me the draw was the fact I could do a level have a gap do another. I am an adult other responsibilities. But that did not effect my AAT studies.
However, now the format has changed so much that you'd need to do it in one go.
They have stopped the repetitions, which were so helpful and now the level 4 AMAC module is so long!
I wish I had realised the extent of the changes before wasting so much money.
It's not the same qualification. I mean there had been a change between me completing level 2 and level 3 but it did not stop me achieving a distinction at level 3.

As a former FMAAT with the AAT, I emailed them for some guidance about rejoining the AAT on 8th June 2025 but heard nothing. I wrote again on 9th July but again heard nothing. Reading all the other reviews here makes me feel a bit better and suggests I am not alone in experiencing an abysmal, non-existent level of “customer service”. Sadly, it would appear that the AAT has fallen apart recently and is now the complete opposite of the great organisation it once was. It simply mirrors the current administration of the U.K. whose sole purpose appears to be nothing more than to confuse, undermine and belittle its members so I’m out!

As a passionate and hardworking individual who dedicates significant time to learning, I find myself quite disappointed with the AAT exams. Although I haven’t failed any exams so far, I must admit that they don’t make it easy to pass. Many questions seem straightforward with simple answers, but the correct responses often rely on additional information that isn’t provided in the question itself. This forces you to think in a hypothetical way like, “If this situation were different, then the answer would change” yet there’s no clear indication or hint within the question to guide you toward that plausible alternative. It feels unfair because you’re expected to anticipate scenarios that aren’t explicitly mentioned.

I sat level 4 drafting and interpreting financial statements and aced it honestly... Was 100% sure it was a pass.

6 weeks later I got my results and only questions 1 and 2 were marked (36/40 marks). I filed a complaint with AAT and their response acknowledged it was a system failure on their part that was beyond my control and not my fault... Yet want me to do a resit of the paper.

I do not feel a resit is a fair outcome as they have admitted guilt on their part in my complaint response, yet punish me by hindering my career progression and time by making me study for a resit and waiting 6 weeks for another mark.

I have escalated my complaint to ofqual but am not hopeful after seeing how rude and dismissive AATs response was.

For clarity this was my last exam of level 4 so is directly affecting my salary, career progression as well as significantly effecting my mental wellbeing.

My other exams were 84% average. I achieved 90% on the questions they didn't lose this paper

OMG ! I am just going through AAT Business Awareness - what is this ?? An accounting technician will never need these information! Totally useless! this is a theory which we have to remember ( over 300pages book) that no one needs, probably created just to make an exam out of it and increase AAT's profits...ridiculous and totally useless ..I am shocked 😲
They force us to remember all over 300 pages because some questions are like 2 words from the description which means to have to know the whole description because you never know which 2 words they will use !! Cannot be more ridiculous!!!! Instead of learning us a practice, they force us to learn like poems !!!;
I joined accounting course to learn about accounting and I DO NOT need to learn what kind of decision is make by the Board of Directors, the theory which organisational structure is most likely to be appropriate for the business...about kinds of terrorisms or phases of money laundering ( this will be on te exam.)!!!! This should be advanced level for professionals not for the people who start the job as finanse clerks and they will be adding invoices into the system or issuing credit notes ! I don't care about 300 pages theory about money laundering!!!!!This is totally sick program and has nothing to do with beginners! Think twice if you want to lose your time, money and health to learn about something like that instead of practice tasks which you actually need to get the job!
Just imagine that you have an interview and the hiring manager ask you if you have a practical skill to issue invoices, to do reconciliation and similar ? You will say "no, sorry but I know the steps of money laundering, I know the advantages or disadvantages a different form of organisational structures and what dilemma may have the Board of Directors", do you think you might be successful and get this job ???? 🤣🤣
Forget about AAT !

Training does not cover half the exam content. They so this on purpose so you have to pay more.
You cannot get any job or apprenticeship with level 3. When if you move to level 5 accounts, it still counts as nothing in real life.
Don't bother with this scam certificate.

People getting absolutely bad and poor training while the real exams are much harder and there is no any sort of support.
My partner got level 3 through this company and can’t even find an apprenticeship and the aat don’t support the students to find any company to do a real activity, even they don’t respond to any email. Don’t waste your time getting qualification from aat.

In my opinion AAT is one of the best Professional Boby.
I have joined AAT about two years ago an I have always found very helpful customer support.
I highly recommend.

Absolutely shocked how AAT have treated me after holding my membership for 20 years.
I filled my Licence form in incorrectly and they cancelled my membership and direct debit and said I cannot use the letters after my name anymore.
Unbelievable and unfair.

Another exam behind me and another time tasks completely different and much harder then on AAT practice assessments!! This is really ridiculous!
I have no words to describe how awful this institution is :(
Stay away from AAT

I’ve literally been a customer for over 30 years and their customer service at this point is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I am about to leave AT&T. They are completely overwhelmed and have poor staffing. They literally owe me $1600 for two phones that I return via them over a year ago The worst phone company

Well do you have minus 5 stars to give them. They don't deserve any..Big scam no matter how hard you study the questions on exam are deliberately confusing, they all different and simply not worth, all this learning for nothing,questions on books don't relate to the exam questions. Nothing. Forget what you learn is just a waste of time and money to resit. No learning from any book relate to questions and they all meant to fail you. Shame on you all.and not giving your papers so you can see.
I just fail my first exam after I study from BPP book, BPP exam book,Kaplan book study,exam study, Osborne one and still fail. I know the books inside out all of them still nothing I learn don't relate to majority of the questions. Every learning on their website all the green tests and all exam papers I pass 100% and went to the exam. I had a panic attack seeing the questions. So confusing and badly worded so you don't understand what they are asking from you, plus many things about subjects not on any books or their site. Money making machines that what is this. I am thinking of dropping all things and starting something else. Really, they make me sick trying to learn all of this and go there and feel absolutely disheartened that I never come across that kind of questions. I wish I would have seen other reviews before going to college to study accounting. You talk about ethics really???? You bring shame over this job with this organisation. Instead of encouraging people to study they do what? Learn 5 books for one subject day and night to fail. If I wouldn't be this sick I would love to sue you and all this scam of courses. Why you cannot assess your own papers? Why the question are so different and difficult and not reflected on what you learn. Another big scam here. Books fee, college fee ,registration fee and then face different questions, twisted language and all that.No morality here,shame on you....

Absolutely disgraceful company, i did a complaint which wasn’t resolved and i will be subsequently taking AAT to court to get my money back. I will also be naming and shaming your company everywhere because you are scamming innocent people into paying loads of money to sign up and not delivering what you promise.

AAT are simply appalling. I sat my Advanced Bookkeeping Level 3 2016 course and passed all exams. My plan was to then transfer 2 of the units over to Level 3 Accounting which then leaves me 2 left to do. For some bizarre reason, the AAT have capped the percentage pass for my already passed, transfered units to just 70% the bear minimum. Seriously? So you cannot work out simple actual percentages to transfer my ACTUAL percentage grade which was a lot better than 70%? Strange as when they marked the papers, they broke each question down to tell you if you passed it by exceeding, met requirement, borderline or below requirement. This way of transferring is not only disgusting, it is morally wrong and unfair. Can you imagine the uproar if this was GCSE's or A Levels? What this also means is I cannot possibly get above a merit for my overall final pass mark for Level 3 Accounting because the ridiculous AAT gave me 70% for a unit that contributes 40% of the whole course. When I telephoned, a lady told me to resit the exams if I want my actual percentage. Wow, that left me speechless. AAT you are appalling and have no care or concern for your students. I will also be looking into complaining to their regulator.

Shocking website and customer service for members.
I have been trying to fill in my declaration in order to pay my yearly MAAT, for WEEKS now.
I have been in touch by email, they take weeks to answer, I've sent my declaration back manually via email, except no one has updated my personal page on the website. So when I try to pay for the membership, I am reminded I need to fill in my declaration FIRST, then I click on the declaration and get the same error message I have been getting for weeks.
SHOCKING!! I am only trying to pay for my membership like I have for years!!! I am unsure how to come to a resolution and risk losing my membership.

I must agree with other students' 1 star reviews on TrustPilot that AAT, which is the industry standard for accounting in this country, is up to no good.

Having just finished AAT Level 3, I can concur that the questions in the exams are absolutely terrible and do not reflect what students are made to study. I was aiming for a final merit and should have achieved one were it not for this.

The whole Level 3 course is so stressful and the Synoptic was blatantly a set up. Everything was deliberately confusing and different to what you had studied, and you have to study like crazy to do 1 exam which is more like 3 in one. Some of the students told me they were resitting for the fifth time!

It was unbelievably monotonous and you have to study for months if you hope to have a chance. And I swear the final task expected me to enter SPL information into a SFP where it didn't belong. It was impossible to complete the task so I didn't because I knew it didn't go there. I don't think this is a mistake with the questions either. I felt like it was yet another way to ensure whatever answer you gave was wrong. I only just passed, but was still very annoyed about this.

Oh, and not being able to check the correct answers afterwards to see what they expect is highly suspicious. I requested this but they ignored my emails. How very convenient that you can't check the tests you've done and been graded for.

After a while of sitting exams you begin to understand what's really going on, and how this is all done deliberately. I know so because I anticipated similar tactics in the final spreadsheets exam I had to do which should have been a breeze for me because I've been using Excel for decades. I've completed expert courses on it in the past with Pitman's and Clait when I was younger. Additionally, I use it on a daily basis where I work, including VLOOKUPS, Conditional Formatting, SUBTOTALS, Charts, the works. I am very adept with Excel yet fear I may have failed THEIR Excel exam, which again I was well prepared for but couldn't complete properly because THEIR questions were impossible to answer, once again.

The Data Validation question was unintelligible, and was not how you do Data Validation. Another insane question was to make all headings visible but don't change the column widths. What? Like I said, impossible questions. I know there is an option to manually enter the exact column widths by number and also to double click the end of each column, of course, but the question said, 'Don't change the column widths.' So what do you do?

What I ended up doing was changing the font sizes so they would shrink to fit the cells (there's an option to do this in the cell properties). However, after doing this the longer headings were still not visible because the font sizes were way too small to get it to fit in the unadjusted column! IMPOSSIBLE!!!

To study so much and then be presented with questions that,

1. don't make any sense
2. are deliberately obscure and misleading
3. different to what you have studied and practiced in the practice assessments
4. in some cases literally impossible to answer!
5. designed to make the student fail,

is extremely stressful and an outrage!

They take way too long to mark the exams so you miss the deadline and have to pay more fees, of course.

Finally, to appeal your grade costs £127! What? Why? And they still don't let you see the questions and answers afterwards, which you should be entitled to. This is highly suspicious, as is the hefty fee simply to appeal.

I have to agree with the students who think AAT are doing this for the money, by forcing us to pay to resit several times out of no fault of our own. And they have the audacity to lecture us about ethics for accountants? Wow!

These guys are a disgrace to the profession and I have reported them on gov.uk.
I recommend other students do the same at complaints, Ofqual, gov.

You can study your heart out but when it comes to the exam don't expect to see any questions that relate to the practice papers even on the aat website. Its a total scam and should be investigated. They try to teach ethics - what a joke when they are not honest in the revision and mock papers. Absolutely mind and nerve destroying trying to pass when the questions in the exam are nothing like what is taught in college or the study material. Do they do this in order that many students will have to resit and therefore have to give aat more money? Yes they do.

Unfortunately I went to do my exam at the college 13th July, I submitted then guess what happened. The computer went crushed and I lost my exam. They keep calling me to re-book the exam but I don’t want to do it again is a waste of time rubbish. AAT you keep calling many times and let me tell you that you will be ignored

I failed an exam by 1% so paid for the exam to be remarked.

I received follow-up to my exam being remarked and was informed after a few weeks that my mark hadn't been upgraded.

5 months later, I'm in the process of preparing for the resit to this exam to get a pass, and I receiev an email informing me thatI had gained an extra mark anf therefore had passed the original exam .

Obviously great news that my exam was upgraded, but 5 MONTHS after I PAID for it to be remarked and they told me NO.

The amount this knocked my confidence when sitting my other exams was major, and I felt so rubbish about it all.

I paid to get it remarked for a reason and They gave me an answer. only to change it 5 months later.

I am now unable to get a refund for my resit exam that I have booked - so wasted close to £100 paying for the remark and the resit which were both useless.