No other accountancy bodies allow their members to call themselves Chartered Accountants. To be a Chartered Accountant you need to pass tough exams set by these organisations. It takes a minimum of three years and is never easy.

Whether an accountant belongs to ICAEW or ICAS is down to the allegiance of whatever firm they qualified with. I trained at Ernst & Young who tends to swap between the two periodically in an effort to throw their weight around. When I was training it was with ICAS even though I was based in Reading.

You will find other accountants calling themselves ‘Certified’ Chartered Accountants. This means they are a member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (“ACCA”). The exams are just as tough as ICAS/ICAEW so if your accountant is a Certified Chartered Accountant then they should know there stuff.

If your accountant is not a Chartered Accountant (or Certified Chartered Accountant) they could still be good but you should definitely get a recommendation from someone else that they do know what they are doing.