After working in various accounts roles for large companies for the past 14 years I decided to go it alone......I have recently gained my ICB qualification in both manual and computerised bookkeeping and have just started advertising for clients...(very, very scary). Initially I am starting small and only taking on small businesses and sole traders.
Please could you tell me in what format do most clients wish to see their accounts when completing them manually? Do they need to see all the T accounts or just the trial balance at the end? How do you present the information to them?
This is probably such an obvious question, but so worried about getting it all right and do not want to look stupid in front of clients!!!
It really depends on what you've been engaged to do? If it's a book-keeping role then you would generally prepare the books up to trial balance stage, prepare any VAT returns etc and then pass it all to an accountant. If you're intent on offering a complete accounting service then you would prepare the financial statements which includes a P&L and B/S. From this the tax return would be completed.
In my experience small business clients don't generally care much for seeing the 'T' accounts, which after all is simply a breakdown of the general ledger etc. A trial balance would be a summary of this anyway, and most really only want to see a final set of accounts (if this!).
This really helps! I have just been contacted by a potential client who unfortunately has only just become self-employed himself and has no idea what he wants me to produce for him....he is not VAT registered so it should be fairly straightforward (hopefully!). I think I will prepare the accounts to trial balance but doing a P&L and balance sheet should not be too tricky....
