I have recently become a self-employed bookkeeper and have managed to set up a meeting with a local accountant with regard to the possibillity of him outsourcing some of his basic bookkeeping to me.
Does anyone have any advice for my meeting? i.e. what questions to ask that may be helpful? Does anyone currently do any work for local accountants and what rate do you approxiamately charge?
With accountants, unless he doesn't contract the work to you and is to refer his clients to you, expect rates to be towards the lower end of the scale.
That's not to say it's a bad thing though... often it comes with some level of support and advice from the accountant, and you should probably expect some part of any extra expenses to be covered too (eg mileage).
The thing to also consider, you might also be able to pass work his way. The clients you take on can be offered his services as an extension of your own. Again, unless it is just referring the client he should also be giving you a competitive rate.
Rates can depend a lot on the service, location, experience, qualifications etc... so you would have to give a little more detail on that.
The questions... that is really quite open but I expect you will also need to cover payment terms, how work is to be performed, software to use, where your boundaries are when dealing with a client, how you present yourself to the client (who's banner are you under), will you have an email available with his domain.
