The more I read on the internet, the more confused I am becoming about this.
As a self employed/freelance bookkeeper how far do we actually go with a sole trader or companies books?
Do we just enter all his transactions, print off any reports required, pass all the information onto their accountant and end up with a clean slate at the start of the next year.
Or are there other little bits that we need to do? there's obviously a fine line somewhere, but I don't know exactly where it is
I hope that this post makes sense and hopefully someone here can stop my confusion.
Bookkeepers usually go up to TB stage and then pass the information to accountants to produce year end accounts etc... however if you train with the ICB, IAB, AAT etc.. you can produce year end accounts for sole traders.
You can also do VAT returns, tax returns, payroll etc....
As you can probably guess, the services bookkeepers provide is not really written in stone, it depends on experience, qualifications, the list goes on.
For anybody new to the job, i would recommend going to TB stage, then passing to the accountant.
My take on what a bookkeeper should do is to maintain a clients accounts throughout the year and ensure they are ready for external auditing by their accountant.
I can only say what I do which is, record all sales, purchases, reconcile bank statements, credit card accounts, loans accounts, maintain nominal ledgers, vat reporting, month end and year end reports.
For some clients preparing month end statements and chasing debtors and doing cheque runs is also done, I do not do any payroll or self assessments, that may come later.
At the end of the clients financial year, all necessary ledgers, folders, reports are passed onto their accountant for them to do all the smart stuff.
At the end of the clients financial year, all necessary ledgers, folders, reports are passed onto their accountant for them to do all the smart stuff.!
Hi
So you don't do anything like preparing a Trading / Profit & Loss Account, and closing off accounts?
As part of the month and year end, I do trading / P&L reporting, the smart stuff to which I was referring to is the various adjustments, depreciations, payroll reports, pd11s, self assessments etc., which I do not do. At the moment I find it better to provide a basic service, only when I have more experience and knowledge through further training would I attempt going further.
Once the accountant has finished finalising accounts I am given a list of adjustments to enter then carry on from there.
