I've just qualified as a bookkeeper and am a member of ICB. Could anyone suggest ideas of questions to ask potential clients when I take them on. Also, what questions may be asked of me, especially from accountants who will hopefully outsource work to me.
It is pretty scary seeing as I haven't worked in this area before and I'm worried I will be asked things I don't know the answer to so I thought I would prepare myself!
When you say you have not worked in this area before do you mean bookkeeping or being self employed. If bookkeeping then I would say it won't be easy building up a client base - qualifications are great but experience is vital.
I would say the best way to gain the experience is finding an accounts based job. Would say the best way to gain a wide range of industries experience is working for a firm of accountants for a couple of years. Also if accountants you would have built up a good relationship with them and they may outsource the bookkeeping work to you once you have the experience, or it may be that if you enjoy the year end type of work accountants do as well you might want to work full time for the accountants but going to the clients site to do the bookkeeping some of the week as well.
If you do decide to become self employed straight away as a bookkeeper it is not necessarily the best time to set up as so many people being made redundant and setting up so there is a lot of competition, and the more experienced bookkeepers (people with many years experience in some cases 20 years or more) will most likely be gaining the client.
Thanks for your reply - I'm new to bookkeeping and I was hoping to gain a client base so that I could leave my job I'm currently in about 18months! I don't feel too confident now!! I have written to local accountants so I will see what comes from that and perhaps see if there is a job locally I can gain experience from.
I did not mean to make you lose confident. I was just being honest. It is tough competition as a self employed bookkeeper, and with no experience on your side would make it even tougher. Is your job you are currently in 18 months bookkeeping related? I would advise anyone who had a job not to give it in to become a self employed bookkeeper at this time, so many people doing it and takes many years to get a client base to equate to a full time job, more and more companies are doing their own bookkeeping to keep costs down so you have fierce competition with the sheer number of bookkeepers opening businesses plus less customers wanting bookkeeping services.
It's not all doom and gloom as the papers would make you think. I didn't have any experience when I started, but I was realistic. I didn't go after bigger more complex jobs and focussed my attention on taking on smaller clients who required basic book-keeping, normally up to trial balance stage. I'm still taking on these types of clients now (they haven't disappeared!) and these are nice fit with my larger clients.
It's true that businesses are watching their budgets more closely, they'd be mad not too, but I haven't found this has effected my business at all. Quite the opposite in fact. I had one client who didn't have a clue where they were financially, and asked me to sort them out. This I glady did and charged them for!
I have to say you must live in a very good town. In the area I am in the local newspaper (which before credit crunch had some part time work being advertised for freelance bookkeeping used to appear regularly) now it never does, the jobs pages used to be several pages long, the other week I thought I had got the wrong day for the jobs section because could not find it, went through the paper again and the reason I had missed it was because it was less then half a page of job adverts.
I am finding now even current customers who were always very prompt at paying now I have to chase and chase and chase to get paid.
Large mailing drops did not work and I have even got advertising as have commercial premises in a very prominent position (next to a train station which is busy with commuters)(many business people) and have not had an enquiry from that.
Never used to be like this when I first started out in 2006.
Just thought I'd relate my experiences so far. I set up in a medium sized town in late 07 and have been building slowly but steadily ever since. Have to say my experience has been similar to Sarah's regarding demand, although I've had to keep a watchful eye on credit control. All my clients are on standing order now which has helped my cash flow.
One of the best tips I was given when I started was to network, network, network. This I have to say I didn't do for the first 6 months and like Alison mentioned, I didn't have much success with leaflet drops either. I then turned to networking, better late than never , joined a local business group and chamber of commerce, and from then on clients started coming on board. It's not easy and clients won't come knocking on your door. You have to get out there and make people aware you exist and how your bookkeeping service can help them. Do this, combine it with a great service and customer experience and you should be fine.
Hi All Thanks for your advise and input - hopefully I will get somewhere soon. I'm writing to accountants, have a flyer ready to deliver to local businesses, and will be advertising in the local paper aswell. It's good to have both positive and negative feedback, of which I am grateful. Cath
Also get out there networking. Meet people, introduce yourself and get to know your local business community!
Spend some time looking at what value you can add, what clients you would really be able to help, and what ones would you want to work with too. Then set out focussed on those and the specific benefits for them.
and like Alison mentioned, I didn't have much success with leaflet drops either. I then turned to networking, better late than never 
, joined a local business group and chamber of commerce, and from then on clients started coming on board. It's not easy and clients won't come knocking on your door. You have to get out there and make people aware you exist and how your bookkeeping service can help them. Do this, combine it with a great service and customer experience and you should be fine. 
