I'm just after a few pointers really, I;ve just passed my Level 1 ICB and have my level 2 computerised at home and manual booked in for next month.
I would like to work even if only for a few people at first as a book-keeper, I currently do my partners books manually and I work as an accounts assistant in a busy signmakers and am studying AAT.
What do clients expect you to do with their books, I assume most will be computerised? I can draw up a P&L and a balance sheet, do bank rec's and VAT returns but is there more to it than this?
Some clients would require payroll. If you are studying with ICB and you have a practising certificate I believe (best check with ICB if this is still the case) that you must not offer Payroll Services unless you have passed the ICB Diploma in Payroll. If you have payroll experience would say this exam is quite easy to do and is home based can be done at any time and well worth the cost of the exam. If you do not want to do the exam and you have clients who require payroll services you could always outsource this to someone else who are able to offer the payroll service but the drawback of this is that client may prefer one person to do everything including payroll (or if you outsource person may try and steal client from you so you would have to find someone who you could trust).
I recently wrote an article about what a bookkeeper does. It talks mainly about what the bookkeeper does to get the financial statement information. You can read it here:
Thanks for the replies, I'll take a look at that article. I'm sure I do know what to do but its the old self confidence muttering in the background that I don't!!
