im new to this site so please be gentle, after passing my icb level 2 exams i decided to start up on my own im registered with icb and have all the legal requirements. bearing in mind i have no experience through friends and family i have just got my first 2 clients!!!! one is paying one is more of a trial to see how i get on and im doing both on monthly basis so the questions are
is there any excel spreedsheet i can use? as i qualified in manual bookkeeping i cant offer cmputerised services
I would advise if you get the opportunity to take the computerised exams. Would say if you know manual that if you manage to get an older version of sage or another package, think sage fits in better with the exam though cheaply on ebay or the like, buy some past papers that are £5 from ICB and teach yourself from them. The exams are home based and can be taken anytime you just need to book by a Thursday for exam to be posted on a Friday.
Would say that if you cannot offer computerised bookkeeping you may miss out on potential clients who may already have a computerised package in place and they may not want to have their bookkeeping changed to manual. I have found if you have got to grips with one accounting computerised package you can easily pick up others quickly.
If your client are VAT registered would say using a spreadsheet can be more of a pain, I did have client whose whole bookkeeping system was on excel and all the formulas in the template had to be changed when the VAT rate changed from 17.5% to 15% and real pain for those that had overlap 1 or 2 months old rate and 1 or 2 months new rate as the formulas and lay out of template had to be recreated. As with Sage it was the case of a quick minute change to the settings of VAT rate introducing new rate of 15%.
Thanks alot for the advise as for the computerised exam will i have to do a higher level ie level 3 or do i just contanct icb and book for a computerised exam i do have knowledge of sage instant accounts so it should not be hard to pick up and yes somone did ask if i did computerised bookkeeping so htat explains why they didnt get back to me
ps i have checked out some sage packages on ebay is there one version you would recomend just to start with? is there much difference between sage instant accounts v14 and v15 sorry for asking too many questions
thanks again
anne
-- Edited by Anne73 on Saturday 6th of June 2009 01:40:55 PM
With Sage there is not much difference between sage instant accounts V14 and V15. Would say whichever is the better price.
Would say that V12 of Instant accounts has an annoying problem - whenever you set up a new customer or supplier account you then have to go back into it to accept the terms otherwise it constantly saying terms not accepted whenever you post invoices. The later versions already accept the terms when you add supplier or customer.
There is level 2 and level 3 computerised. With the level 3 computerised you have some manual questions. Would say worth buying the pass papers on ICB for both levels and then make a decision on which you do.
Also there is a payroll exam (and I have read on another forum that you are not allowed to offer payroll services unless you take the exam but not sure if this is correct or not)
thanks for that will buy both past papers and take it from there as for payroll it is right you have to take the exam before you can offer payroll services
I have been reading both of your post and have a questions....sorry.
I have passed my mannal and compterised with OCR via college and would like now to do Payroll before going back to college in Sept to start level two AAT.
I saw from your posts that u can study the past exam papers and then book an exam when ready but I cant find it on the ICB website and wondered if you direct me to the right area. As I feel I dont need to do a whole course so this would be idea for me.
The other question I had was has anyone on here done any of the short courses on mycourse http://mycourse.co.uk There is one on mannual payroll and another on tax only the basics but thought for the money £35.00 thay were worth trying.
You can find the past papers on the ICB website, its on the left hand side of the home page under the heading 'shop'. I don't think you can take the exams unlessyou register as a student first.
