First things first...I finally have my very first client which I am very pleased about. We can't yet afford champagne so we had a nice cup of tea to celebrate! It has proved that my marketing strategy is working which I was concerned about.
On this occasion I am visiting my clients office monthly and using their already installed Sage software (I am taking over from a bookkeeper who is retiring). But, in future, I am looking at Sage 50 Client Manager which is in the region of £500 for the first year for either 5 or 10 licences, can't remember which. Anyway, I don't know how to go about bearing this cost as I may have only one customer for months or I may get, say, 2 or if I am lucky more than this. It seems the best package so far. How have others managed this? Do you take a chance and buy it in the hope you get enough customers to cover the cost? Do you factor in the cost in your charging rate for the first few customers? I am currently charging £12.50 per hour if that helps.
Any advice or indication of what others do would be a great help.
I have just signed up for Sage Bookkeepers Club, decided that this was best option for me if my business plan goes to plan, if not I'll cancel my membership after the year and keep the software, well sometimes you just need to speculate to accumulate. I went for the 10 licence version which was £465 plus VAT paid over 10 months which softens the initial outlay. I intend to charge it out to my clients by adding £60 per year (or £5 per month) to each one I set up on the system, this will either be over and above the hourly rate or hidden in a fixed cost package. If they are not happy with the cost discuss the options with them, eg their own dedicated software at £*** cost, or the manual accounts route which would probably increase the number of hours you need to work and therefore there costs. Remember you can alway come down on a price you can never go up (learning from that one myself).
Hope this helps. Oh and just for interest what has been your marketing strategy.
I am currently using excel for my customers, but then they are small self employed businesses and Ltd company 1st end of yr accounts, are you able to get by, by using just excel, do you necessarily need to purchase an accounts software?.
I only say this because I am finding it okay to use excel and also it sounds quite expensive to purchase the accounting software....
-- Edited by lor on Friday 23rd of October 2009 07:33:21 PM
