I'm sure these kind of posts appear on here all the time but I am coming to the end of my AAT Level 4 and my youngest child is off to Nursery in a couple of months leaving me with a bit more spare time.
With that spare time I would like to start working on setting up my own business as a bookkeeper to sole traders and sme. The trouble is I have no idea where to start with this task and have so many questions going round my head. If anyone can begin to answer these questions for me I would be very grateful!
Is it worthwhile investing in Sage or are spreadsheets acceptable at this level?
Sage told me today that the initial copy of Sage would cost me £550 plus £250 for each company I wanted to set up thereafter, surely it is not worth it?
How do I charge and how much do I charge?
Any ideas on finding the clients in the first place?
Would I need to register under the Data Protection Act?
What do clients usually expect to see on a monthly basis, ie income statement, balance sheet etc??
Are you allowed to complete Self Assesment returns as a bookkeeper or does it have to go to the accountant?
Thats just a few of the questions for now and any answers would be great!
AAT is an excellent route in. Good luck with starting the new business.
You need to ensure that full AAT membership when you get it covers you for MLR otherwise you would be hit with £170 by HMRC for MLR approval... It may be cheaper to join the ICB, get exempted from everything then get a practicing certificate from them, cheap PII and you'll be covered for MLR.
You'll need PII insurance which requires either a practicing certificate or evidence of two years plus bookkeeping experience.
Sage is ridiculously expensive as you've found out. Sometimes I wonder if they actually want any clients? Have a look at VT Transaction+ which some people on here swear by (rather than Sage which they just swear at). Its more of a spreadsheet with a bookkeeping front end. Not as pretty as Sage or Quickbooks but it's a great little piece of software and you can try it free for 60 days.
For Payroll have a try of Moneysoft.
For Self assessment it all depends on what your supervisory body allows. ACCA won't allow me to do them until I'm fully qualified but ICB would providing that you pass the SA module... Of course the more restrictive one always takes precedence. I suspect that as a member of the AAT you'll probably have similar restriction imposed on you?
Yes, you need to register under data protection but it's only around £35 I think.
Got to go but hope to write more later. Over to others on the site for more advice.
Cheers,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Here we go again with two different answers Shaun - no you don't have to register with the IC for Data Protection to be a s/e book-keeper.
Agree though that AAT is a good qualification.
Do you have any experience Peggy?
I love Sage but it's not worth investing in until you know what the accountants your potential clients like being used. Also you might find some clients have their own software on which they want you to work.
Regards charging - there are several ways to think about this. How much you want to earn and how best to do this. Charge per transaction, per hour, fixed fee by estimating how long you think it will take after meeting with client. Really the choice is yours.
Finding clients - word of mouth, getting referrals from local accountants, starting with friends or friends of friends who are in business, putting ads in local shops, talking to people, going to business clubs (business link is a good start for this).
What clients expect - depends on the client. Some just want the books done for presentation to the accountant at the year end, some want monthly management accounts.
Quite happy to admit when I'm wrong which has been known to happen (forgot completely about AIA in one reply a couple of weeks back!). But I'm sure that I'm right over data protection.
If you handle private and confidential information for your clients then you should be registered for data protection. As many bookkeepers offer Payroll services for clients registration is pretty much compulsory.
Talk later,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I believe it is only Data Controllers that need to register, as Bookkeepers we are data processors and only keep records for the purposes of our core business (client names & addresses). Things such as payroll are data processing activities (the client may be the data controller but even that may not be the case).
I do have a little practical experience, I've done the books of one Sole trader for many years now and have worked as an accounts assistant for a while. Just feel lacking in confidence to go out there and make it on my own but know its the best option for me at the moment.
Thanks for the advice re Sage, I will put it on hold for now, I have worked with quite a bit and find it quite straight forward to use.
I shall take my questions re self assesment to the AAT, they should be able to tell me. Thanks for your answers, I think I've just got to take a deep breath, stop throwing in "what ifs" and "how do I do this" and just go for it and work it out as I go! Am grateful for any advice so people please keep posting.
Hi I am with AAT, what i did was became a member in practise, which gave me a license and you need to provide aat with details of your experience before they add this to your license.
You can get cheap pii and money laundering through aat, which if you have paid for the license through aat i would recommend.
well thats my input, i may add to it if i think of more things, but now i am off to sort out plans for tonight! well deserved time out to get me glad rags on lol
After reading the link I think that you and Sheila are right. I think that working in banking for so long just makes you paranoid when it comes to data protection.
I do need to be covered but it sounds very much as though for the bookkeeping services side of things others don't.
I stand humbled and corrected.... Still not got me agreeing on the VAT matter though!
Cheers Bill and sorry Sheila,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Peggy - before you do anything I'd recommend you think strategically and consider what you want from the business. Then think about how you can acheive this. Consider niches and developing specialisms.
If you are interested, there's a video on our Website.
I think when I first thought of starting up I had so many things in my head and got so excited about things that I didn't know what to do first! Courses, websites, what to charge MLR, insurance, advertising etc etc....
The mistake I made was thinking that there would not be too much involved in setting up a business from scratch. There are so many things to think of and I think I was trying to do a bit of everything all at once and not actually accomplishing much of anything as a result.
By nature I expect too much of myself and I am also a bit impatient, when I get an idea in my head I just want to do it NOW and having two small children to look after full time I realised that just was not possible.
I did attend one of the business gateway (business link in England) startup courses and remember one of the things they said was "be warned it will start to take over your life"! How true that is!
Anyway a few months down the line I am concentrating on making sure I have all the qualifications I need and brushing up on my IT skills and building up my confidence by mainly doing bits and pieces of work for friends of mine who have their own businesses a lot of it just favours and unpaid. They have as a result spoken to other people about me and I am starting to see a trickle of more things to come, so I definitely agree with Semsleys advice on finding clients, seems to be working so far.
Have been very busy this week and feel like I'm starting to get somewhere rather than round in circles with questions.
I have set up my website and worked on Business cards. I spoke to the AAT and they weren't overly helpful, saying they couldn't tell me a lot until I was a full member.
Further enquiries into SAGE have led me to the bookkeepers club, which definately sounds more promising cost wise than the original option.
I have made up some spreadsheets for the ledgers, bank rec etc.
All I need now is some clients!
So thank you all for your help, you've given me that extra little boost that I needed!
glad everything seems to be falling into place for you.
no matter how unhelpful they're being at the moment AAT is definitely the way to go.
I'm having a bit of a strop about them at the moment as on reaching MAAT they're allowed to do far more than qualified members of the ACCA even though MAAT will only get you exemption from the lowest levels of the ACCA qualification (first three papers).
MAAT's can call themselves accountants and do sole trader and small company books.
Fully qualified ACCA's without two years post qualification supervised experience are not allowed to refer to their qualification at all and are only entrusted by their supervisory body to do basic bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll.
That's not a problem with the AAT I'm having, it's one with the ACCA who seem to think so little of their own membership....Grrrr.
talk soon,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks everyone for your replies to Pegs, i'm just going through the process of setting up myself, and i dont know which way to turn. this thread has been extremely helpful though. i also have a client (prospective) who is extremeley eager for me to do their account, but i have not set anything up yet, so am on a deadline.
I have Full MAAT membership, applied for PII and MLR through the AAT, and thats it. I've just realised i have no name for my business! aaarrrgghhh, good luck though Pegs, i will carry on following this in case anything else pops up that i need.
I have enjoyed reading the posts but am a little confused, Im doing AAT and was told that at level four you are only classed as an accountants assistant and would need to do atleast one year CIMA to call yourself an accountant. Can anyone clarify this?
Im qualified as a bookkeeper up to trail balance and doing level two AAT at the moment during the break I was going to do the ICB Payroll management course then hopefully go self employed as I feel payroll is becoming a big part of a bookkeeper jobs, What are your thought on other things a bookkeeper could offer to keep work flowing?
I have nearly finished level 4 and like you am planning to do Payroll as well to extend my services.
Through my AAT Training I am able to take the accounts through to Income Statement (profit & loss) and balance sheet.
I have also learnt about Business Tax for Corporate and sole traders and self assesment. So if you carry on with AAT you should be able to offer further than TB.
You can't call yourself an Accountant, I believe it carries part qualified status though.
What aggrieves me is that everything that is done in AAT studies is also done in the ACCA qualification but where MAAT's can produce accounts and do tax computations ACCA are not allowed to until they've done two years post qualification working for a qualified accountant. And of course in the current market there just aren't any jobs in practice to be found.
Its fine the ACCA telling you that your allowed to work as a bookkeeper but most clients don't want to pay someone to do half the job then someone else twice the money to finish it off!
On the AAT website it definitely states that they consider MAATs as accountants. Here's just one snippet from the site. There are lots more :
The AAT membership consists of thousands of qualified accountants all around the country and includes those who are licensed by the AAT to run accountancy practices, offering a range of accountancy services to individuals and businesses. Most of these accountants are included in our Directory of Members in Practice.
Sounds like they're calling themselves accountants to me!
As for the ICB, spoke to them today and they told me that bookkeeping and accountancy were quite different so higher qualifications such as my ACCA qualifications no longer give any exemptions from the ICB manual exams.
It's got me to the point now where I'm looking at finding a training provider whose happy for me to start the AAT Diploma route at the Diploma stage. I've dropped Premier training a note and I'll see what transpires.
talk later Peggy,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Actually anyone can call themselves an accountant even joe bloggs down the road who has no qualifications at all. However, if you wish to practice under the aegis of an association you need their, or what they take as equivalent, qualifications and have to abide by what they will allow you to do.
Im only registered with them while im training as you need to be registered to take the exams. Not sure if I will bother with memberships once ive passed. I can get MLR direct from HMRC.
The memberships have to many restrictions and your right anyone can go out and set up as a Bookkeeper or Accountant.
