I am based in Sheffield and I have been working as a self employed bookkeeper since April of last year and so far have two clients. I have spent about £400 on advertising and mailers since that time and have had maybe 8 or 9 calls since I set up in April. I don't advertise my hourly rate, I have a website and I have lots of flyers and business cards up, plus lots of advertising online - although I have had two queries last month so maybe things are picking up.

At the moment, I am gearing myself up to send out another mailer shortly so I will see if that brings anything.

Having said that, I think that the area where I live has been hit badly by the recession.

Terri

Hi Anna,

you're from my part of the world. So big hi from sunny Hednesford.

Seems to be more bookkeepers around than businesses to service. If I had to depend solely on income from bookkeeping I think that I would have to go and make ends meet by swinging my handbag on the back streets of Walsall.

As Bill states, accountants are keeping their own staff employed by taking on work that they would normally consider below them.

Training companies are a real pain in the proverbial with their empty promises. Read one the other day that still stated that once qualified as a bookkeeper you could expect an income of £30k to £35k p.a.... Beginning to thing that they should have missed the k off! Don't want to mention their name but if you follow the links from the ICB approved distance learning providers you'll find them pretty easily.

As with the shovel and pick suppliers in the gold rush, I think that with a few exception the only people making real money out of bookkeeping at the moment are the training companies.

Another problem is finding permanent work as there are so many people now being churned out of the training machine that for every job that comes up the agents are getting hundreds of applications and most are being rejected without so much as a glance at the career history.

I know that it's the basic rules of supply and demand that are causing the problem but it does seems an absolutely ridiculous situation when at the moment bookkeepers are sometimes working for less than the cleaners! Nothing against cleaners there but the level of responsibility is not exactly in the same league.

Sorry to be the harbinger of doom on this but the climate out there is not at all as training providers paint it.

Good luck in finding some clients though. No matter what the situation people on this site are always pretty supportive of fellow bookkeepers and accountants.

Shaun.

Hi Anna,

I suffered the same nonsense from the Home Learning College salesman when he sold me the ICB course at a hugely over inflated price.

I'm in my first year trading. I decided not to go down the per hour route and opted for a fixed fee (I wont go into it here, have a search we've had endless discussions on it).

I had a few clients but 2 of them have dropped off recently leaving me with only 3. The two that have gone are both fairly new starts and have decided that I made it look easy so they can do it themselves.

I started really pushing things again mid January. I started picking a business type and sending about 20 letters per week, following them up with a phone call. Just a wee tip if you try this, I found a service called cfh docmail. You upload a letter and mailing list to them. They print the letters, stuff the envelopes and mail them from about 30p per letter. Saved me loads of time.

I don't think it's a get rich quick business, but I do think that bookkeeping can provide a sustained income over time.

I wish you luck

Kris

LaShel Bookkeeping wrote:

---

Hi

Another Hednesford buddy. Ive found that accountants pass on the most work, never grumbled with prices with me & they pay the same as I charge customers. Also, customers that I have are happy with a qualified bookkeeper & one, even got rid of his bookkeeper when he realised I could do it better in half the time.

Has anyone seen the new mailshot that the post office now do? You design the postcard yourself & enter details on the reverse & hey presto they print them & post them out for you (2nd class). Done this last week so I shall let you know how this goes or whether this is just another waste of money. Anyhow, good luck with everything.

---

Lisa

It will be interesting to see if the mail shot gets you a client or two, I look forward to hearing how you get on with it

 

Terri

I have been doing self employed office services and training for the last three years.  I have one employed job of 25 hours (who want to increase this so that I can takeover more work!!!), three clients I visit weekly, one monthly plus 3 regular 5 week training courses and ad hoc one to one training.  Although this sounds a lot the training is the better paid and I am looking to expanding this.  I have 40 years experience in admin and book-keeping, 17 years of which have been in FE teaching these subjects.  I make nowhere near as much doing what I'm doing now as I did when full-time FE but I am much happier and enjoy being able to teach without having to spend hours on paperwork and love the variety of working with different types of businesses.

The claims of £25 an hour as a qualfied book-keeper are optimistic to say the least, particularly, in the north where I am based.

-- Edited by semsley on Wednesday 10th of February 2010 09:24:32 PM

Networking is a better way than advertising. Business Link through their various projects in most areas of the country have some sort of business club, maybe called different things in different areas but these are where start up businesses meet and get to know each other and are ripe grounds for acquiring clients. Other good areas are recommendations from accountants - get to know the ones in your area.

Hi Amanda,

funnily enought I live in a posh area you spoke of myself :) I think that's pretty much narrowed down my first target for marketing, thanks a lot for that.

I also really like the idea of advertising at the chippy. Did you have to pay for that?

Thank you all for the wise words, I feel much more reassured now

Onwards and upwards!

Anna

Hi All,
Thanks for your comments, i have tried free advertising too .I have business cards up in most of the local shops and have had cards in newsagents windows etc but no joy.I have decided not to spend money on advertising in papers etc and concentrate on the cheaper methods like shop windows etc.
Hopefully things will pick up as this area has been affected by the recession quite a bit so hopefully the more i can get my name out the better.
Thanks
stephen

That is wrong they shouldn't promise work.

I guess the idea is not to sell courses that need lies to sell them! :)

Have taken a look at the site and was not impressed.  There were numerous spelling and grammatical errors.

Shamus wrote:

---

Today was the big day wasn't it? Have you been given the all clear with your leg now??? If so bet you're running that much missed bath even as your reading this.

Unfortunately not the big day is 22nd February at 2.25 - so precise you see!!!  Bathtime is still with one leg stuck up on the bath side, very elegant.

On the points that you make have a look at mine and Bills replies to the Andy's(?) first message.

Really not like us to turn on newbies or criticise peoples sites I know but this is just a blatant advertisement.

I have a big thing about spelling and grammar (not so much when writing on forums as it's for fun) particularly for websites and any sort of advertising material for businesses.  If they can't get it right there it doesn't say much for their attention to detail in the services they are offering.

I suppose it's my 'old school' background and coming from years of working in senior secretarial roles correcting the spelling and grammar of Chief Executives!!!!!!   Wherever I work I'm always being asked by the younger generation how to spell x and would I take a look at y to see if it's alright.

-- Edited by semsley on Friday 12th of February 2010 07:50:36 PM

Ditto, I'm in the same book so even thought about bookkeeping franchises. I did a bit of research and stubbled across a nice little gem, Boogles! Check out their website -www.boogles.info - a unique funky brand with ever better start up costs that caught my eye:)  Check em out

-- Edited by simonmdb on Thursday 18th of March 2010 02:48:28 PM

Hi Simon,

I had a look at the BFA site and there is no mention of Boogles. The Boogles web site also looks a bit amateurish with no facts or figures and no franchise price.

If your thinking of taking this path then maybe you should talk with Bob at Crunchers or even go for TAX Assist or CERTAX which are really bookkeeping franchises masquerading as accountancy practices.

If on the other hand this was actually an advert can I suggest that you greatly improve the Boogles website before going live with it as it comes across as a very amateur affair at the moment.

Kind regards,

Shaun.



-- Edited by Shamus on Thursday 18th of March 2010 04:15:25 PM

I did a quick search on google and the Franchise Manager for Boogles is one Simon Martin del Burgo so I'd imagine he already knows they're not a member of the BFA (unless of course it's just a conicidence that this poster and the Boogles franchise manager have the same name) 

Good bit of sluething Mike

I would say before the recession hit making a living as a self employed bookkeeper was a realistic thing.

I set up my bookkeeping business in August 2006 and had solid work for a year near enough full time earning the same if not more then being in a full time job but the one drawback was it was not steady regular hours - some months I would be working to as late as Midnight most days, other months may have only had a few hours work a day and sometimes even a few hours all week but over the year the income was same as full time job if not a little bit more than.
Did have to take on part time job 3 days a week for year because all clients I had taken on that needed a lot of back dated work all got caught up to date, after a year of the job got too busy so quit the part time job. From August 2008 to March 2009 was very busy, then clients dropped like flies because of the recession.

Now I am lucky if I get 10 hours a week, but hopefully this may improve with a potential new client meeting tomorrow and a potential new client who phoned when I was out that I need to call back tomorrow.

Would say if you have someone who can support you and part time self employed bookkeeping is enough then worth a go, or if you have another business you can run alongside it would be worth a go.

Alison

Good luck to you too Anna. You could always try picking up a few clients to do at the weekend whilst you are in full time employment.

Rob

I wouldn't think that was right to be honest Ann (though I could be wrong). Firstly you do not have to have PI insurance, it's just a good idea when you are self employed. I cannot be so certain about MLR, absolutely you would need this if you were self employed but I cannot see that doing voluntary work is the same. If you were employed by the place that is taking you on as a volunteer then you wouldn't need to be. Maybe someone has the definitive answer on this one?

Rob

Hi Dotty,

That sounds a good way of advertising for little cost, letters in the rear window. I'm all for cheap advertising where poss, also its word and mouth, just get well known in your area, it all helps.
Like you say the small ones are sometimes the best, I have a couple of smallish ones and they are great.

A

Hi Guys,
Because most of my bookkeeping clients have just come off benefits and are starting out on a shoe string, I offer a fixed fee of £24 a month for their first year, it then rises to £34 a month from their second year onwards due to the hopefully increase in paperwork.

Before you think ouch, most of them are completed in under an hour. That makes it more than £24 an hour so I am happy with that. Another benefit is that they all seem to know of others like themselves so I get recommends.

Most new self employed people from the benefits side of things have been on long term sickness. So they are people with ambition that have been unfortunate. Due to this I have a mixture of business,s. the likes of driving instructors, artist, hairdressers, cleaning business,
gardeners, disc jockeys, cake makers, and others. Some have employees.

I have a brilliant relationship with all of them, and really enjoy what I do. For the cleaning I charge just £8 an hour and nearly all of them are elderly, they have to pay for their cleaning now and are given an allowance for it, but that allowance is also for any care they need so I do not want to be greedy. It all adds up and I do my own budget accordingly so I am not in a stressful situation. I will never be rich or posh but I am happy.

I find that sitting down all day makes me stiff so the cleaning helps me get exercise.
One thing that all of my bookkeeping clients have said at one time or another is that they did not know about bookkeepers only accountants and they felt that their business was too small to merit one. If that is how my clients felt, then there must be thousands of other people out there really needing help in other towns and cities.

For some unknown reason there is a thing about people in business having to big themselves up to attract trade. What good is that if people just pass you by because they believe you are above them. Make the smaller guys feel welcome and see the results for yourselves.

Cheers Dotty

Hi Dotty,

I can see where your coming from and excellent news on the success so far. Hope it continues to go from strength to strength.

Business people come in many forms, some small businesses such as the ones that you've described. Others somewhat larger affairs. Each needs something different from their bookkeeper / accountant.

We position ourselves for the market which we wish to service. Clients like to see in us something of themselves. What's the old saying, birds of a feather flock together.

Always bear in mind that the bookkeeper who may be perfect for one market sector may be totally wrong for another.

I try to be friendly with everyone who approaches me. Sometimes I know that the client is not right for me and pass them on. I think really that is the knack. Know your market and build on it.

Not sure if you took insult at my mention of cleaners in my earlier posting. If so you really need to read it again as that's not how it was intended.

The comment related to the fact that as a bookkeeper you spend thousands in order to have the knowledge and ability to do the job. As a cleaner there is no such expenditure but in many cases there is little if any difference in the hourly rates being charged by a cleaner and a self employed bookkeeper.

I appreciate that this is simply the result of supply and demand combined with the minimum wage but you have to admit that in such a scenario something is seriously amiss. Why would anyone pay thousands to acquire skills when they can command a similar income without such expenditure?

Anyway, hope that you have a really good Easter break,

kind regards,

Shaun.

I nominate Dotty as poster of the week!

Thirded