hi everybody, spent a long time reading your messages and i have gained a great insight to pluses and negatives. my question is this.....i'm thinking of doing a home study course with www.premiertraining.co.uk , and working from level 1 to level 3 payroll management . now before I spend any sort of money i like to know if this a worth while investment and or if anybody knows of any better companies or courses.
thank you all in advance for taking the time to read this ....
Afraid that the questions a little too loose to know what your looking for in a reply.
Premier training are definitely one of the top two distance learning providers that get mentioned on this site. The other being Ideal Schools. Both are good training providers and very reasonably priced.
Premier use Osbourne books for their study materials so a definite plus there.
As to whether the it's worth the investment? I suppose that all depends what you want to use it for? If it's to find a job then no matter how much money you throw at training you can never guarantee a job at the end of it.
If it's to enhance your existing payroll related role then the premier course comes highly recommended (I believe that Amanda is doing Payroll with Premier at the moment and she's not written a bad word about them).
Whats your background? why are you looking at taking this path? Give us all a bit more history about you and I'm sure that we'll be able to point you in the right direction.
All the best,
Shaun.
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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.
hi well a little about me I was a hgv driver until i got a shoulder injury that put stop to my vast journey's around the UK. I'm now looking to go in a whole new direction if you pardon the pun.i have a good run two of my own businesses in the past. and this is an area I'm interested in doing. and I have been watching this forum of a while and believe that on here advice can be impartial without wanting to sell you any thing , and to be honest many thanks for taking the time to read this and reply
generally, unless one is going down a specialist route such as opening a Payroll Bureau most people would do the Payroll qualification as an add on to the bookkeeping side of the business.
If you went down the bookkeeping path there are really two paths to choose from. Either employed or self employed.
If you wanted to find work with a company but wanted to keep the option open of working for yourself I would always advise going the AAT route.
If you were only interested in working for yourself then IAB or ICB routes to qualification would be fine. Personally I've had problems with the ICB and am changing allegiances to the IAB but your experience of them may be completely different.
To offer bookkeeping services you legally need to be covered for money laundering. You can ether do that directly with HMRC for around £170 or be covered by your supervisory body automatically on gaining your practicing certificate.
One word of warning if you have been reading the gumf that keeps coming through the post about this being an area with lots of work and good rates.
There is work to be had but there is a lot of competition and for much of the time the rates are not great. First year income for most tends to be minimal barely covering the costs but it does slowly build up over time.
Before investing in a course it might be better to invest in a good bookkeeping book to see if the reality of the subject matter is what you expect it to be. As a first tentative step I would advise reading something like Mastering Accounting Skills by Margaret Nicholson (ISBN 1403992703. Currently £12.97 on Amazon).
After all of the expenditure on training there is no guarantee of finding work so it really is a good idea to know that you are completely comfortable with bookkeeping before making a major investment with a training provider.
I took your original message as you are considering taking level 1 to level 3 Payroll. Just occured that such might not actually be what you meant. If what you were actually saying was going from level 1 bookkeeping through to level 3 Payroll I would actually divorce the subjects.
If you decide to go the ICB route do levels 1 and 2 bookkeeping then get a practicing certificate as anything after setting up your business can be done as continued professional development which is an allowable expense of the business whereas taking the first three papers (lvl I manual, lvl II manual, lvl II computerised) will be a change of career path so will come out of your own pocket.
Hope that this helps. If there are any specific answers that you need please do not hesitate to ask.
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.
