Thanks Rob.I owe you a list what I will get done once I have some time lol. About the topic, do you not think if I start to advertised to a bit more specialised market (like those above) I might cut myself off from other potenitial clients? At the end of the day I need every customer I can get as I will be a new starter. I am just trying to appear a bit different to other bookkeepers around in terms what i can offer but will it not alienate other customers? Man, the studies were so easy comparing to start my own business...

You can,t forgive, can you? I know it is not very nice to say and mabe i could not write up a list of hundreds but yes i definetly know about more than 10 cases just in this town (so I assumed this might happens in other towns as well). what is considerably little compared to the number of accountants and clients but still. And I do not say it was the accountant in fault, he/she might have given the job to bookkeepers (like me) but the end of the day someone did make a mistake and it was the accountancy practice the client had a contract with. And yes all of these were small businesses/sole traders so i just assumed (maybe wrongly again) the accountant did not pay enough attention for these as they are not the biggest money makers for them. Again, Shamus this is just an opinion and yes i do/will rely on accountants as well so I am sorry if I hurt some peoples feelings I do not say all accountants are bad, most of them are not and the same stands for bookkeepers or any other profession as well. I am from catering background as people say there if you loose one customer because of bad experience he will tell it to another 40 so in long term you will loose more than one. Same stands here a couple of bad accountants in the sea of thousands will give a bad name to accountancy. With the 'professionalism of accountants ' one should be able to take criticism about the profession knowing bad accountants do exist (and this is a fact,Shamus). And please do not take it on the wrong way (being a foreigner my very polite English may not come thru as polite)it is only an opinion. Maybe you take things a bit serious?

Hi Attila,

you're ok, I didn't take the previous message the wrong way and my message before wasn't meant aggressively, I still hold by the olive branch that was held out at the end of the last thread. I was just saying that you really should let the list thing lie and forget about it.

I think that your original message already had a bit of an adverse effect as normally to a posting like this you would get a lot of replies.

It's actually ingrained into accounting students that one must not be disparaging of other member practices and one must not make unfounded claims about the superiority of one's own services above that of others.

We laugh at ourselves all of the time and try not to take things too seriously (as you will have realised from some of the threads on here), but the first sign of anyone being serious or even semi serious in an attack on the profession and we are very, very protective of each other.

Even as bookkeepers we are the profession and the impression that we give to others is how we will be perceived. For that reason we should always endevour to look to the positive, act ethically, and look after each other.

Anyway, this isn't Pandora's box that you've opened. Just ignore any mention of the list and everyone will forget about it. Certainly I wouldn't have jumped in again earlier if it hadn't brought back into the conversation.

Good luck with your business venture in Cheltenham. I used to work with the Insurance company that seems to own a lot of it and it seemed a very strange place with Russian spoken seemingly as widely as English... Then again, when I was in Cheltenham there was still a Berlin wall so a lot of people worked at GCHQ.

Perhaps a few things were lost in translation then Atilla. Do they still have triangular stamps in Hungary?

Morning Attila,

no worries. No problem with people from any nation / colour / religion. You will find that with most of the professional people that you deal with but I know that it can prove a problem at times with some sectors of society.

Back to the original question.

I agree with Rob and would be adverse to offering anything for free as the clients may feel that once the free period is over they are able to call the shots in relation to the fee's that you charge.

I know that Cheltenham has a real mix of affluent and non affluent areas.

Although it may seem totally the wrong way around I would concentrate on building a client base with the lower end businesses to start with as I find these are the most likely to not already have accountants or to be most ready to jump to a lower priced service providing that you are able to offer comparable services.

Provided that you have good Sage skills and a good understanding of bookkeeping try talking with local accountancy practices to see if they want to outsource any of their smaller clients who are taking more time than the income level warrants.

Once your business takes off, providing that you have happy customers, word of mouth will get you into the better businesses.

I find that smaller clients are only really interested in the bottom line so price will be your distinguishing factor. Take a look at what you need to do for the client and then ensure that the rate you charge will not fall below £8 per hour in order to provide that service.

That's your minimal fee but don't tell the client that. Now price your services at £12 per hour (or whatever you think is the right rate for the client) and go in with that bid but be prepared to negotiate down to no lower than your first calculated figure.

If they're changing bookkeeper it helps if you know what their existing bookkeeper was charging and if you want to win the business use that less 10% (providing that you are still getting what you want from the business) as your basis figure .

Also try to get your clients to pay by direct debit for the agreed monthly fee as that will improve your cashflow and reduce the risk of bad debts.

Hope that the above helps,

Shaun.

Hi Attila,

the time taken can vary greatly from business to business even within the same trade.

Many smaller establishments are only interested in having their books sorted out annually and they turn up with plastic bags full of receipts and till rolls for you to sift through.

When you get one of these, after you've sorted out their current year try to sell them on the idea of you spending a little time every month sorting through their paperwork so that they know their current position rather than waiting until the end of the year.

No matter how difficult the job seems at first I find that once you have the paperwork sorted into some semblence of order it invariably takes less time than you thought that it would.

I've actually got one room in my house with all the furniture removed just so that I can sort through the stuff from this sort of client.

I know that you desperately want to know how long a client takes to sort out but it's just so difficult to give a figure with so many variables.

I can however tell you that no matter how simple the books look and how well kept the documentation is, you will never have visits to client establishments that take less than two hours.

hope this helps,

Shaun.