hello everyone, This forum is great. I wish I had found it before.
I hope that you can help me. I need some honest and impartial advise.
I am thinking of becoming a self employed bookkeeper, doing accounts up to trail balance to start with. I can also do VAT returns, although I have not done one for a while. I have AAT intermediate and 10 years practical experience as an all round accounts assistant for mainly engineering firms, I also run my own craft based business which is a hobby for which I do my own books. Basicly, the only part of bookkeeping I've never done is payroll. I've posted the relevant parts to ledgers and paid the relevant bills, but never worked it out myself. I can use Sage, Quickbooks and SAP (Although I don't think I will need anything like SAP).
The questions I need answering are : -
Is this a valid business idea, bookkeeping up to Trail Balance?
from what you have read, can I do this? do I know enough?
Sounds like you have the experience, what you need is confidence. It is not necessary to have payroll experience as not all people requiring a book-keeper want their payroll doing (if they have employees), some outsource to a payroll bureau or their accountant. Up to trial balance is where book-keeping ends and accountancy begins.
As for it being a valid business idea - it depends on how much you need to earn, whereabouts in the country you are and what the demand for book-keeping is in the area. Two good ways to gain business are networking and working with accountants on the basis of you passing them people up the chain and them passing them down.
Thanks Semsley. I thought I would have the experience necessary, but was not sure. Yes Confidence is a problem i have especially at the moment (am currently unemployed and begining to think that I am unempolyable!),so when it come to needing to earn an amount, well anything above 0 has got to be good :)
seems like my next step is to see as meny of my local accountants as possible and see if i can gage the market. Thanks again.
