Hi gang. I've been working for small manufacturing businesses for donkeys years now. Often having basic dealings with the workshop accounts, sales and purchase ledger and basic costings but nothing too taxing. Anyway as with all things the workshop has closed down now and i'm stuck in limbo. The finance side of business has always fascinated me and so recently i enroled with the local college, ive passed City & Guilds bookkeeping and accounts level 1 and i'm doing computerised accounts level 1 at the moment. My intention is to take the AAT intermediate course, ive already started studying accounts prep. 1 from kaplan books. I'm still fascinated lol. Anyway try as i might i can't get any work experience as a bookkeeper/accounts assistant even mailing polite letters offering my body and soul gratis. I was wondering if maybe a purchase/sales ledger position would benefit me, i am not looking to work for myself in the long run, i want a quiet life and a stable job. my only problem with the ledger jobs is i cant get my head around the wording in the adverts, matching batching and coding, and how would i do a supplier reconcilliation is sage? ive done the bank recon. in bookkeeping.
Any help would be preciated, as i'm at my wits end here.
Batching is just putting on the invoices, coding is which nominal code to put the expenditure. Supplier recs depends on the system, quite often I just go down their statement to determine which invoices/credits have not been paid and if any are missing and that our balances match. Pretty similar procedure for sales ledger except you may also have to chase customers for payment.
great to hear that you still find the subject matter fascinating after doing your initial studies. So many drop out at this stage as some take to double entry and some never really feel comfortable with it.
You've hit the age old problem related to qualifications and experience in that so many pass the exams but even in the few instances where the CV's get to the eye's of the right person the lack of experience end's up seeing your resume filed in the great round under desk filing cabinet.
For this reason many who would dearly love to work in finance departments or in practice end up working as self employed bookkeepers. This can be quite dangerous, espechially in the early stages, when people come to it with no practical experience. However, for the most part they battle through and many now have quite successful businesses.
If you want to progress it might be worth thinking about taking the AAT qualification. This is the one that most employers (and agencies) look for so without it you would already be at a disadvantage over those who have that but no experience. Unfortunately however, in the pecking order of job hopefuls experience always wins out over qualifications with the ideal candidates having both.
So, working on the gaining experience side, gaining experience matching and batching might suck your enthusiasm for bookkeeping right out of you. However, a month or so in a SAGE or SAP environment doing repetative tasks (with occassional interesting scenario's) may be a good start and who knows what other interesting opportunities such may open up.
Rather than apply for permanent roles only have you thought of temping? You would be surprised at how much experience can be picked up by doing a month here, two weeks there.
Also, think about credit control as a possible way forwards as besides people skills there is often a strong element of financial skill in tracking payments through the system and taking client accounts back to inception and rebuilding. Personally I quite enjoy this sort of work but some don't like the negotiating side of it.
Good luck in the job hunt. This really is a particulary difficult time to move into this field as so many are turning to bookkeeping on the back of reduncancy. However, percevere. Try to build freindly relationships with contacts with your local major suppliers of bookkeeping staff such as Reed. They get emails from hundreds of hopefuls every day so make sure that you phone them and make an appointment to go in an d register personally.
If an agency doesn't feel right to you then they're probably not right for you. Personally my favorite is RK accountancy but your experience of recruiters will be different from mine. Just make sure that you register personally, (not via email!) with quite a few and you will soon find which ones are working hartd to find you a job and which one's are not. But even for those one's, as Sun Tsu said, "Don't burn your bridges".
Anyway, good luck with your studies and gaining work experience Neil. Unfortunately, as you'll find in the coming months, luck does play an awfully large part in this.
kind regards,
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.
Thanks for the replies Guys, I think I'm qualified and experienced enough to take a sales or purchase ledger job judging by ES post. Shamus i am currently employed in a small family business, initially i was there to help set up, that was 15 years ago but the job has been stable and enabled me to provide a weekly wage (not saying its anything spectacular but while people have been losing jobs ive had the fortune to always have been working) But this job is not what i signed up for lol and basically its soul destroying. I cant believe sales or purchases can damage me in this way hehe i could do satans admin and still be happy. My big problem is lack of confidence. I help out with the other students at college because as you said double entry is a killer for some and these guys are stuck. But having been in the same situation for 15 years the world has passed me by. I have visions of accepting a purchase ledger pos. to find i dont understand any of the job. I would not like to be self employed. Maybe my next step is to take a couple of days off then and go and register with some agencies. temping is a problem for me as i panick about the mortgage and stuff. what if my 3 month contract is up and i dont work for another 6? But i will take up your advice on the agency stuff. Thanx Spam.
