I am self employed (nothing to do with bookkeeping) and am doing my own accounts at the moment which I am fairly confident with. However I am interested in doing a course which would cover everything to do with sole trader accounts. I am currently looking at ICB, IAB or AAT and think the ICB would be more relevant.
I have no idea if there are any specific accounting courses for people running their own businesses with the aim of being able to do your own accounts without the need for an accountant
just ignore the previous response from Eshaa83. It's not the sort of response that is generally given on this site.
any of the bodies that you mention will give you a good grounding in the bookkeeping side of keeping your business finances sorted.
ICB and IAB are pretty similar qualifications aimed at self employed bookkeepers (similar to ACCA and CIMA being similar qualifications aimed at accountants). Either of these could prove very useful to you and may be all that you need for your purposes. Do not however expect them to set you up to understand more complex area's of costing an taxation.
AAT is another excellent qualification. Level 4 is the same level of knoweldge as ACCA papers F1 to F3 plus some of the ACCA studies from the skills levels espechially in relation to taxation.
Another body that may be of interest to you is ATT (rather than AAT). As the name suggests this looks predominantly at tax and lacks the costing side of things that you get with AAT, ACCA or CIMA.
HOWEVER.... All of this talk of studying under various bodies aside (which will cost a fortune and you will learn far more than you need) is getting us away from the point at hand in that you just want to know more about the financial side of things in order to run your business better.
Before going down the route of a professional body start out by talking with businesslink about various free courses that they are running in your area for startups.
Good luck with the new business. If there is anything more specific that you need to ask please don't hesitate to drop us a note and we'll try to help.
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.
Rather than the ICB Kaplan books, try this one which is the AAT text but covers everything for all bodies at this level.
Business accounts for bookkeeping and financial accounting courses by David Cox. (ISBN 1872962637). Currently £16.77 from Amazon.
There's some costing in there as well as covering the basics of bookkeeping.
It's a really good solid text with plentiful examples. I still refer back to now where some of my other books from when I was just coming to grips with the basics are doing little more than gather dust on the shelves.
Kind regards,
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.
Business link is a good start. I went to a one day book keeping course through them and it was free. That might be also a good starting point. They went through the basic of bookkeeping and the requirement.
