"Is having NO bookkeeping working experience a detriment to attraching my first client and future clients, even although I have the initials AICB CB.Cert and I have a Practice Licence?"
I wouldn't necessarily say it would be a detriment to attracting clients - it would depend on what you talked about with them at a first meeting, how well you interacted with them, whether they thought they could work with you, etc., etc. However, I would question anyone who has never had any working experience going straight into self-employment as a book-keeper (no matter what qualifications they had gained). Book-keeping for the many and various businesses throws up situations which it is not possible to replicate in any training to pass an exam. Business owners have not read any exam syllabus so do not know what they are supposed to provide a book-keeper with to enable said book-keeper to keep them on the straight and narrow. They make obscure transactions and don't see the necessity of separating private and business receipts nor, in many instances, writing on a receipt what it was for to enable the book-keeper to analyse it correctly. They forget, or don't see the importance of getting a VAT invoice (particularly if they have bought from the internet). The sole trader who changes status to ltd company because s/he has been told s/he will pay less tax fails to comprehend s/he can't use the company as a private piggy bank.
