I am thinking of starting up my own bookkeeping service for sole traders, partnerships and small limited companies. What is the standard range of services a small bookkeeping business would offer? I have seen payroll included a lot during my research, is this typical to offer alongside general bookkeeping (ledgers, recs, management accounts, VAT etc), and would it matter to most businesses if this was not on offer?
it all depends on your background as to what the best services are for you to offer.
Are you with a supervisory body? If so they may place restrictions on the services that you are allowed to offer.
If not, I assume that you have MLR direct from HMRC?
You may also find that you're PII restricts the services that you can offer to those that you have experience and / or qualifications in.
Please give the forum a bit more background on you and we'll suggest some services that would be a good starting place for your business.
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.
I'd say payroll is a typical service that bookkeepers add, it's not essential but it's logical fit. As to whether it matters to most businesses, I'd look at this way, it's a service most businesses need and it makes sense to be able to offer a "one-stop shop".
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Tony
Responses are intended as outline only. Formal advice should be sort from your Institutes Technical Department or a suitably qualified Accountant.
I am just at the research stage at the moment but a bit of background for you:
I am an ACA qualified accountant and member of the ICAEW. I qualified in a small-medium accountancy practice where I spent most of my time preparing Accounts, Tax returns and VAT returns for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies (but not payroll hence my original question!). We had an accountancy package we used for Statutory accounts but the majority of records I worked off were Sage so have a lot of experience with that. I have also worked in a large company preparing monthly management accounts and running the ledgers (AP and AR teams etc).
Next stop is checking if I need a practicing certificate from ICAEW I think
Although I am qualified to offer payroll, it'd probably be one of the services I would outsource. I don't have any payroll software, and even when learning it found payroll really boring compared to everything else.
The joys of being self employed is that you can pick and choose to an extent.
well at least it sounds as though all services are well within your grasp.
Clients generally want accountancy services at bookkeeper rates. Many on here, myself included are restricted in the services that we can offer due to our supervisory bodies (mines ACCA but I'm still not quite fully qualified).
You may find that you hit a similar situation with the ICAEW in that you find you have the experience and qualifications but are not allowed to provide services that someone with say a level II bookkeeping qualification is allowed to provide.
Clients generally want you to provide the full service from keying their data through to filing accounts and tax returns. I thought that management accounts would play a bigger part in things but that side (which is the bit that I have most experience in) really doesn't get a lot of demand from my business. (so I feed my management accounts habit with regular doses of ACCA paper P5 questions!).
Tony's spot on with Payroll but it's time consuming and doesn't really pay that well unless you can get a client with a large payroll. You may find it better to sub contract the payroll work to local bookkeepers who specialise in that work and just do that on a commission basis.
Good luck with the new venture, welcome to the forum and don't forget to keep us all informed as to your progress,
all the best,
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.
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.
I expect you will need a practising certificate if you are ICAEW qualified as i know you need a practising certificate with the Scotland equivalent ICAS.
The good thing is given you are a ACA you will generally be able to charge higher rates for your services at the higher end ie accounts, tax returns, business plans. But at the end of the day a business wouldnt be expecting a ACA to be doing their bookkeeping and wont pay higher rate to a ACA as opposed to a competent bookkeeper just because you are ACA qualfied.
So you may need to think about exactly what services you will offer and subcontract the more time consuming, lesser fee earning tasks.
If you can get a PC from the ICAEW, I imagine you should be looking towards Financial Accounting tasks rather than bookkeeping. The fact that many accountants provide bookkeeping services says a lot about the dire state of the economy - no job too small :).
Re - the payroll bit - I personally don't do it. I find it incredibly tedious. It pays pennies, a reflection perhaps of it being the least challenging task of a bookkeeper's rote. If you do decide to do it, there are loads of software out there which practically do the calculations for you (or so, I'm told).
