I would like to do a bookkeeping course for several reasons and would appreciate some advice/feedback.
As to my background, I have been running a graphic design limited company as well as a partnership for a number of years. To date, my accountant has been doing my books and preparing my acounts, but I think it would benefit the business and myself personally if I took more accounting responsibility.
I do my own invoicing, VAT returns and prepare the PAYE so my record keeping is OK, if a little erratic. So my thinking is that if I learn book-keeping properly it would be a positive move all round.
I would like to take a distance learning course and having done some research, I've seen that the AAT Level 2 Cert would be a good start, I could Probably commit about 5 hours a week for study.
I have always had an interest in accounting so wouldn't rule out possibly studying further.
At what stage could I prepare my own Ltd Co acounts or would I need to be a chartered accountant to do that?
You don't need any particular qualifications to prepare your own accounts. Most professional bodies would have their own rules about preparing accounts for others, but you seem to be in a unique position of not really being interested in touting your services but only keeping your own house in order.
For the course most suited to you, I must confess I really have no idea. I am a member of the ICB and did some of their qualifications before going to night classes at a local college to do my HNC in accounts and moving to the HND next year. I am sure others will be along with their suggestions. I would say that having done a distance learning course with home learning college and then a class based course at my local college the class based won hands down for learning outcomes and value for money (it was a lot cheaper and I get a nationally recognised qualifications).
HNC will qualify me for exemption to ICB level 3, I'm currently level 2 which means I can prepare final accounts for sole traders and draft final accounts for ltd companies. AFAIK level 3 will allow me to prepare final accounts for ltd companies but it's not something I plan to do at this time.
Like I said, for yourself you'll not need to worry about what a professional body allows you to do, more what you can do and the HNC certainly covered final accounts for limited companies. It cost me just over £550 per year, of which £500 of that was paid by the government in the form of ILA.
You dont need any qualifications if you want to prepare and submit your accounts at Companies House and your company tax return with HMRC.
What you need is the software that once you have prepared your figures for your accounts will enable you to prepare all the disclosures for your statutory accounts in accordance with Companies Act and accounting standard rules.
You also need to be able to calculate your corporation tax liability and be able to submit your company tax return using IXBRL filing.
Hi Colin, just to add my voice to the masses - no need to to be qualified to return your own accounts, but if you want to have a better understanding of what it is you're actually doing, any Lv1, Lv2 bookkeeping course should surfice to get a handle on the basics (ie what your accounts package is actually doing to the numbers you type in). I did mine through City and Guilds as an evening course 2 hours a week for 17 weeks each level, others train via organisations which double as industry accredited Money Laundering supervisors (IAB, ICB and the like). Hope that answers your question - best of luck. pDm :)
__________________
my blog "the bookkeeper's in town - learning the hard way"
