I starting a course last year of a fda in business and accounting, I had always been good at numbers and after years in engineering became redundant. While doing my course I have really enjoyed the accounting side and I have decided I would like to go into book keeping, however my lack of experience on sage worried me when thinking about starting a book keeping business.
I looked through courses and found one with the Open Study College which would provide me with ICB Manual 1&2 and 2&3 computerised as well as ICB registration, sage software, and the ability to become an associate member with ICB at the end of my qualification.
Obviously this is alot to take on and my FDA finishes in may so I would still be studying my ICB after that, my main question is how worth while the ICB is and they said it would make me a qualified bookkeeper.
I have done alot of manual book keeping already with my fda and was hoping i could skip to the computerised where I had the concerns but aparently this isn't possible, I am hoping to start a book keeping business and study to become a qualified accountant so that in the future my business could offer more services.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Many thx
Martin
-- Edited by Molacuk on Wednesday 28th of December 2011 01:34:57 PM
you don't need to be a member of a supervisory body in order to be a bookkeeper but you will need to have some cover for Money Laundering Regulations either from a recognised supervisory body such as through a practicing certificate with the ICB, the IAB, the AAT or MLR cover directly from HMRC. (there are several other supervisory bodies but those ones are those best geared towards bookkeeping).
For ICB and IAB you can just sit their exams without having a training provider.
It seems to me that you are already on a course and it would not take too much more to sit the exams up a AICB level which would mean that you would be able to set up as a qualified bookkeeper.
It would be worth buying the Kaplan ICB study text for beginer to intermediate and the two books by Dr Peter Marshall (Mastering Bookkeeping and Computerised Bookkeeping) and also mock papers for each exam that you want to sit. You are also going to need relevant software such as Sage on your machine in order do the computerised side of AICB.
Clients as a rule do not want bookkeepers, they want cheaper accountants and for the most part it seems that smaller clients are unable to tell the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant.
Once you join a supervisory body there are resrtrictions as to the services that you can offer dependant upon your level of qualification. Thats something you really need to be aware of in that you may find that you cannot offer the services that will get you work by coming under a supervisory body but without the qualifications the client may not even make contact with you in the first place.
One final thing is that there are a lot of trainee bookkeepers out there caught in the catch 22 situation of not being able to find employment without experience and not being able to get experience without employment. On the back of that they will invariably set up self employed.
Rates are often not great due to supply and demand, and you may find it a struggle to find sufficient clients for this to be a viable business, at least in the early days of your business.
Good luck with whatever route you choose to take,
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.
Thank you for the advice, i looked and it is proberly possible the first couple of exams i could take without the training provider just off my own back. The other thing is that they give a copy of sage workbook 50 which can be quite expensive and I thought that would be rather useful, stilll not sure what to do with the training company they estimate i could finish in about 5 months which isn't to bad. The only other issue with starting a company is finding an accountant that doesn't do bookkeeping to do my customers end of year books without stealing my customers....
One thing i just saw is that Kplan is doing the same course for a much lower price and i was wondering if anyone has tried either course, I have been with kplan before and liked thier online style however it doesn't give alot of information on the site and I know that the open study college though more expensive will give me free software and membership to the ICB, however kplan doesn't give any idea of the benefits or what is included with their course however I do like the study platform.
I'm not actually sure what Sage 50 workbook software is?
the software given with the courses is either a 180 day trial version of Sage line 50 or Sage Instant.
The workbook bit might come from the Sage course in a box which comes with the 180 trial, 3 workbooks for each stage and certification.
The 180 day trial is th same as you get with the course in a box available from Sage or from Amazon. Sometimes you can get some pretty good deals on Amazon. Got my Sage level 3 at £30 including 180 trial of line 50, three workbooks and certification.
All accountants do bookkeeping. It's just a matter as to how busy they are as to whether they keep it in house or outsource it.
Clients go to bookkeepers because we're cheaper. The accountant can only steal your clients if they either (a) convince the client that you have done something wrong for which the client is willing to pay a higher price for them to do it correctly or (b) they undercut you... Unlikely.
Properly trained accountants adhere to a strict ethical code and would not make unfounded claims about the quality of your work for risk of investigation by their supervisory body. However, there are a lot of accountants out there who do not belong to professional bodies (that always comes as a real suprise to the general public that their accountant may have no more qualifications than they do! Its just an expectation that all accountants have been through the training).
If you are set on doing the course rather than studying from the books on the back of your existing course the distance learning providers that I would suggest looking at would be (in no particular order) :
Premier Training Ideal Schools Training Link Kaplan
Nobody gives you ICB membership. What OCS are doing is signing you up as a student and taking the £45 hit. You will still have to pay for the exams and annual membership going forwards.
You gain membership through taking the exams of the body or gaining exemptions through passing other recognised exams.
With OCS you take their exams included within their course and then go on to pay for the ICB exams. So in some ways one could think of the OCS exams as being mocks.
I'm not saying that there is anything amiss with OCS, what I am saying is be careful over what you think that you are getting included for your money.
My bugbear with OCS from their ad is telling students that the course would normally cost £1696 but if you buy it before 4th of Jan it's just £699! a reduction of 59% (actually 58.78%, 59% would have been closer to £695... Sorry, doing my Sheldon again)
I would consider £699 to be a normal competative market price (actually £654 plus ICB student registration).
At the end of the day the course that you've already done should have prepared you (with a bit of additional reading) for the ICB exams. Do you really feel that it's necessary to invest another £700 at the moment.
If you do I would invariably go for the training providers that have consistent take it or leave it prices rather than those who try to bamboozle people with special offers by way of reductions from prices that few if any people would have ever really paid.
The decision is completely down to yourself but I think that you need to read a lot more about what you are actually getting for your money beforee making a decision.
kind regards,
Shaun.
P.S. from the Kaplan site as to whats included in their distance learning courses :
Your registration fees with the ICB (£45) Personal tutor support by email and telephone into the evening ICB-approved study material, including our exam-focused Study Text and Revision Kit Practice exams, including marking and feedback a minimum of two per level Study Guide to highlight important areas in the Study Text SAGE Instant Accounts pack and manual (Computerised levels only) Access to Kaplan Interact, our social and study networking portal
There you go, software and ICB membership also included (see this page http://financial.kaplan.co.uk/TrainingandQuals/DistanceLearning/ICB/Pages/default.aspx) for £483 and for that you get Kaplan study materials which to my mind are second to non.
__________________
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 have used Kaplan before and I have always been impressed, thank you for your advice again I knew asking on the forums before paying out money is normally alot more valuable that taking what any company says as normally their idea of what good value is only goes as deep as their pocket.
