I wondered about putting this post in "Jobs" but it's not a job and it really seems to fit best here, among bookkeepers in practice.
What comes next is slightly long, for which I apologise, but it's aimed at qualified sole trader bookkeepers in working range of a line between (roughly) Worcester and Gloucester.
The Balance Cover group (it's what we call ourselves)
We are a small group of individual bookkeepers in practice in the Cheltenham-Gloucester/Worcester/Hereford area. As sole traders we know that is some emergency takes us out of circulation for more than a short while, our clients' accounts could suffer. We might miss an important deadline for VAT, Payroll or CIS. We might not be able to produce a key management accounts report, or undertake key supplier payments. In some cases we might be exposing our clients to the risk of HMRC or Companies House penalties. We would, of course, feel mortified about this happening (if we weren't before!)
To avoid this, we are co-operating to put a process together through which, if one of us succumbs and is indisposed, one or more of the rest of us will be able to cover any critical client issues which could arise. We have already made good progress on this. We hope we do not have to put it into action but the risk is always there.
But with a few more bookkeepers participating, we can build a really effective group, small but perfectly formed you might say, able to cover for each others emergencies without this becoming a drama.
We would like to know if there are any other qualified (AAT, ICB, IAB) bookkeepers in our area who share our concerns and would value participating in such a scheme for the benefit of themselves and their own clients as well.
This would involve a commitment to respond for a set, small, number of hours per week if it should be needed, but it would always be within the limits of our individual skills and experience.
If you are professionally qualified, operate in our area, and are interested in what we are aiming to do, please let me know and I will get back in touch with more information. Let me know your phone number and email.
Nice idea with a lot of potential Andrew. Bit of a bookkeepers collective.
Why are you restricting it to AAT, ICB and IAB? There are people working as bookkeepers and accountants working as bookkeepers out there through ATT, ACCA, CIMA, IFA, AIA, etc. Might be better just to say professionally qualified and experienced than using specific supervisory bodies.
Just a suggestion and good luck with that one.
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.
Yes - a reasonable point, Shaun. "Professionally qualified, in practice and supervised for MLR" was our starting point. This post was chiefly to see if there is any interest, locally; we can get more detailed later on (the ink is still very wet on this concept).
I would say (just being pinickerty) professionally qualified bookkeeper. The ICB receives a lot of applications from professionally qualified accountancy professionals who make a right mess of the bookkeeping .
All AAT members in practice have to have a nominated person who can cover themselves in the event of an emergency, before they are allowed a practice licence, so they probably are already sorted.
KR
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
And there are a lot of professionally qualified bookkeepers who I wouldn't trust to sharpen a pencil unsupervised.
You can't make sweeping generalisations like that James.
The ICB pulled out their percentages on me a couple of years back and they mean absolutely nothing.
Having done only ACCA study and no revision for the exams I got 99% in ICB level I and 98% in ICB level II I see nothing in the ICB studies that makes ICB members so much better at bookkeeping than people who have done the professional accountancy exams.
For the ICB statistics to mean anything the ICB have to publish them stating which qualifications you are comparring against.
Someone who has taken and failed a few ACCA papers then decided to go ICB is not the same as a professionally qualified accountant doing bookkeeping which they actually do all of the time.
I will accept that there are good and bad accountants the same as there are good and bad bookkeepers but you can't make sweeping generalisations that the lay reader may perceieve as accountancy professionals cannot do bookkeeping which, to be honest is a complete load of tosh that the ICB bandies from a position of statistics that they will not publish the basis of.
I appreciate that this is a bookkeepers forum but remember that it's run by professionally qualified ACCA accountants.
On this site we have accountants and bookkeepers co-existing quite happily so please no more accountant bashing. Just appreciate that accountants (in general) know bookkeeping the same as bookkeepers (in general) understand the basics of accountancy.
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.
This is definitely something I would like to know more about.
I am MICB and Part AAT and awaiting results of the ICB payroll exam, also in early stages of ACCA studies. I will be applying for a practice licence next month, so would really welcome having something like this in place. Having been employed in a couple of bookkeeping/accounting roles over the last 8 years, I am confident that I have the necessary experience.
The only problem with me is being slightly more North than Worcester, Dudley to be exact.
My email is kerryb_6@hotmail.com, I will refrain from posting my telephone number on here, but can forward that through email.
It also must be remembered that a lot of accountants started off as a bookkeeper, or did a bit of bookkeeping on the side during there training.
I would imagine that accountants who qualified with the big four etc do not know a great deal about bookkeeping, but they are unlikely to want to join a bookkeeping institute. But most accountants in general practice, within a small to medium firm. will have done some bookkeeping at some point in their career in my experience.
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
Awww Kerry, what fun we could have had with your phone number lol. But seriously, you seem to be existing merely for study taking on that lot, i tip my cap to you.
....... from professionally qualified accountancy professionals who make a right mess of the bookkeeping .
I knew that would be a red rag to a bull.
ICB rule 29 of the Professional Conduct Rules, also states that adequate cover needs to be in place.
"A member shall make and keep in place adequate provisions and arrangements for the continuation of his practice and the protection of his clients in the event of his death, illness or incapacity."
Having re-read the comment, aren't we all accountancy professionals? Just not necessarily accountants.
NickCraggs wrote:I would imagine that accountants who qualified with the big four etc do not know a great deal about bookkeeping.
Hi Nick,
been a while since we last chatted. hope that you're ok matey.
Agree totally with you.
With my bankers hat on I've worked with / employed a lot of big four consultants in my time and the issue is that in many cases their university degree's (which are mandatory to get training positions and not necessarily accountancy related) give them exemptions from the important lower level fundamentals papers where one would be expected to cover bookkeeping in depth.
I can see situations where, perhaps after having children, they might decide to offer bookkeeping services and would fall down on the required level of knowledge there.
That's quite a specific scenario though representing a tiny percentage of the profession and I don't feel at all representative of the professional competence of the majority of qualified accountants out there that the earlier line of James did a great disservice to.
As Bill say, red rag to a bull! lol.
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.
Not accountant bashing, just saying accountants are not always bookkeepers.
I am not saying it does not happen (that ACCA, ICAEW, CIMA etc can do bookkeeping), I am just saying you cannot assume they can. Most courses leading to these bodies does not cover what the ICB call bookkeeping, or if they do it is in very little detail, not enough to be a professional in that area.
Shaun did you not do any study at all? You talk about how many books you have on your shelf on accounting, so I assume you are at the top level of learned accountancy professionals. What about past papers?
To be completely honest it may be a little unfair, but mainly because we have so many qualified who fail even the basic bookkeeping. This is not to say there are not many who pass, just that the many who don't stick in my mind as they cause a fuss.
Perhaps I am a little letting of steam in the wrong way. Having just yesterday spoken to someone (retired Accountant now bookkeeper) who was rejected entrance to the ICB because in a scenario paper, they had incorrectly claimed back £3k in VAT, and obviously did not understand bad debt or trade discounts.
They took 2 attempts at the paper.
They phoned yesterday to complain, I suggested training, (they knew where they were weak), but they decided to take the easy route - no time/too old to study.
Meanwhile their clients could be in a right mess with their VAT.
Well funny you should say that. The HMRC are interested in the total of incorrect VAT calculated on ICB entrance papers from qualified or experienced applicants.
The ICB is at the same time going to work out which were qualified and which were experienced and hopefully will publish it to the public.
The only figure released beforehand was in 2009 after the MLR came out. That was that 68% of applicants failed to be able to complete a set of books for a scenario client and were rejected from membership with the ICB. They were allowed 2 attempts.
It was noted that it does not mean the 32% passed first time, many failed, did study, then re took and passed.
This figure is a total of all applicants who had qualifications or experience, not all were qualified, or indeed experienced.
My appologies for being over defencive. I just don't want to see any deriding of either accountancy or bookkeeping on this site and I can go off on one in the defence of either.
I do have rather a large library and I did a mock for each before the actual exams. What I meant was that I didn't sit down with a pile of books and study the way that I would for an ACCA paper but rather did the mock, got decent results without additional study so sat the real things... Maybe I should try that approach with the ACCA papers as I might actually manage to pass P2! Actually we did that chat yesterday. My issue is that I can do it, I just can't do it in the allocated time (must stop giving examples, current thinking and debates when a simple answer is all they really want!).
The real frusrtrating part is knowing that you know something but the marker only being able to go on what you can get down in paper in the allocated time. This June it's going to be all about technique with a timed exam once a week every week between now and then.
Maybe it's just that I'm in a bit of a bad mood too at this weeks what I see as being a somewhat unjust failure. However, unlike the accountants that you've had to deal with recently I'll just take it on the chin and do it (yet) again in June knowing that the failure is mine, not my supervisory bodies. (Although, if your reading this ACCA another hour in exams wouldn't go amiss. It's supposed to be about what you know, not speed writing... Oh the fun of entrusting someone who writes as much as me with essay style questions rather than question and answer or multi choice!).
Glad that we seem to have resolved that one,
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.
Awww Kerry, what fun we could have had with your phone number lol. But seriously, you seem to be existing merely for study taking on that lot, i tip my cap to you.
Haha, exactly why I didn't want to post my number (you never know who's reading these posts!!) :)
...and yes, I am a little addicted to studying at the moment! The AAT was about 10 years ago, but the rest has been in the last 10 months
I got a bit lost with the accountant vs bookkeeper thing; so getting back to the original topic.
As a sole practitioner accountant registered with the ACCA I have to notify a firm as my continuity partner. I use another local firm of accountants. We have got together looked at each others systems and prepared a continuity agreement. Included within this are notification regarding value of the client portfolio were I to become deceased.
I would have thought it would make sense for bookkeepers to follow the same method. Have one point of contact that you trust explicitly with your information and clients.
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Phil Hendy, The Accountancy Mentor
Are you thinking of setting up your own practice or have you set up and need some help?
If so a mentor may be the way forward - feel free to get in touch and see how I can assist you.
Bit of overkill I know but my backup is a local firm of chartered accountants.
On a similar subject. There is a requirement by many bodies that PII runoff periods need to be at least six years so as your developing a collective it might be worth ensuring that everyone's PII tie's together and ironing out any that don't.
Maybe when it comes to renewal why not give arlington a call to see if they can organise something that works for the whole group?
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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 would rather have essay style questions, rather than questions and answers or multi-choice. When learning accountancy you are actually learning a large amount of information, so why be tested on just random questions. Working with an scenario based exam paper surely is better because you are using all the knowledge you have learnt or am I just old school lol. Kind Regards Sue
You are absolutely going to love ACCA from F4 onwards then as it's all in that format
I love the exams (does that make me weird?), just wished that when you get asked open ended questions you were given enough time to give a proper answer.
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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.
No you are not weird, I love exams, when you have put all the time and effort in learning a new subject and bashed your brains around revising, its a great feeling when that paper is put in front of you and you can actually answer the questions ( another story though if you pass them lol). Think I will need Accca to put an extra hours time on the exams when I get around to doing them, cos I tend to write a lot of detail. Kind Regards Sue
Things are good at the moment i am still waiting for thngs to calm down from January, i am sure February is meant to be quiet.
I agree with you about written exams, whils knowledge is important, the ability to write quickly and ledgibly (?) is a massive advantage. I much prefer the questions where you can bash the numbers through your calculator and move on.
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
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