I want to start my own book keeping business, initially in my spare time alongside my full time finance job in local government.
I am unsure where to start and would eally appreciate some advice on how I get going. I have read about the book cert package and would appreciate anyones comments on this package and if anyone has a copy, i would be interested in buying second hand.
I passed my level 4 AAT a year ago, so am keen to develop my owb business.
The bookcert course is quite good for the actual setting up of the business, but given that you have level 4 AAT then you will probably nt find the bookkeeping section of use. I don't think it's worth the asking price, but if you can find someone selling a second hand on for around £100 it can be a good deal.
Ooh, Kris, not the site to write things like that. lol... Sure Steve won't be cruel and patch SPAM COMMENT onto all of your posts going forwards.
Actually, the bookcert kit comes in several flavours and you can bring the price down by ommitting add ons such as the website and support.
Have you gone down the AAT MIP route as the AAT also have a lot of useful startup information on their site for members just starting out (combined with getting MLR cover through them rather than HMRC).
For PII the offering from Arlington (see special offers at top of page) is really good at £78 but you will also need to factor in a further £24 to join this site. Which of course then gives you free advertising and free access to the members area which also has quite a lot of useful startup information which I believe is taken from the Bookcert kit although is no replacement for the whole package.
Also £102 is still incredibly good value for quality PII (its through Zurich) and a lot better than you will get from many of the offers from the professional bodies.
I think that your first job though should be the search this site for answers (it's now way too large to simply read end to end although we did have one new member take on the feat earlier this year.... Think that she may still be at it!).
Personally I use google rather than the site search facility. Simply prefix your search in Google with site:www.book-keepers.org.uk followed by the question.
The answers that you find will raise many new questions so feel free to post and we'll answer as best we can.
Welcome to the forum Phil,
kind regards,
Shaun.
P.S. appreciate how the above might read but please note that I have no financial link to the site and do not benefit personally from any advice given.
P.S.2 I do not actually own the Bookcert kit myself as felt that I was too far along to need it.
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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.
Was only joking Kris, your one of the core members.
Also, you didn't get banned on my watch... Wished I'd been around at the time to defuse / represent to site admin the situation but was off playing at banking in sunny Scotland at the time.
Appologies if my sense of humour was miscontrued,
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.
Not sure that the site is aimed at big businesses in my opinion, as most of us that post on here are running and helping small businesses in our repsective local areas.
I guess the fact that Sage are on the site may be your reasoning, but I think this is a good thing as it allows us to keep up to date with the latest software news. I know that not everyone is a fan of Sage (I've noted Shamus comments in previous posts) but like it or not most of us will need to use it at some point.
I know that we had a sage hanger on company on here the other day but they seemed to disappear.
The fact that so many people keep asking questions about difficulties that they are having with sage, sage support, sage licencing has to be serious anti advertising for the product.
As for the site being aimed at bigger businesses like you Ben I'm not seeing it although it is great to have representitives of the major bodies and training providers on the site I think that it really is a site firmly with bookkeepers and smaller accountancy practices at it's heart.
Unlike other sites I could not see this one pandering to any single body or business such Sage but rather if Sage were on here on anything more than a casual basis then the site would go out of it's way to make sure that there was also a representitive of quickbooks on the site.
Think of this as a balancing act. Whilst it's good to have representitives of the bigger companies they are only here because of the readership of the site and if the readership gets banned or just bored of listening to corporate crap then the larger businesses would quickly disappear as they don't want to waste time talking to an empty site.
I think Sage posts on here at their own risk as whilst they have their licencing policy they are never going to get an easy ride here no matter how good their product might be.
Could you really see Sage attempting to justify their Payroll prices against 12pay? or Moneysoft Payroll?
Could you imagine what would happen if HLC decided to be contributors on the site?
Its all a balancing act and to my mind the site has the balance about right.
I think that Kris's banning was a mistake which has since been rectified. The reasoning behind the banning are now immaterial and I would not imagine a scenario where things were allowed to get so far out of hand now that such might be repeated because as a site policing itself we can pretty much work around almost anything and the people here even when angry are generally a pretty intelligent and reasonable bunch of like minded people.
Well, that's my take on things. Others may disgree but if you vocalise such I'll just ban you (lol... Not really)
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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.
Kris, I respect your opinion, and thoroughly appreciate your assistance not only to me personally but to other book-keepers on here over the years, but I couldn't disagree more that this site is aimed at the big organisations, not the book-keepers.
This is the only forum I actively participate in. The reason being is that I'm not a qualified by exam book-keeper or accountant, yet from my very first post on here I was made to feel welcome and part of a 'book-keepers community'. Like other members I read other accounting forums, and none come close to this one in terms of friendliness, community spirit, and variety of posts. I'm not an ICB, IAB, ACCA, AAT, yet it doesn't matter on here. Everyone is treated the same and gets an equal say. No one is ever shot down or made to feel inferior which in my opinion sets this apart from the others.
I've been following The Book-keepers Forum since 2008 (active since 2010). Back then it was the only forum I could find for a book-keeper, and fair dues to the owners and moderators that it's still going strong now. In fact it seems busier than ever recently which is great for us humble, non institute associated book-keepers.
Keep up the good work guys!
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Stuart
Birmingham City FC - Blues is my religion St Andrews is my church
@Phil - we have a franchisee who came from local government and there are some videos http://theaccountingfranchise.co.uk/videos/ which you may find interesting.
When I said the site is aimed at the big organisations I meant the by the owners, not by the members. I've yet to find a site with a more friendly bunch, but believe me if you were to have a disagreement with one of the bigger organisations they'll be safe and you'll be gone.
I speak from bitter experience, and that was after I had bought the sites wares, so it means nothing to them that you part with money. The interesting part was when I bought the bookcert pack this site was sold as part of the support for the pack, not as a standalone site.
Don't even expect an email of explaination, you'll just visit one day and realise you can't. Like I say, had it not been for this perhaps my opinion would be different. I'd probably even have bought into their membership but I don't think they value the membership enough. After all, we're only the people who made the site what it is, I never remember any input at all from the owners and I first joined the site in about 2008/09.
I don't really want to go back into this, but you're actually wrong on this one Shaun. My IP was banned, not just my username. I must quickly add that the dabate was between James and I, I got banned James didn't. This leads me to believe that the owners think more of big organisations. Never to receive any communication from site owners.
The reason I know it was my IP is that thanks to the information I received from another long term member I was able to access the site using a proxy. Shortly thereafter I changed network provider and was issued a new IP address and thats when I got back on the site.
Surely given the hands off approach of the site owners the site has grown in spite of them rather than becasue of them. The site has grown because of the contributors who keep returning. Yourself, Amanda, Rob, Peasie, Sheila, Tim and all the others who keep posting old and new.
These are my views build up from bitter experience. I'd love to have them proved wrong, but it seems few people talk to the 'owners' to know what they really think or feel.
Kris
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Tuesday 8th of May 2012 04:38:09 PM
Well, as I say, I've been here since about 2007/8 and he's never made himself known. I'm not saying that I don't like or appreciate the site, just that many sites have an admin hangup and it's never admin who make a site like this, just the members.
Like I say, I have my own views, and no one from the site has ever spoken to me to tell me they're right or wrong, so I keep them,
Kris
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Tuesday 8th of May 2012 05:15:16 PM
the site owners have a hands off approach but that doesn't mean that they don't read all of the posts. I often talk to Steve and am eternally surprised at how abreast he is of everything that's going on on the site when he has a busy practice to run.
It probably comes as a surprise to many but the site is actually run by accountants (ACCA and IFA) rather than bookkeepers.
The intention was to try and bring the level of knowledge and credibility of many bookkeepers up a peg from what it had been in the past. Sure that you've hit it yourself where you've read posts espechially over on Aweb where bookkeepers are treated as something that you find on the bottom of your shoe.
I think that the site has been rather successful in that and combined with the efforts of the likes of James (ICB) the profession has moved forwards considerably in the last couple of years although it has to be said that long held beliefs are hard to shift and there is still a long way to go yet before bookkeepers get the credibility that they deserve.
I don't believe that site admin will have looked at anything beyond the posts that were being made at the time. I never saw them so cannot comment directly on the situation but the fact that you are back means that it wasn't so much a proper ban as a slap on the wrist and told to stand in the corner for a while.
When people are properly banned they don't get to come back as it's the ip address rather than the userid that gets banned.
I can only assure readers that they can post anything on here that is factually based or they believe to be factually based (thinking of my Santander statementsreply there) and provided that one always treats other members with the respect that one would expect to be treated oneself. If they follow that simple rule then there is no fear of being banned.
I think that in your case Kris tempers had gotten out of hand and it was before my watch so site admin not wishing to become embroiled in such debates have limited tools at there disposal so a temporary ban of the userid rather than the ip address was probably deemed the best option until things cooled down.
I can only imagine that the other side of the debate was not so vocal but if it had been, no matter who the poster is they would have receieved the same treatment.
Maybe larger organisations do get a little easier ride as it is beneficial to the site to have them on board but I can assure you that there has been one case in the last six months where the continued membership of a long term contibuting organisation was discussed at length and for a short while their membership was in the balance (and no, wild horses won't drag it out of me who I'm talking about).
I can also tell you that you have been defended in conversation with site admin who actually fully appreciate your contribution to the site and the profession.
Barring force major events site admin will very much remain hands off but just as an indicator as to their presence, know that when spam posts disappear it's not always myself that's getting rid of them.
Rather than complaining about site admin as Stuart put so well last night, I think that they should be commended on the site which has grown into (in my mind) the best site for current and aspiring bookkeepers and accountants of all bodies to help each other out.
Anyway, getting off the beaten path a little but just to say, this is, and will remain, a site for professionals, run by professionals. It is not the mouthpeice of any single supervisory body or other organisation but it welcomes all comments from such.
Your case was quite specific and has now been resolved. It is certainly not on the cards for it to happen again.
hope that clears things up,
kind regards,
Shaun.
P.S. nice to see a return to Homer.
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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.
Surely given the hands off approach of the site owners the site has grown in spite of them rather than becasue of them.
Site admin for a long time did a very good job of keeping the site clear of spam whilst letting us pretty much police ourselves.
Of course it's the membership that makes the site, without it there would be nothing to attract new members.
Anyone can set up a forum but it only becomes useful when people come to it. Sure that you've seen them yourself where you visit sites that has got a couple of members and nobody has posted for a month of so.
Maybe some mistakes have been made in the past but credit where credits due and site admin have given us an excellent (and stable) empty vessel for us to fill.
I'm sure that Steve would love nothing better than to come on here for a chat (and I actually suspect that he may have moved discussions on in the past under an allias or two) but he is a busy accountant running several practices so cannot be expected to be a major site contributor.
That said though, if you owned the site would you always let people know who they were talking to?
I'm not saying that Steve does do that but I know that I would if I were in his position so when you say that the site has moved forwards despite the site owners you might be making assumptions there which don't really carry through.
Shaun.
P.S. I really don't know if Steve does visit the site under alliases but I'm just saying that it wouldn't surprise me if he did espechially in the early days of the site.
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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.
