there seems to be very little difference on the services that you can offer with regard to bookkeeping and low level accountancy type work which is the market that you would be aiming at.
I think that provided that you are sensible in your scope and stay within the comfort zone of your training you should be ok although it has to be said that this is a very fluid business and you never stop learning new things.
The key is to find your strengths and then to build on them.
As with yourself I have identified my own area of weakness as being tax. Some things such as IR35 I know very well but other areas are fuzzy and whilst I wouldn't consider myself an amateur (as I get paid for this work lol) there are times when my confidence levels are not great on the tax front and I've been looking at the alternatives myself.
As I've gone down the IFA route (as well as ACCA) it would seem to make sense to look at the FTA qualification for CPD. (jeez there are so many three letter acronyms in this business!).
The other alternatives that I looked at though were ATT as that leads quite nicely to the CTA qualification. Both of those are very well regarded qualifications.
I was actually put off the ACCA paper P6 although I get the Kaplan study text for that one every year as it's a single exam for all area's of Tax and that's one pretty huge area. I really want a course / qualification where each area gets studied and examined seperately to start with for which ATT or FTA seem perfect.
HTH,
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. edited because no idea where the line at the bottom came from!
-- Edited by Shamus on Thursday 28th of June 2012 11:52:14 PM
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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.
Hi all,
I'm in the very early stages of thinking about becoming self employed doing accounts/bookkeeping. I am a Member of the AAT and will also soon be a Member of the ICB. I also do Payroll. What I would like to know if any body could offer me some advice is, what would I be restricted to do for my clients compared to a Chartered Accountant? My intention is to study some kind of tax course next so I have knowledge in that area too.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Thanks for your reply. I have looked at ATT before and that is one of my options but I will check the others out and see how they compare, there are so many different routes to go down its hard to choose what I hope to be the right one for me. I did consider studying ACCA/CIMA (which I may do in the future) but feel that studying a tax course next would benefit me at present with what I intend to do next in my career.
I was concerened there maybe some areas that I may not be able to cover (legally not knowledge wise) with not being chartered.
@Kiz - I'd also endorse the ATT step but I'd also encourage you to develop your non-technical knowledge in the areas of practice strategy, marketing, selling and pricing.
What road would you advise me to go down to develop such knowledge?
I have practice experience and I have also done bookkeeping for years now through various roles but I want to be competent in most areas before I offer these services on my own. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
