I'm currently looking for a part-time job , either afternoons/ evenings/ weekends or working from home and wondering what additional experience/ qualifications I need. I've been advised by one employment agency that it may be better looking for book-keeping roles to fit around my young family.
I'm a fellow MAAT and a member of CIMA and have worked in Accounts/ Business Planning for more years than I can remember! I've produced accounts from incomplete records, have good Excel skills, used a version of Oracle to produce Management Accounts, have temped as a Purchase Ledger clerk and many years ago produced accounts from 'trial balance paper' in the days before computers!
However I'm unsure which other experience/ qualifications, employers are looking for and would help me stand out from the crowd!
Should I consider taking any bookkeeping exams or is the AAT sufficient? It seems IAB is the preferred choice from other comments on this forum. Would I get any exemptions?
Also a lot of the jobs ask for Sage experience:
- What would you recommend? Sage 50? Sage Instant? Sage Bookkeeping? Sage Payroll? How do they differ?
- What about SAP etc?
- Are there any Sage exams you need to take or are they just a course? I've just seen Learn Direct have a 4 course bundle, with 20 hours of learning on Groupon at the moment covering Book keeping Stage 1 and 2, Sage Instant Accounts, Sage 50 Accounts but it doesn't look like it covers exams.
Apologies for all the questions, but as I would need to self-fund any training I want to make sure I make the right decision. I'm hoping you can help me decide my next steps.
it seems like everyone and their aunty has Sage and whilst it's an important piece of kit to understand how to use it's by no means the be all and end all that Sage would try to have us believe.
Sage and Quickbooks are fine if you are just looking at smaller businesses but as you move up the food chain then SAP is to my mind a far more sellable, and rarer skill which is the one that will set you out from the crowd.
Now here's the issue.
Companies want people with SAP skills but these tend to be the companies that want you to work on site in office hours as temp or perm roles.
The smaller busineses that use Sage or Quickbooks are in many cases just as happy for you to work off site (but that commits you to purchasing a copy of the software that they are using).
If you are looking to work from home around your family doing bookkeeping work then you are entering a crowded market place and you really need to know that you have the clients before commiting yourself to the sort of money that Sage want with their client tax.
With Quickbooks you can have as many clients as you like with no extra outlay, however, Intuit are only now seeming to gain UK market share so it's a much smaller market to aim at. (although with Barclays now giving QB away to new business clients that market looks set to grow).
The qualifications that you already have are great and to be honest, clients don't tend to understand the difference between a Certified Bookkeeper and a chartered accountant. The letters mean far more to us that they do to the clients who just seem to assume that all bookkeepers and accountants are equal in terms of skill and knowledge base.
There are lots of resources available on this site but feel free to re-ask old questions if you cannot find the exact answer that you are looking for.
Hope that helps get the ball rolling and sure that you will receieve lots of other responses imminently.
I'll leave it to others to recommend the best Sage options for you as my practice doesn't use Sage products at all.
kindest 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.
I am slightly relieved not to have to take another exam! Thanks also for your explanation about SAP and Quickbooks.
I have one further question. I have a Mac (!), so it looks like Quickbooks will work but Sage won't work, unless I switch on Bootcamp or set up a partition. Can someone explain how I do this? Do I need any further software? Will the dreaded viruses get in?!
I would also appreciate any further comments to my initial questions. I am particulalry keen to hear more about the different Sage packages.
Did Shaun change his name to Shane while I wasnt looking? lol
Angie one of our Training Link tutors has forwarded me the link below which will help with your MAC, you do have to purchase but it will solve your problem I am told. Hope this is of help and welcome to the forum
Did Shaun change his name to Shane while I wasnt looking? lol
Only when one of my ex's is looking for me
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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.
That one's only on alternate Thursdays Peasie, lol.
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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.
Sorry Shaun! I think I tried to combine Shaun and Shamus and ...got Shane! Mind you it is Thursday today.... so perhaps I should call you something else!?
Thanks for the link Dave (yes I've double-checked, it is Dave!)
Any Sage comments would be appreciated as well and I promise to get your name right!
Number-Cruncher wrote:Any Sage comments would be appreciated
You really wouldn't appreciate my Sage comments, lol.
There's a sticky on the site called Convince me that I don't need Sage
It gives good arguement both ways which resulted in it being one of the few posts to get promoted to sticky status.
See here : http://bookkeepers.activeboard.com/t43689388/convince-me-that-i-dont-need-sage/
The conclusion really seems to be that Sage is an important bit of kit to know as you may have clients that use it but for your own practice there are other alternatives that do not tax you per client.
Some people swear by sage, other just swear at it. Whichever category that you fall in you should still know how to use it and if you are going to learn any version then as a professional it should really be 50.
HTH,
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.
You will find that a lot of jobs rightly or wrongly ask for Sage experience.
However, the vast majority of jobs just need the basic bookkeeping/accounts doing on Sage so the skills you learn on Sage instants are exactly the same as the skills you need to do the bookkeeping on Sage Line 50. Even if you buy the Sage Line 50 training course from Sage you will find that 80-90% is exactly the same as the Sage instants training course.
So while having Sage Line 50 experice of better than having Sage Instants experience, you will find most businesses do not use the extra features of Sage Line 50, even if they have it. In fact in my experience most business owners do not know what version of sage they are using.
Sage payroll though is very different. However, to get a Sage payroll job you should have experience/qualifications in manual payroll aswell as knowing how to use Sage.
There are lot of people/training providers who provide training on sage, and lots of books from which you can teach yourself
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
