Adrian99 wrote:

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Hello. I will be grateful if I could have some industry insights. 

After a careful consideration, I think the best way is to ask the expereinced bookeepers on this site. 

1. How long does it take to grow the business in order to obtain the same money as the one that can be provided by a salary eg. 15,000 ?

This is very much an how long is a piece of string question as this varies greatly from one practice to another including such variables as past history, who you know, number of practices in the area etc.

What I will say is to not expect anything major in the first year. You may drop lucky but in general take the absolute minimum amount that you feel that it would be possible to turn over with the smallest practice and then halve it.

For your PII remember that represents what you might be sued for, not what you are likely to make

2. Are there any real chances for another small bookkeeping business on the market ?

Of course. You stand as much chance as anyone else. The real issue though is that new bookkeepers are being churned out at an alarming rate with a very short lead time from no knowledge to practice making straight bookkeeping a very difficult business to gain a foothold in.

I certainly would not be able to make a profitable offering only bookkeeping to trial balance.

3. Are you satisfied by your profit ? It is better than salary ?

Not even close to 1/10th of my income from the day job but sometimes in life you need to take a step back in order to take two forwards. BY choice I choose lower money with total control over my destiny than more money and decisions by concensus (I should come with a little warning sticker that says "does not play well with otheres").

4. What would you recommend for me as a starter ? 

Don't understand the question?

 

I know that it depends on how much hours you put in and how miuch you want it to become a success, but I know everybody has his own experience of the startup and I would really say thanks for any advice or shared personal experience about starting the bookkeeper business and the result, as I really feel on the edge right now. Don`t know what to do as it really seems a long way to go and build clients and experience plus responsabilities and the results seems like achievable with any min wage job. 

As I say, money is not the only consideration but if you put in the work and with a bit of luck that will come with time.

Those that go down this path believing what some training companies say about minimum income expectations (thats not the regular contributors on this site that I'm talking about by the way) are often sadly disappointed and also quite shocked when they realise that it isn't a short training course then £30k per year forever with no further study.

Those who are a success at this are always learning and the job is more of a lifestyle choice than a career as such.

For anyone in this for the money it will always elude them.

For those in this because they love it then the money will (with luck) eventually follow.

But, I would allow for a 5 year lead time between starting and where you want to be so if you can build up the business whilst still having another source of income that would be the best option.

That said it will get to the stage where there are just not enough hours in the day for both the day job and this and at that stage you are going to need to take the hit on your income (so try to build up some initial reserves before giving up the saftety net).

Many thanks, 

Adrian 

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Comments in blue above

kind regards,

Shaun.

Many thanks Shaun,

Again, I have to think about it, I do not have any personal connections in the accounts world, but I really enjoyed AAT and accountancy in general.
At this point in my life, ACCA seems more like a thing to avoid than a thing to consider, although I consider it a very important qualification.
I have ccompleted AAT and now I am considering doing the AAT optionals Business Tax (which I have failed under ACCA) and External Audit. 

1. Do you think that a member in practice MAAT could have a successful practice without doing ACCA / CIMA ?
Or he is just limiting himself on working for small companies (businesses up to 250 employees and 6.9 million turnover) as I have read on the AAT Site ?



2. In my situation your advice is to follow CIMA instead of ACCA ?
I mean it perfectly suits me as it has no restrictions on my work and right now I am gazing at the AAT site that shows a route AAT - CIMA that really looks good.

3. Does CIMA has the same 10 years time limit to complete ?

 

4. How long does it takes CIMA to qualifiy for someone AAT qualified ?

 

5. The Regulation 8 that I did not knew about ACCA made me start the qualification. I do not blame nobody but me for not doing a good research before starting it. 

Are there other important bits and pieces about CIMA too that I have to consider ?

 

 

Many thanks, 

 

Adrian

 

-- Edited by Adrian99 on Wednesday 24th of April 2013 12:09:52 PM

-- Edited by Adrian99 on Wednesday 24th of April 2013 12:12:57 PM

Adrian99 wrote:

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Dear Shaun,

As usual your advice is a life changing one, and before I make any major decision, I need some more info. Now I need to decide on whether to quit ACCA and concentrate on the needs of my own business and become MAAT or continue to study ACCA. I have to make a clear benefit and effort list in order to get the proper decision, as I do not want to be in the wrong.
Please if possible, advise me of the following matters:

1. During the ACCA study, after I get the one year experience am I allowed to apply for MAAT ?

Depends if you meet the requirements for MAAT but there isno reason why not... But it would not make any difference to regulation 8 as unless you were also Chartered, ACCA do not care who else you are with and their more Draconian rules take precdence so you would find yourself as MAAT only able to work to trial balance where other MAATs can file and give advice.

2. How many hours do you currently study for ACCA per day ?

difficult one to answer as I use subliminal learning techniques as well as sitting down with the books. For instance. I am answering your question at the moment but in the background one of Mike Littles lectures on Audit evidence is on repeat.I also often go to sleep with a study CD on repeat.

Your mind does take it in even though you may not feel that you are listening (or even conscious).

When I go to the toilet I have revision decks.

I go to pick my boy up from school at 13:30 even though he does not get out until 15:20 just to give me the opportunity to go through a few revision decks.

Traditional sitting down with a book only accounts for about 3 hours a day with a fair chunk of that being between 05:30 and 07:30 when I get my boy up for school.

Answering questions on this site and client queries is always testing myself as you never know what question someone will ask next.

There are times when it does feel as if the human brain was just not built to hold this much information and I also think that mine has a leak as the knowledge seems to leak out if I don't keep pumping it in.

All in all there is study in just about everything that I do so to give a number of hours per day... I can honestly say that I don't know but would assume it to be the equivalent of around 8.

On the month before exam seasons I try to do an exam per day under exam conditions. (So starts of 10:00 (with 15 mins reading time) and ends at 13:15) I then have a break, go get my boy from school then work out what I did right and wrong in the exam before sitting down with the relevant sets of revision cards to work on areas of weakness.

Have you seen the film Appocalyps now? There is the scene in that after the helicopter attack on the village where Robert Duvall says "One day all this will be over" and there is genuine sorrow in his voice.

The ACCA exams are like that, they take over your life and there is at times a feeling of worry that at some stage you will not be able to look forwards to three hours of intense writing every six months.... The other similarity of course is that you come out of the exam halls feeling completely shell shocked

That doesn't happen in the real world. From the advanced level paper any one question would take at least half a day in the real world as you need to consider all eventualities, not simply be looking for enough. (don't listen to people that go on about the ACCA 50% pass. ACCA people could get 100% but there is no time to answer the question fully and you are being tested on the first things that you consider rather than thinking about the scenario to see what knowledge is ingrained)

Back to the qeustion then. I can't answer that as you don't so much study the qualification as live it.

3. When does the Regulation 8 stops to be enforced by ACCA: after passing all ACCA exams or after getting the practising certificate?

You are bound by the restrictions of regulation 8 until you have a practicing certificate... I know. The business is messed up. Someone whose spent a few months studying bookkeeping is allowed to give advice where someone who has spent 5-10 years passing ACCA is not.

I think that regulation 8 is too restrictive and believe that the CIMA approach of allowing people to practice but make no mantion of their affiliation to CIMA is better.

That said though ACCA is to my mind the better of the two qualifications as it covers all of the CIMA syllabus but CIMA only covers part of the ACCA syllabus.

4. As not to be in breach of Regulation 8, How much does it cost an arrangement with an accountant to benefit from his supervision in order to offer full service to the clients? is this % of turnover or fixed fee ?

Its not that simple. Practicing accountants do not want to be spending all of their time worrying what mess a PQ can drag them into. You need to know the accountant and for there to be mutual respect and trust there before considering asking for supervision.

On top of that the accountants time is worth a lot of money so you need to have some way to compensate then for their time, which in my case was all of my first batch of clients (I went back to banking for six months) plus any Sage clients that come to me that have not simply stumbled into Sage by accident.

If however I was not deemed competent (#1) before suggesting the idea to them there is no way that they would have contemplated taking me under their wing.

To find this sort of arrangement you need to know the Accountant and they need to feel both comfortable that you will not hurt their reputation plus that their time will reap rewards for their own business.

Thank you very much,

Best regards,

Adrian

#1 whilst I am relatively new to financial accountancy I've performed management accountancy roles basically since 1987 so the transition was not as difficult as it could have been and my former occupation (management consultant / business analyst in the banking sector) did mean that I have spent most of my working life working amongst qualified accountants (as equals rather than under them) so know some of the right people to know on a personal basis.

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Thank you Shaun,

I`ve called CIMA. And .... Good News:
1. 5 exams exemptions, only 10 exams to go for AAT qualified

2. No time limit to take them (as ACCA gives 10 years, which might be enough, but it is relaxing that you have NO time restriction whatsoever.)

3. Aprox. 3 years take all the exams, let`s say 5-6 years study part time.

4. 3 years experience required to get qualified, this experience is more flexible as you can work for different companies.

5. After the qualif I can call myself ACMA, CGMA. I hope people will still call me Adrian after this :)

6. Very important: NO regulation 8 !!! I can work as self employed.


I am really tempted to go for CIMA. Honestly.


I am interested about other members of this forum experience with CIMA and any details that I might get.
If I am allowed I will start with another topic.

Many thanks Shaun for support,

Adrian

strange post.

Hi,

not heard from you since July last year. Hope that you are well,

were you just testing a posting or something?

kind regards,

Shaun.

Hello... Again, second time lucky with replying to the post!!

Adrian don't give up! Like you I completed AAT ( almost 10 years ago now) and went on to study ACCA with the aim of becoming a chartered accountant. Mid way through though things changed & I had a little boy so I decided to leave it at PQ due to the time commitments.

I was made redundant last March from the practice where I worked and decided to set up on my own & it's been fab, I'm completely flexible with regards to working around child care and on average I only work 20 hours a week, plus i actually earn more now in comparison to my previous salary. I was even voted 3rd most loved bookkeeper in the UK as part of a networking group I'm a member of.

I decided to reinstate my AAT membership and I obtained my MIP licence in November allowing me to prepare financial accounts & corporation tax for limited companies as well as sole traders/partnerships (something I wouldn't have been able to do still under ACCA). The business is going strength to strength.

If you havent already, My advice to you would be to get some work experience within accountancy for a few months & take it from there. And whatever you choose stay positive :) Wouldn't you have rather tried Instead of wondering what if for the rest of your life?

Ivy