Hi Emma,

welcome to the forum.

I'm just on my way out the door but if you could fill in a little more info about your career aspirations / market that you would be looking to service and your timeframe / budget to get into the business then we'll see if we can't point you in the right direction when I get back in order to get you from where you are now to where you need / want to be.

We may also be able to guide you towards government funding for levels III and IV study which won't need to be repaid until you are making a good return.

Talk in a bit,

kind regards,

Shaun.

As soon as you said employers rather than self employed the answer was AAT (and that includes for temping work as well as permie) so good call there in the path that you have already been looking at.

despite your previous experience I would advise doing the level II in order to regain your confidence and give yourself firm foundations for moving forwards.

I don't think that there is any financial help available for the level II but luckily that one's not the biggy when it comes to AAT.

The level II is pretty much pure bookkeeping.

For levels III and IV you should be able to apply for 24+ funding which means that it wont cost you anything until you are making (I think) £21k+.

There's an AAT module in Excel but to become a real expert in it I can advise you on books and You tube video's when you get to that stage. (Bets not take on too much too soon or you'll end up buried under study materials).

At level IV AAT you get the option to do Personal and Corporate tax papers which will fill in many of the gaps in your knowledge although I will say that when readuing this site many of the contributors are actually accountants so some of the knowledge shared here you would not generally be expected to know.

Sage and Quickbooks are just bits of software. Concentrate upon learning principles of bookkeeping and accounting before worrying too much about accounting software. When you are ready there are plenty of cheap courses in Sage available.

Just take it all one step at a time and before you know it you'll be giving advice on the site rather than worrying about what you don't know.

The first person that you should call or email should be Nick at Premier Training about getting sorted out with AAT. Remember to speak with him about the 24+ loan as the money would go straight to them, not to yourself.

Not sure what sort of deal that they would be able to put together for you to bolt a paid for level II on the front of a funded levels III and IV but whatever's available Nicks the guy to help you out.

Neil, (Spam Kebab from here) is now one of their trainers and he's very approachable. Also if you get stuck with anything you always have us to call on.

Good luck moving forwards Emma and any questions at all don't hesitate to ask.

kindest regards,

Shaun.

Just out of curiosity Shamus, what would you have recommended had I said 'self-employed'? Emma

Hi Emma,

I can't add much to what Shaun has said, as usual his advice is invaluable    I am also a "mature" lady (probably more mature than you! ) who looked at returning to work after being at home for 20 years with my children, and that in itself was a daunting prospect.  Fortunately I was techie minded and we got our first computer when my son was 5 (1986) so was able to keep up with technology and mostly taught myself.  I did a free European Driving Licence course to get myself back up to speed with things like Excel, Word etc. and was fortunate to be given a work placement with an IT support company, who offered me a full time job at the end of it. Unfortunately 3 years later I was made redundant and decided to brush up my bookkeeping skills (I had done bookkeeping before).  I went with a Pitmans Accounting Technician Course which cost quite a bit but luckily my parents helped me with it.  Although it was really good and brought my skills up to date I wouldn't recommend it now as the ICB did not recognise the qualification and I had to take their exams to become a member.  

I have since become an Associate member of the ICB (Level II in manual and computerised bookkeeping) and also did the payroll qualification. I studied with Ideal Schools and found them really good. (Other training providers are available..lol).  I agree with Shaun in that ICB or IAB is the way to go on the self-employed route and AAT will be looked for by most employers.  I worked for a firm of accountants for 6 months and they started me off on the AAT, but unfortunately I had family problems and was ill myself so had to stop that.  Now I am more than happy working for myself.  I don't intend to have too many clients and work long, long hours as I have learned that my family comes first, but only you know how much you can handle.

Good luck if you decide to go down the AAT route.  Everyone on here is very friendly and helpful if you ever need advice or support.  I am more than willing to be a study buddy if you like as I know what it's like starting again after having a family, it can be very daunting, but I'm sure you will be fine!

Anyway, enough of the personal history...back to the shopping! lol

Pauline

Hi Pauline,

have you thought about doing the AAT whilst the 24+ loans are available? (I don't imagine that they will be around forever).

Just thinking that it might help with opening doors, prepearing management accounts, final accounts and corporate tax returns enabling you to offer an all round service to smaller businesses should the need arise.

Fully appreciate that you don't want to be working 24/7 and the qualifications that you already have are probably fine for you but its just a thought about that 24+ loan and it was something that you were considering for the future now might be the time to bring those plans forwards whilst it seems on the face of it to be basically free until you have a good income coming in from it.

I'm going to be charging Nick commission at this rate, lol.

Anyway, Just a thought,

kind regards,

Shaun.

Is that the girlfriend your feeling that is 32 Shaun!!!!

Sorry to hijack the post I couldn't resist that one Shaun.

Shaun's got alot of history in case you haven't read too much on this site.

Anyway welcome to the forum, there are quite a few of the 'mature' people on here, although I am not as old as Shaun!

Good luck in your studies.

OK, I'm going to answer my own question now. Here's a link to the 24+ learning loans :-

www.gov.uk/advanced-learning-loans/overview

Hi Emma,

ICB have a self assessment exam. They are the only body that does with all others subsuming self assessment under general tax.

Self assessment actually brings together several different areas of tax such as employment, self employment, rental property etc. so as you can see it would be covered by any tax paper. (With AAT you would do it as one of the options at level 4 (personal tax).

The other bodies don't do the actual self assessment forms but forms change where principles remain more constant.

Actually, on that note I was just reading Garry Carters periodic gripe on their website (see here : www.bookkeepers.org.uk/News/1993)

Hope that he phrased that last bit differently to ministers as that sounds as though one needs a self assessment qualification to do self assessments where for the most part they're pretty self explanatory and even for the more difficult clients any personal tax qualification would cover the material.

kind regards,

Shaun.

Surely the colour of an AIB persons money is the same as the colour of an ICB persons money to a training provider Dave?

If people are not taking the exams then why would the ICB even need to know that people are doing the course?

For that matter, is that not true of any course. People pay extra for the exams so the courses themselves are teaching a subject not simply exam prep therefore why not sell ICB courses to IAB people and allow them to choose which body they go off and take the exams with?

Always remember where there's an active market there's a profit.

I do know that some Pitman training centres even run both bodies exams so its not as if TL would be alone if they adopted a similar approach.

All the best,

Shaun.

Hi Pauline,

Sorry, think that you misunderstood the direction I was coming from.

Garry's arguement in the link was that other bodies don't have a self assessment qualification so they shouldn't be allowed to offer the service.

The reality is that for other bodies self assessment is subsumed with tax where ICB break it out into its own qualification.

Emma, Hi. I retrained a few years ago and had the same lack of confidence you had at the start resulting from a horrible experience in a full time job working for people I didn't get on with. I did AAT exams and towards the end slowly started to take clients on still leaving me time to study. I did also get a part time job at an accountancy firm to get some experience in tax which was invaluable. What I would say is that clients probably won't doubt you unless you doubt yourself. If you are confident, they will have confidence in you. Not one has asked me about my qualifications, they just seem to assume I have some. I used to be an analyst working with Excel in my former life but rarely use it now as Quickbooks (and Sage for one client, groan) do everythying most clients need. The AAT Excel exam gives you a lot of what you need so it would be a good idea to do that if you were to use it. Quickbooks offer online training videos to train their proadvisors and it's free. You pay the monthly fee but they give you a copy of QB to sell every year which almost covers the annual costs. It's a lot cheaper than Sage and I find it a lot more user friendly. But you might be more of a Sage person and most qualifications seem to use Sage in the lessons so you could get experience of that as well if you did the exams. And don't forget you have previous experience which is worth a lot. It may need refreshing but at least you have done it before, many of us hadn't when we started out!

Some clients actually only want someone to do the data entry so they can give it to their accountants. You could start with people like that. Say no to anyone who you think wants more than you can cope with (I pass on more complicated clients to a local chartered accountant and he gives me bookkeeping clients and helps me out when I need help as well, maybe you could find someone like that?). Then as you get more confidence you can learn what you need to know for each client as you take them on. For example I took one on that had bank accounts in different currencies so I learnt the bit of quickbooks that deals with that. I had to learn VAT to cover foreigh transactions, I read up on that. it all adds to the CPD and you have more knowledge for when you next pick up a client with the same characteristics. A year on from finishing my exams and starting to look for clients in earnest I find myself working again this weekend as there is too much to do!

Shamus wrote:

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Surely the colour of an AIB persons money is the same as the colour of an ICB persons money to a training provider Dave?

If people are not taking the exams then why would the ICB even need to know that people are doing the course?

For that matter, is that not true of any course. People pay extra for the exams so the courses themselves are teaching a subject not simply exam prep therefore why not sell ICB courses to IAB people and allow them to choose which body they go off and take the exams with?

Always remember where there's an active market there's a profit.

I do know that some Pitman training centres even run both bodies exams so its not as if TL would be alone if they adopted a similar approach.

All the best,

Shaun.

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 I totally agree Shaun and Training Link are more than happy to provide the ICB training to people who don't wish to take the exams which is why I suggested calling the various providers to see if they will? I could hardly have said this on the forum as this would have been deemed as Self-Marketing which as you know is not allowed on the forum but thanks for this opportunity lol

Dave Campbell wrote:

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Stardoe wrote:

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Shamus wrote:

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Actually, on that note I was just reading Garry Carters periodic gripe on their website (see here : www.bookkeepers.org.uk/News/1993)

Hope that he phrased that last bit differently to ministers as that sounds as though one needs a self assessment qualification to do self assessments where for the most part they're pretty self explanatory and even for the more difficult clients any personal tax qualification would cover the material.

kind regards,

Shaun.

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 But if you're a member of the ICB you do need the self-assessment qualification to do self-assessments don't you?  Or have I misunderstood your point?

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 Hi Pauline, if you are a member of the ICB and are in practice you will be expected to have gained their qualification if your trading as a Bookkeeper under their banner.

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Hi Dave,

Happy Sunday matey.

My reply was to Emma rather than Pauline.

I think that you may have missed my clarification to Pauline from a couple of posts down.

Pauline is ICB and has taken the self assessment so knows the rules where Emma is not ICB and was confused as to why does the ICB have this exam and nobody else does.

I am not saying that one approach is right and others wrong where the person at the end of it only needs to know about self assessment without the context of the bigger picture.

There is however the worry about how such is being conveyed to those with the ability to make change as I've seen it before where change is made on the back of the Government only being privy to half a story from a small number of those who would benefit from change (IR35 being a very good example of that).

All the best,

Shaun.