I am about to complete level 2 Certificate in Accounting and will be moving onto level 3.
I was considering working as a bookkeeper at home to gain the experience and earn extra money.
I work in a sales team and am hoping an accountancy position will come up in my company soon - I like where I work so I am reluctant to move to a job into the town but would like to gain experience.
Would it be ill-advised to start bookkeeping without the experience? (even though i will have the qualifications)
Does anyone if AAT have rules regarding working as a sole trader while training?
Any help anyone could give would be so greatly appreciated!!
You really need to contact the AAT to clarify this. I believe the answer is yes as long as you don't hold yourself out as being qualified with the AAT. That includes not promoting the fact that you are AAT Level 2 qualified to clients.
You are legally required to register with HMRC under the Money Laundering Regulations. You would be strongly advised to take out professional indemnity insurance.
Hi David,
Thank you for your reply!
I had read a little about insurance and money laundering.
I may be best going straight to AAT to confirm.
I was hoping someone had done it and could tell me if it was ok or far too difficult without spending time working in a company first.
Again thank you for your help!
Regards
Ashleen
I had worked in and around accounts / admin departments for many years before taking the plunge into self employment. I went the ICB route into bookkeeping which was the quickest route to be qualified at the time. Even now after more years than I care to mention I am still learning !
David is correct in advising you for the need to sort out your MLR and professional indemnity insurance out before taking on any clients. Also, you cannot make reference to studying with the AAT to clients.
My daughter is currently studying at level 4 and like yourself in order to achieve some practical experience has recently taken on a couple of clients. It is a steep learning curve which I think no text book can really prepare you.
If you feel confident in your abilities and can adjust easily to what clients throw at you, well test the waters.
I think I will look into the MLR and insurance and then may start with a few small clients that I know personally.
I would really like to test the water, and once qualified I would like to add extra services.
I am doing the Sage module at the minute, and am usually pretty quick at picking things up so hopefully it wouldn't take long for me to get into the swing of it.
Other than Sage would you advise any other system etc that I might need?
I use a combination of Sage, Money Manager and good old fashioned spread sheets. I still have one client who prefers ledgers !
It all depends on the particular client, most want something straightforward and uncomplicated. As long as you can easily keep tabs on their sales / purchases and bank statements, use a system that both yourself and client can understand.
For bookkeeping : VT Transaction+ (Sage is good but if it's not supplied by the client then it's expensive so get as many clients as you can onto VT which charges per year rather than per client... Take a two month free trial of VT first to ensure that you like it... Its not good for box stackers and shifters who need stock control but excellent for service businesses)
Excel (or equivalent spreadsheet) : a scratchpad thats much better than a desk calculator.
I would advise that one screen attached to your PC is not enough.
You may find this thread useful : www.book-keepers.org.uk/t35196833/am-i-right/ especially Steve's comment towards the end of the thread that details what services students may offer.
Worth emphasising that MLR is not optional but rather carries strict financial (and possible jail term) penalties if you don't have it).
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.
"I would advise that one screen attached to your PC is not enough."
Normally, I'd just say "meh" and point out (geekmeister though I am) that I've never felt the need for more than one screen.
However, for a number of reasons I'm now starting to think that a second screen would actually be quite handy - if only I had desk space for one.
Since (for this work) I primarily use a laptop, the laptop's screen should be the second screen - but the problem there is the laptop screen is 1600x900 whereas my proper screen is 1920x1080. While that doesn't prevent the use of two screens (if I had space for the laptop to be open), I have tried it and found the use of mismatched resolutions to be irritating.
Should have bought a laptop that had a 1920x1080 display.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Yeah I use a laptop for work but have my desk in the office set up that i have an extra screen attached along with a separate keyboard and mouse...
I am lucky enough that I have the same set up in the house - my partner and I both work in IT at the minute so we have a need for a decent home office.
Don't think I could go back to using just a laptop now...
got a 17 inch screen on mine but it still feels like a play thing to use when you are unable to access a real computer.
I've worked with some companies where you have a docking station at work. Some of them where the laptop slots into the station and others where you have the laptop screen becomes an extension of the monitor.
I looked at that option for the home office (not as the main computer) but was quite disappointed to find that the docking stations are often more expensive than the PC's themselves (and not even talking about cheap laptops) so I've stuck with the old manual connecting of peripherals.
like yourself, the thought of just having a laptop would horrify 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.
Just to clarify: When I refer to "my proper screen" above, what I mean is that although I use the laptop for this work, I do use it as though it's a desktop computer - the proper screen in question (a 32" full HD tv) is plugged into the laptop, along with an external keyboard and mouse.
The laptop itself is folded closed and placed off to one side (usually with stuff on top of it) because there is no room on the desk to have it open.
I very rarely use the laptop as a laptop per se, but I do on occasion which is why it's a laptop and not a desktop (or deskunder)!
I have other computers on or around my desk as well, used for different things, all connected to the same screen (and theoretically the same keyboard and mouse) - but those are all ARM-based computers, and all running RISC OS; used for software development/testing, website design and maintenance, and so on.
And as well as those, the desk (which is not particularly big, but fits in the space in which it needs to fit) also has other typical office paraphernalia.
So you can see why I'm short of space! :)
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I've found 3*5 to be the optimal desk size for me.
I love the old 1930's solid oak headmaster desks. Had one in work years ago and the sods sold it and replaced it with this crap thing that looked like it came from Argos. You couldn't even sit on it.
I tried to buy it from the company but apparently all of the desk had been sold as part of the deal so wasn't available. It was stacked in the corridor for a couple of days and then one morning I came into work and could have wept when I saw several huge skips outside with the old desks smashed and thrown into them.
My office desks a heavy duty 60's 5 * 3 C frame (My youngest has nicked my 6 * 3 early Ikea (from when their furniture was good)) and the second office which is setup for visitors (they really don't want to see the office where the work is actually done!) is a mahogany joby.
All the above about desk sizes aside, when it comes to sorting out paperwork nothing beats a large expanse of open floor to get everything categorised and date sequenced.
Laters,
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.
The largest that I've seen was the 37" screen setups at a certain Pension company in Edinbough.
Some liked the new screens, others didn't. I didn't mind them apart from if using windows applications one needed to turn the brightness right down or you got a sun tan as most screens are Microsoft screens are white / cream so it's like sitting in a tanning booth (like I would know what thats like).
Sounds as though the space is dictating the desk size. Have you considered perhaps wall mounting the screen(s) behind the desk?
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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 bought a laptop for home last year but like Vince, I have it set up as a desktop, can't get on with it as a laptop at all.
LOL at the floor space Shaun, done that plenty of times but I now have a long trestle table, which came in handy yesterday when I was sorting out a years receipts for a client.
That pension company? I rang them this morning and found my pension pot is worth just over £200 woo hoo!! That's really going to change my life. To be fair that was 3 months contributions paid in by my employer when I was last employed (2008) so I cant really grumble. I'd forgotten all about it until I was sorting some stuff out a couple of weeks ago.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
Wrong type of wall on which to mount the screen. This is a 'Cornish' style house, so the upstairs walls are little more than plasterboard on the outside walls, which is the most practical place for the desk.
The desk itself is 4'8" x 1'8" - and, yes, I could do with a bigger one. However, any wider and I'd have to turn it sideways, and any deeper and I wouldn't be able to open the (one not already blocked by the desk) door to the cupboard. (Which means turning it sideways is not a real option).
Everything in the working area was bought specifically to fit in a very precisely measured space.
However, even as I type I'm kind of looking at things and formulating a cunning plan. :)
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
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.
Currently I have my old noisy horrible PC with small monitor, lovely new quiet PC with large double screen, clients laptop and printer all on my smallish desk (well except for one new PC monitor given the lack of space). I still need to find time to move everything from the old PC so I can free that bit of desk up, so Im not only using the floor in the office but on the landing and party into my sons bedroom (fortunately he has moved out, so he just sighs a lot when he sees it all. Cant see the carpet so therefore dont need to hoover it, but its a bad idea to have papers on the floor in their plastic sleeves because its like a skating rink - Ive almost done the splits on more than one occasion.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
