list of procedures which are done on a monthly basis
Enter Sales and Purchase Invoices into Sage although this may done by Graham
Post sales payments received and purchase payments etc into ledger
Produce sales statements (as necessary)
Reconcile bank on a monthly basis. (Done manually at present)
Record payments received and payments to suppliers in Day Book
Check purchase statements with invoice (many invoices now received by email)
Using sage enter data into the nominal ledger (journals), to enable monthly profit and loss reports and balance sheets to be produced.
Produce analysis reports for sales and purchases.
Produce quarterly VAT returns and submit to HMRC
Because they have mentioned sage I will be sorting myself out with a package, however whats the most suitable one? I will inevitably take on more clients. Also how do you calculate fees? as I am being asked how much it would cost them. Thank you for your help
Hi Liam
Can you please add your name to the signature section so that it appears on your messages.
Welcome to the forum. Would be useful for you to have added some background about yourself - ability levels, qualifications, background.
To the question itself, or at least part of it......if a client is talking about all this being input into Sage (and its clear that someone called Graham is using it at their offices) then I would suggest they will want you to go into their offices and use their system. Can you clarify? If so then you do not need access to sage yourself.
There is a lot of information on here about various accounting packages which people on the site use. I use Sage myself, but be warned it very expensive and they have recently changed their product offering so that its purchased more and more on a monthly subscription basis rather than perpectual licences, but it depends on various factors which are to start with if you want the accountants/bookkeepers version, standard desktop or online (most people on BKN dont like online as a rule - see some of the threads on here which explain the reasons why), whether or not you want to monitor stock etc. VT is fast becoming more and more of a favourite on BKN, so would be worth a look!
Re your fees. There are a lot of variables here too - what is your ideal fee/your minimum rate; local rates; where based, amount of competition in your area (although I dont let influence my fees), per hour rate or fixed fee, value pricing/add ons, plus several other considerations. Some bookkeepers start at £8ph, but I absolutely would not get out of bed for that rate!!! One of the posters on here recently advised he achieved £90an hour - although I would suggest these are rare and certainly unlikely if you are just starting out. Have a look round at some of the other threads for some further ideas.
__________________
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
You will need to find out which Sage they are using, first.
If you intend to work on your laptop, and then restore your updated back up to their PC, you would need to be running the same version as them.
If the information will only be stored on your machine, from now on, and they are using something cheap like Sage Instant, you could invest in the 2015 version, which I think is £85 on Amazon, and upgrade the back up (but they couldnt have it back unless they got the same version).
If they are using Sage Line 50 or Sage 50 accounts - or anything higher than Instant, I am not totally sure you can restore their back up into the Instant version. You might have to invest in Sage 50 and that's not cheap! Someone else might know if you can restore 50 into Instant, if its a higher version. I believe that all back ups are basically the same, but that higher versions unlock different features.
Or, if you are starting a new Sage from scratch, I *think* Sage Instant will let you do the things you have said - its the reports I am not sure of.
Let us know which Sage they are using and the version number... can help more then
