I would appreciate any help you can give me. I currently work as a Company Accountant part time as I have a young child. He is starting at primary school in September so I am considering what to do with my time.
I have passed most of my exams for CIMA, only have 3 final stage professional exams left till I finish.
My time at work is spent doing all bookkeeping, credit control, producing monthly management accounts, payroll VAT returns etc.
Can I offer these services on a self employed basis?
Hi Jill Simple (ish) practical things you would need - agreement of CIMA/licence from them (you cannot get the latter as you havent qualified); MLR registration (you cannot get from CIMA as you havent qualified and got their licence); PII cover, ICO registration.
Less straight forward - who is your target client base? Will you go up to TB and stop, or beyond? Bear in mind if its anyone in business (which covers everyone likely to be on your books) then they will want tax advice of some kind (they ALL want to pay less tax) - so how will you offer that? what im saying is how will you get the experience of completing sole trader tax returns and full company accounts/CT600?
Its certainly do-able, but the above are some of the hurdles.
Others include - making sure there is nothing in your contract to prevent being self employed.
The other is - stay off my patch I see you are the other end of Cheshire, so Im sure the county is big enough for the both of us.
Havent you been on here before?
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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
I have an idea on who I want to target. Regarding offering tax advice you are right. How would I go about that? Is there exams I could sit?
Hi Jill
Welcome to the forum, if your interested in learning about tax why don't you have a think about doing ATT and then maybe CTA after that, go on the ATT website and have a look at the different units and what they will teach you.
Also AAT do 2 tax units at Level 4 but these are nowhere near as in depth as ATT.
Good luck
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Doug
These are only my opinions of how I see things and therefore should not be taken as advice
Hi Jill
Concur with Doug over the exams. That said, you can get all the exams in the world but at some point you need the practice. Would that be an option open to you - moving into a practice for a while, on a part time basis?
There is plenty of work up to Trial Balance if you look in the right places (I would suggest Limited companies only) and it can provide a very good living if you are picky about your client base.
But also there are many sole practioners out there who run past TB with much less in terms of exams/experience you have already - some sub out the real complex tax work, some wing it and hope for the best (asking for trouble) but some are very good at researching the issues and learning on the job and I do personally think it helps when you have a more rounded CV/background in the real world. Only issue is with that one - you dont know what you dont know and nobody is checking your work so any mistakes might only show up years down the line or when you have an inspection by the powers that be. In this game the more you do, the more you will realise how much you dont know.
Also - if you are looking at 20 billable hours per week then you could be looking at putting in almost double that in terms of research time and the rest (never mind CPD).
Dip your toe, whilst you are still working.
Dont be a stranger on here - this place has certainly aided my education over the years.
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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
I see you are the other end of Cheshire, so Im sure the county is big enough for the both of us.
