I am a British expatriate chose to move to Mumbai, India in 2017 to set up my bookkeeping/management accounting firm.
As many bookkeepers here would agree, its difficult to expand this business in the UK due to high labor cost. Hence the reason for my move.
I already have clients and want to expand the business. It is very expensive to fly there to network & meet new clients, so I am looking for a business partner who can network & get more work & I will take care of getting the work done.
If you would like to find out more, please contact me.
I am a British expatriate chose to move to Mumbai, India in 2017 to set up my bookkeeping/management accounting firm.
As many bookkeepers here would agree, its difficult to expand this business in the UK due to high labor cost. Hence the reason for my move.
I already have clients and want to expand the business. It is very expensive to fly there to network & meet new clients, so I am looking for a business partner who can network & get more work & I will take care of getting the work done.
If you would like to find out more, please contact me.
Many thanks
Richie Bhatia
Hi Richie,
That is a well constructed play on the old sell of outsourcing / offshoring your work to India.
Much more subtle than the usual approaches but it still ends up with someone in the UK gaining sales which are serviced offshore.
The issue is that in the UK we of course have minimum wage and many bookkeepers average wages fall far below that. These are for the most part one person cottage industries so how exactly does one reduce their costs by offshoring?
You would argue I am sure that if we are working we are not selling but the main selling point is that our clients get a personal service. We cannot state that if we offshore their paperwork.
Of course, your approach is that you are looking for people to introduce you to clients but how would that work? Clients would not agree to such. I see no advantage to the bookkeeper who would still be responsible for AML and representing your work to the client.
The only scenario where I see this working is with large accountancy firms looking to save costs but I know that even India is now deemed too expensive and the major players are now replacing offshore work with automated solutions with clients supported by their new associates.
I think that accounting trying to follow IT down the offshoring route has proven something of a short lived mistake and the feel is that even IT is now coming home as the whole concept of seperation between programming and analysis has all but disappeared.
Have you thought about moving your business to the UK? It's a difficult market to crack but I can see that India may have serious difficulties now the the outsourcing bubble if not exactly popped seems to be slowly deflating so if you can get out now might be the time before the rush starts.
Good luck,
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.
As many bookkeepers here would agree, its difficult to expand this business in the UK due to high labor cost.
I fundamentally disagree with this statement. Whilst I agree with Shaun in that many, when you really get into it are probably working at less than minimum wage, I think its more about the fact that many bookkeepers actually have no entrepreneurial bones in their bodies and therefore no clue how to run a really successful business.
Anyway Ive seen you pop back online a few times since Shaun posted but have not yet acknowledged his post, nor answered his Q. That is the first start to attempting to build a reltionship with anyone who may wish to consider being a business partner. even whilst its not even remote likely to be Shaun, its about how the others will now view your interactions, especially when someone has gone to the trouble of responding.
In addition to what Shaun has already said, I see a few other issues if you are looking to link up with a perfect stranger.
You have no track record. None that is evident. Its a practically brand new Limited co. A one page website. The website states you are AAT, but you do not appear on their list of licensed members (therefore should not be mentioning an affiliation). It appears from the sic code of the limited and your website blurb that you can only offer up to TB, which would indicate AATQB at best. So I am left wondering what added value you can bring to a business tie up with someone in the UK.
If you have clients already, what happens when you get to capacity? The inference is clear that you are farming the work out to other places/people in India who are then being paid lower wages that in the UK? So bearing in mind the UK NMW is pretty pitiful, are you then paying almost zero wages to someone to complete this work? Are these folk qualified/unqualified? Who then checks this work? Where does that leave the moral and ethical issues?
Why would someone choose you over someone else?
What do you mean by 'Business Partner'? Pretty fundamental stuff!! How would this tie up work? Do you mean an introducer has Shaun has hinted at? Or are offering something else and if so what?
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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
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback; much appreciated.
I heard the UK had one of the best summers in years, really missing that here, as the monsoons are really bad this year & have overstayed their welcome.
Anyways coming back to your comment;
I feel within bookkeeping; data entry consumes 75-80% of the work & the remaining 20-25% of the work is reviewing & advising clients. So a person can increase the number of clients by 4-5 times if you discard data entry. And you are also working on the enjoyable part of the work i.e. reviewing & advising clients.
I have personally experienced that discarding data entry from my task and only working on analyzing & reviewing, I can give a much better service to my clients.
In regards to how this will work, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
One way to approach this is, bookkeeper hires us for data entry work & they review the work before submitting to the client. My company is registered in the UK & also have professional indemnity cover.
Another approach is we can register a new LTD company as directors & share the profit.
The main thing is if someone is willing to work there is always a way & we can work out the details.
When I started I also had these issues but if you are open & honest with the client/partners it always works & I have double the number of clients in the last two years (its not a lot, but I can survive).
I agree that many UK companies have issues with offshoring because the attitude of doing business in the UK & India is different & thats where I come in and bridge the gap.
My aim is to help book-keepers discard data entry from their work & concentrate more on growing the business.
-- Edited by Paperless Accounting on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 06:42:49 PM
-- Edited by Shamus on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 09:31:27 PM
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, I agree with you on why anyone would link up with a stranger and you have all the rights to ask these questions.
I started my accounting career in 2007 as a trainee accountant in a practice & finally moved up to be a company accountant for a multi-million-pound company (obviously, references will be provided if matched with the right business partner)
Its a practically brand new Limited co:In regards to having a brand new a limited company is nothing much I can do about that as I was working as a sole trader before.
A one-page website Regarding the website, it doesn't matter if it has 1 page or 50, it has all the information need. Minimalism is the way forward, it is to the point
The website states you are AAT, but you do not appear on their list of licensed members (therefore should not be mentioning an affiliation).I have AAT level 4 certificate, as far as that goes it I can say I am AAT qualified. I am more than happy to send a copy of this certificate to Shawn if someone can tell me how to send this.
what happens when you get to capacity? Of course, you hire more staff.
Are these folk qualified/unqualified? These are graduates with accounts degree.
Who then checks this work? All work is checked by me & I take full responsibility for the work.
So bearing in mind the UK NMW is pretty pitiful, are you then paying almost zero wages to someone to complete this work? Ya, that's right, I keep them as salves & pay nothing, just feed them to keep them alive so they can work for me for zero wage.
lol, jokes apart; I really believe in business, employees are the most valuable assets and its a free market & if I don't train or pay the market wage they will leave. All I can say is, I have good team of staff who are happy to work with me.
Why would someone choose you over someone else? I have said this before when replying to Shawn, I understand how different the business culture is in UK & India and I can bridge the gap.
I believe I have replied to the rest of your question in Shawn's reply.
-- Edited by Paperless Accounting on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 06:28:12 PM
-- Edited by Shamus on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 09:31:53 PM
why no license from them? If you are talking about AML then I can't register with the HMRC as the day-to-day management of the business is outside of the UK.
who is licence with?
You do not state you are AAT qualified. You just state AAT. Against the regulations and misleading. I have taken it out all together & will speak to them tomorrow & clarify what can I state.
What software do you use for data input? Xero, VT accounts, sage, we can also connect to your software via remote desktop.
please stop shouting:, Not shouting, font size is big but not caps. Need to learn to properly format on here.
I think you've been more than fair with answering the questions. I do agree with you that the data entry part is the most tedious and I try to avoid that as much as possible, so I have an employee who does that for me. She's twice as fast as me so it pays for me to do that.
I'm guessing that the reason you're not on AAT member list is because you have your level 4 certificate but haven't got your practice certificate, and as Joanne says I don't think you can affiliate with AAT if you haven't.
Outsourcing is not for me but I wish you every success in your business.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I fixed the fonts as the large letters made it difficult to read.
The issue with you approach here is that bookkeeping is everything up to trial balance, accountancy is everything after it. So, if you take the bookkeeping away from bookkeepers what is there left?
Now, I am not saying the bookkeeping is where everyone here stops but as a bookkeepers forum it does seem that you are attempting to sell turkeys on the idea of Christmas.
One line that you came out with was "the attitude of doing business in the UK & India is different" please could you expand upon this as I am interested to understand your view on this?
I understand what you are saying about MLR in that it is down to the UK agent to perform MLR checks and you are doing the equivalent of working as a junior in that bookkeeper / accountants office. However... In offshoring the work the UK entity would need to gain the clients permission to transmit client data outside the EEA. Now, an issue there is that despite India having data privacy laws the European Commission regards them as innefectual and they do not make it onto the list of approved countries for data transmission which at the moment consists of : Argentina, Canada, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Israel and New Zealand. We can also transfer data between the EU and US provided that the US business has signed up the Privacy Shield Network.
So, not only would your agent in the UK need to find the work but they would also need to be completely up front with business owners about where the data was being processed which will greatly reduce the number of companies that would consider this as an option and those that would tend to be larger entities looked after by major accounting firms.
I have read the ICAEW study where they note that some firms do not inform clients that their data is being transferred offshore which is a serious worry that those practices are exposed to criminal action. Do not misconstru that some business goes to India as it being completely legal in all instances but on the bright side for your business it is the UK practices, not the Indian subcontractors who are subject to criminal action.
In short, regardless of the genuine issues that others have identified, I believe for primarily alternate reasoning, that you are barking up the wrong tree looking for work through this site.
I wish you and your business the best of luck but I do not believe that it will be in the UK market unless you either set up your business resident in the UK and hence pay your staff UK level salaries. Or, look to subcontract to a major accountancy firm by undercutting the likes of Tata for the work whilst providing similar service levels.
Shaun.
p.s. the conclusion in the ICAEW study indicates that the cost savings to entities who outsourced work to India were roughly the same as those who outsourced work to companies in the UK except where the Indian company was a whole owned division of the UK accountancy practice, operating as a part of a single entity. The advantage primarily being one of time difference allowing work to be performed 24 hours per day though on opposit sides of the world.
__________________
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 have AAT level 4 certificate, as far as that goes it I can say I am AAT qualified.
why no licence from them?
I meant practice licence from AAT. Proof of ability, not just exam passes. Working for a such a large company does not necessarily give you the skills to work for the smaller ones. Nor does working for one company.
You have contradicted yourself in your answers.
I asked 4 clients yesterday about the idea and it was a resounding no (way)
