Help and advice

sharon

My brother wants to start a book keeping business, he has no accounts knowledge (well very little). He has a degree but does not want to do the AAT.
Any advice on what is the cheapest and fastest way of him to achieve his goal?

Bluewednesday

Why does he want to start a business in which he has little knowledge?

If it is bookkeeping that he wants to do he can look at various bookkeeping bodies such as IAB etc, he can qualify through them and get the support that belonging to a professional body brings.

sharon

His just done his law degree and and wants to go on to do his barristers course, But funds are low (I.e he has not got the £10k at the moment) His a bit of entrupenour and wants to give everything ago, His always been interested in accounts and he likes the thought of doing a bit of book keeping at home in the evenings as well as a day job.

He said he found a course online for about £600 to do a sage book keeping course. I thought that was a bit dear!!

Bluewednesday

I'm sure there are easier ways of earning money.

If he wants to bookkeep at home I'm not sure how useful a sage course would be. You really need to know all the principles of double entry to understand what sage is doing with your entries. Then he would have to buy the program to run it at home.

Lots of pubs, shops etc run manual books which is perfect for home work but he would really need to do some study to know what he is doing.

DaveP

If it was that easy everyone would be doing it!

sharon

Thanks!!!!!Not sure what for though!

Monsoon

He really needs to have had some proper training before offering bookkeeping services to the public and then some experience.
If he doesn't want AAT then try IAB/ ICB.

sheelagh

Part time income

I agree with bluewednesday. You cannot just step into bookkeeping. You need training and experience, as well as all the legal requirements - data protection, MLRO regulation. Then he will need to market his services, which is, frankly, a slow process, at least in the early days.

He might find an accountant or business owner who will employ him to do some spreadsheet work in the evenings, but in fairness who would choose to employ someone with no experience to work alone outside office hours?
Surely, if he needs to put money in the bank he would be better to go for the more traditional student occupations - bar work, office cleaning, retail sector night shift - or possibly set up some sort of internet business.