Does anyone do bookkeeping work?

sassyduell

I am 2 years (hopefully)through the AAT now and i want to advertise for some book keeping work. Have any of you done that, and if so, how did you get started? How much did you charge? Where did you advertise?Obviously i cant do tax yet, would that make it difficult to find work.
Thanks for any advice.

alicemaylara

I want to start to do bookkeeping to. I work 4 days a week already in a small accountancy firm preparing accounts but id like to eventually be self employed
I am planning on doing the books for a few people i know to get some experience and then go on from there...dipping my toes in the water before i jump head first!

speegs

Hi

I am an AAT Member In Practice and I do book keeping work (amongst other services). Be warned, I think in order to do book keeping work you need to be a registered Member In Practice and also have the correct insurance. I would recommend you contact the AAT to find out if you can practice yet, but I don't think you can.

Speegs

PS Best of luck with your exams.

Gem7321

Anyone can do bookkeeping work but if you're not registered as a MIP you can't use your AAT status

AK002

I do bookkeeping, but am employed through a practice.

Esme

Anyone can do book keeping work, you don't need to be an MAAT but you do need insurance and to be registered with HMRC as self employed.

blobbyh

Anyone can do book keeping work...

Taking nothing away from the OP and other contributors to this thread so far, but I think that's a point all on it's own based on the number of (pardon my French) p*ss poor small company book keepers I have to deal with on an almost daily basis.

Non-compliant VAT invoices, calculation errors, tax period errors etc, all frequent examples committed by people out there mistakenly entrusted by their clients and employers to perform the job properly. So I guess if you're gonna go go it alone and charge on a per hour basis, you need to be even more confident with watertight abilities than if you were fully employed by someone else..

Good luck.

Esme

I meant legally, as in that you don't need to be a full member in practice or a qualified book keeper. Obviously you shouldn't take on any work which you are not confident which you can do accurately.

speegs

For once, Robert, I actually have to agree with you.

Also, as an MIP, we must complete 2 cycles of CPD every year in order to keep our skills up to date. Something that unregulated book keepers do not always do.

Speegs

Gem7321

I know what you mean, it drives me mad when clients spend hundreds of pounds on a bookkeeper, the books come to me to prep the accounts and tax and I end up having to re-create them from scratch because they're so bad.

I find books prepared by bookkeepers are normally worse than books prepared by the clients themselves using the massive red collins cashbooks!

AK002

Gem7321 wrote: »

books prepared by the clients themselves using the massive red collins cashbooks!

My worst nightmare, the red books lol!

sassyduell

I realise that you have to be confident with what you will be charging people for and i am sure that the theory is different to the practise but as i want to do this on a self employed basis eventually i dont know if there is any other option than to jump in and do the job. I am a perfectionist and wouldnt want to do anything other than an excellent job. Do clients generally have a system set up that they expect you to work with or should I have software in place to use?
Have any of you done this and have you any tips?