Please, Please Help

Dawn Brian

Can anyone help me, I have been asked by a member of my family to be their accountant and do them a letter for Loss of Earnings, I am qualified but have not done full membership yet, can I legally do this letter for them?
Please help!

farmergiles

Dawn Brian wrote: »

Can anyone help me, I have been asked by a member of my family to be their accountant and do them a letter for Loss of Earnings, I am qualified but have not done full membership yet, can I legally do this letter for them?
Please help!

You do not have to be a qualified accountant to act as anyones accountant, as long as you have the experience.
There is nothing to stop you writing this letter. The only problem that I can see is the the company requesting this information may possibly insist that it be signed by a chartered accountant.
Hope this helps

Kind regards
Peter

Bluewednesday

As FG says, anyone can call themselves an accountant but if you have not got your AAT membership you cannot call mention AAT at all.

As this is a family member you may find also that your objectivity is called into question so you might be better to pass this on to someone else.

Dawn Brian

Please Please Help

Hi Thank you for your comments, but as previously stated, I am qualified and have been working as an assistant accountant for the past two years. Would the company require the letter to be from a chartered accountant for someone who is self employed I thought I would be able to do things like that as a qualified accountant only not for Limited companies or have I got it all wrong, I thought that I was qualified to do the accounts for a sole trader or partnership. Please advise.

Thank you.

Bluewednesday

You said you are qualified but have not done full membership yet.

Do you mean you've passed the exams but not the work experience? In which case you are not seen as qualified (IMHO) do you have another qualification?

The only way you can find out if they need a chartered qualification is to ask them.

As FG has said you don't need any qualification to be self employed, just the experience and if you feel you have enough to do the job then that's fine.

However if you are not registered as a member in practice and you don't have liability insurance, what will you do if something goes wrong, you might need to consider that.

What makes you think you can do sole traders but not limited companies?

Dawn Brian

Hi,

I think my tutor told me as a qualified AAT Technician that you are allowed to do the accounts of a sole trader or partnership, but not Limited companies as to do this you need to have Cima or ACCA, is that wrong?

Bluewednesday

Yes it is wrong, you only have to be qualified to be a registered auditor and insolvency, other than that anyone can do anything they like! It's the directors who sign limited company accounts not the accountant.

Dawn Brian

I have passed all of the exams, and have the work experience as I have worked as an assistant accountant for the past two years I have just not got round to doing my full membership as yet as I've been really busy but intend to do it next month. I know that I can become a full member and spoken to my boss who is quite happy to do her bit aswell.

Bluewednesday

Ok but maybe I'm wrong but you can't use AAT letters until you have done that bit.

Certainly with ACCA they said that you cannot call yourself a qualified accountant until you have the work experience too and have successfully got your membership.

So if you feel able - you can do it - just don't mention the AAT and you take the risk if you do it without liability insurance.

Dawn Brian

Hi

Thanks for that, so as a qualified AAT Technician who will become a full member at christmas, what can I do. What does having the AAT qualification mean?

Bluewednesday

You can use the letters after your name, you have the support of a professional body but it won't allow you to do anything more than you can already!

CJC

Anyone can do the accounts of a Limited Company, the only thing that needs a chartered accountant is to sign-off the accounts for filing with Companies House.

Dawn Brian

I know that I can't use the initials MAAT until I am a full member and would like to become a MIP and am going on the CPD course on Saturday to find out all about what I need to do, obviously I need to think long and hard about what to do regarding being a MIP and what it means to do this.

Bluewednesday

CJC wrote: »

Anyone can do the accounts of a Limited Company, the only thing that needs a chartered accountant is to sign-off the accounts for filing with Companies House.

That's not true, the directors sign the abbreviated accounts too.

Otherwise how would all those AAT MIP's submit Companies House accounts? An accountant doesn't even have to prepare them, the directors can prepare their own if they like

CJC

If the company doesn't qualify to be able to submit abbreviated accounts and audit exemption can AAT members still sign-off? I'm going on a somewhat distant memory of beinga company director here and that's quite possibly slightly shaky.

I did say that anyone can prepare the accounts.

Bluewednesday

If a company doesn't qualify for the audit exemption then the registered auditor signs the accounts, the accountant doesn't need to.

Bluewednesday

CJC wrote: »

I
I did say that anyone can prepare the accounts.

You did indeed!

CJC

Note to self: check facts before posting in future :blushing:

slackda

whats the levels for audit exemption these days? or got a link to where it is on the CH website ?