bookeeping work

crybaby66

I have just qualified for AAT Technician and become a full member.
I want to do some bookeeping work for a family member's small decorating business, he currently pays an accountant to do all his accounts, I was looking to do this on a voluntary basis to start with as I have no experience of bookeeping only what was covered in AAT. Should I do a bookeeping course? or would I just be able to go ahead and start given a bit of training, I want to gain confidence and experience in this field so that at a later date I could start charging for it, Although I work within a finance office I don't cover actual accountancy type work I am more on processing of invoices for payment etc. I seem to be stuck in a trap as I have AAT and no experience therefore no-one seems to want to employ me because of my lack of experience. So my skills from AAT will just go to waste, I am in my late 30's so this makes it even harder than if I were in my 20s.
Anyone got any advice I would be very grateful
Thanks in advance
CB

T.C.

You have just qualified! Have confidence! The small decorating business cannot involve anything too hi-tech for you! I would advise that you go in to the office and have a look at the system they use, then quote them a price to keep things up to date. You can do it!

Monsoon

Copied from my reply on your other post:

What do you mean by a bookkeeping course? AAT more than qualifies you for bookkeeping, another course isn't going to help you get experience, which is what you need.

The only way to get experience is to get out there and do it. As long as your family member knows that he is getting someone qualified but inexperienced, and that's why he is getting it done cheap/free, and is happy with this, then it's an ideal way to learn. I began to get my experience looking after some friends' books who couldn't afford an accountant - I got some experience and they trusted me to get it right (and this was before I even started the AAT), and got their books done for free.

My advice? Get a software package like Solar Accounts, don't bother with Excel (too much scope for error, as an accountant in practice it's not something I like receiving books in) or Sage (too expensive). Solar has a free trial (yes I'm a reseller but I only resell it because I think it's great), is multi-company, is really intuitive and is just great. The customer support is excellent and lots of non-bookkeeping trained folk can use it. With your AAT knowledge it should be dead easy for you to get the hang of.

Good luck.

stuartander

How long is the free trial for, is it 6 months or something. Can we still use it to just practice on after that period coz that all i do at the moment is practice on it, nothing for actuall companies

Monsoon

It's 60 days which is more than enough to practice on.
If you're going to be doing bookkeeping for people going forward, then it's a small investment that's well worth it after that.