Help on starting up book keeping service......

Hayley Darling

I hope you can offer some help/advice for me please.
I completed my AAT level 4 a few years back and have just completed a re-fresher course on book keeping as hubby thinks its a great idea (as not long ago been made redundant) that I become self employed as a book keeper. I have no idea where to start or confidence on if I know enough to be 'responsible' I know I have to register with HMRC and I need to re-new my membership (lapsed after redundancy) but can anyone offer any other help or advice on getting started.........can I work from excel alone?, how much of a service to offer? ie complete up to VAT return or to trial balance/p&L b/s???, how much would people be willing to pay for book keeping, I know at the moment I need to gain experience, but don't want to offer to much FOC as the aim is to get an income.... etc etc..... I wonder how much I'm overthinking what I need to do after working 7 yrs in the nuclear industry alongside ACCA/CIMA in a project mgnt environment.......sorry for long post just so much buzzing around thx for any help x

peaman

Have you much experience of bookkeeping? In can be a bit of a shock for a client to dump a carrier bag full of receipts/statements on you if you not used to it. Working in industry is quite different from working in practice.

In answer to your queries...
If you want to be a registered member in practice you will need to renew your membership and register as a MIP with the AAT
If you want to deal with HMRC on your client's behalf you will need to register as an agent for each of the services you want to provide - self assessment, VAT, PAYE, corporation tax
Buy professional indemnity insurance
For most small business you can use Excel, but you may find that a new client are already using software (Sage/QuickBooks etc.) which they may want to continue using
Which services can you provide? If you can do bookkeeping you should be able to prepare VAT returns. Payroll is simple. If you don't have much practical experience in preparing accounts it may not be best to offer this service for a while until you feel more comfortable with it.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

Hayley Darling

Thanks!
I'm thinking of trying to start off small and simple as practical experience is limited, so would actually prefer the dumping of receipts way forward, I don't want to get involved in the 'accountancy' side, so thinking could do the donkey work on behalf of accountants.....and def do NOT want to get involved in TAX wasn't an option I went for when studying as at the time studied to retain my job and nothing else (regret not putting in the extra learning effort now!!)