Book Keeping

maddogcollins

Can a trainee accountant provide book keeping service on the side?

Failed Salesman

Quick answer would be yes, as long as you don't advertise yourself as a chartered accountant. Or an accountant for that matter (I'm not even sure if you could advertise yourself as a book keeper without some sort of qualification).

If people want to hire unqualified people, that's their business.

JoeTurner

Check your training contract too - there could be a clause in it saying you cannot do work outside your contract i.e. no nixers...

maddogcollins

Thanks Joe & failed, nothing in training contract so id say id be ok as long as was on small scale!

greendevil8

Does anyone know how far into your training you would need to be to do this, whats involved and is there a demand for such nixers at the moment. I take it you would need to have some sort of accounting package ??? or would excel suffice? Any tips at all would be great.

maddogcollins

I am in my second year and feel i would have enough knowledge to provide an accurate service to the likes of farmers, small traders etc.. As its only book keeping it would be sufficient to have excel as you cannot sign off on accounts untill qualified and have practising cert. For a larger trader tas books of SAGE line 50 may be needed by if you had enough nixers this may be profitable! I would only be thinking of providing VAT return and payroll. SAGE offer free payroll for companies with under 3 employees.

Newaglish

My training contract stipulates that I can't work outside of the job with my training firm; unless I held that job prior to signing the contract.

I'm fairly sure that's an ICAI requirement (could be firm specific) so you might want to check your contract! (If you're ICAI)

Mr Clonfadda

You don't need any qualifications to be a book keeper. There are lots of small organisations whose books are kept by non accountants. You could do VAT returns very simply. Some business may have accounts packages that you could update on their premises. It would be very good for your training to see the otherside of the "books" as well. Don't go spending money on accounts packages on your own behalf unless your going to go into it in a big way.

crapmanjoe

An area i was actually looking at getting into. in an audit dept in big 4 but would love abit of xtra cash on the side (and the experience of dealing with books)

Does any1 know best way to go about this?
Best places to advertise?
Personal success/failures in this area

Do tell all please

PhiliousPhogg

There are a lot of bad bookkeepers out there. I did many a set of accounts from records kept by useless bookkeepers, who are probably charging fees for their services. I think they usually get hired in football dressing rooms or over a few drinks ("sure i'll do that for ya"). I'd be suspicious of your bookkeeping skills if your in the Big 4 TBH.

I wouldn't advertise, your not supposed to be doing nixers strictly speaking, and your bosses mightn't like it if your supposed to be studying and doing overtime . Just keep your ears open in local shops etc for anyone who might want the service. Could be your first steps in a career of picking up clients!

kluivert

You can prepare a set of accounts for sole traders. You can not as stated already provide an accoutants report.

This only applies to self assessment sole traders.

Booking Keeping is very straight forward and a great way to gain contacts should you decide to start a practice of your own.

I do everything on excel at the end of the day. I dont feel there is a need for any type of software.