Hello all. Glad i found this forum and hope that i will be able to find all the answers to all my questions. I am working in the company as accounts assistant, looking of subsiduary company accounts Sales Ledger, P/L, credit control, have some experience in Payroll too. Didnt have a chance to get involved into management accounts at all. Trial balance and balance sheets only have seen from AAT studies which are only NVQ level 3.
Decided to start doing bookkeeping on the side as well as working full time, but not sure how and what to start from. All i know that i would need to be registered with HMRC as self employed and for money laundering. Also some sort of insurance needed too.
Software? I think i have sage Line50 but it will be few years old now. I know that there are some free software which might be even better.
I havent got the experience doing self assesments, VAT returns etc. Would be possible to do the accounts up to certain stage and then take it to the accountant to the last bits?
These sort of questions i have at the minute, sorry if they are bit stupid.
I was going to say that can't be right but I've just had a look at their site and they seem to have taken lousy licensing and made it worse for 2013.
Single user Sage 50, 25 companies, £2795. You can however get deals by negotiating with them directly.
For my own practice I use VT Transaction+ and VT Accounts. I am also going to be signing up for the Quickbooks Pro Advisor program when I get the chance.
As an aside, for payroll software try 12pay when you come to needing the offer payroll services.
... was going to finish there but Sage have annoyed me with that pricing which I could be totally misreading (sure that someone will be along imminently to tell me that I have misread the Sage site or am looking at the wrong product but if I do then so will others and that site is not clear as to what you are actually buying).
It seems a common misconception that bookkeeping/accounts and Sage are synonymous.... That's just not true.... Sage is just a bit of software that is supposed to make peoples lives easier.
There are plenty of altenatives in the market including directly comparable software such as Quickbooks. Or cloud offerings such as Kashflow or Xero.
The main trick is convincing one's clients that the free software that the bank gave them is going to end up costing them more than buying an alternative.
A lot of bookkeepers are taught Sage as part of their training packages and only naturally progress to buying the software that they learned with, in many ways folowing the same principle as people learning to drive often buying the make and model of car that their driving instructor had.
Supervisory bodies such as the ICB have moved away from dictating that one must learn Sage and the ICB computerised exams have become more generic meaning that such can be taken using any suitable software (quickbooks or VT being a couple of examples).
When added together, it will get to the stage where you are paying out over a grand a year in software licences (Tax, Accounts, Bookkeeping, Payroll, etc) but for Sage alone for a one person business I personally would consider that to be too much.
kind regards,
Shaun.
-- Edited by Shamus on Monday 5th of November 2012 12:43:45 AM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
There are many threads on this site which cover your questions. I highly recommend searching for them and reading as many as possible. I know it's time consuming. I have spent hours doing just that. On the plus side I picked up on so many things I wasn't aware of, confirmation of things that I do know, clarity on other aspects.
Unfortunately I can't think of other top links off the top of my head.
Yes as well as registering with HMRC as self-employed and money laundering you would need Professional Indemnity Insurance. Many appear to have their PII cover with Arlington who you can find advertising below. You may also have to register with Data Protection.
I'm not sure what restrictions (if any) you may have with AAT, but I have seen many discussions on this.
Personally I have gone the ICB route as it was the quickest route for me to get a practice licence which also takes care of being supervised for money laundering. I have my PII cover with Trafalgar whom ICB mention but that may change in time as I become more aware of other options. The licence also has other benefits such as legal, support and belonging to a professional body. By doing ICB's exams it also gives you (and your customers) confidence of what you should know on the bookkeeping front and what services you can offer depending on the level you're at.
Thanks for the reply Brigitte. I am planning to start of doing just data entry preparing all papers for accountants. So my plans are to get registered with HMRC for MLR, its just the question popped up re the fee they charging. Its £120 for a year, but does apply per client or is it just general and it doesnt matter how many clients i will have.
MLR cover is for HMRC taking responsibility for keeping an eye on your adherance to MLR instead of your supervisory body keeping their eye on your business processes.
Its an annual fee regardless of the number of clients that you have.
HTH,
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks Shaun for clearing that. Started looking at software and what bugs me is that Sage line 50 charges £250 per additional company. So if i have 5 clients i will have to fork out over 1k only for software. Thats bit steep. Or am i missing the point? Also Quickbooks are looking quite good option, but is it the same as Sage re charging per amount of companies?
The Sage team all get comfy around the boardroom table and discuss how they can wind Shaun up this year lol.
Well, they win brownie points for their skill and determination there anyway Neil. lol.
I'm sure that there are heavy discounts to be negotiated on those advertised prices but it's the same as buying a car. If the price is too high to start with you don't even go to the showroom.
-- Edited by Shamus on Monday 5th of November 2012 12:45:07 AM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Sage have changed their site around a little making it more difficult to find what you are looking for but after sticking with it for a few minutes as I was having difficulty believing what I was being told by the poster I gave up on the accountants and bookkeepers page as that only wants to sell the online version of the software and went instead to :
Store Software and Services Accounts Software Sage 50 accounts Buy Single user 25 company £3360 including VAT
Somewhat cheaper than the £250 per additional company originally stated by Daz who hadn't realised about the block purchases but still a lot more expensive than I was expecting.
From your post it sounds as though I may actually be looking at the wrong product anyway. The reasoning behind not looking at the Sage client manager is that that if you join the accountants club then you get Sage Client manager and Sage 50 which would seem redundant if client manager did everything that one needed?
I would be quite happy to go back and amend my above posts if I've misunderstood the Sage site (but if I have how many others have also misunderstood it).
Whilst I'm no fan of Sage licencing a good many out there are dependant upon the product and how I am reading that is really worrying me.
kind regards,
Shaun.
-- Edited by Shamus on Monday 5th of November 2012 12:52:37 AM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Where do you get your prices for SAGE and what is it you are buying? Is it just the bookkeeping package or SAGE accounts production for producing year accounts?
I have SAGE client manager (25 client version) to do the bookkeeping for my clients that i do bookkeeping for and it costs about £800 per year or about £32 per client (if i used all 25 licences).
Well first time when i went to have a look on sage web, did search for Sageline 50 and thats it. You really need to know what to look for as there are so many products and the cheapest are not highlighted for obvious reasons. So when i did search for client manager it came up with this software worth 750 + VAT, thanks to Mark for the tip, but there is a big BUT it says that you need to be accredited accountancy practice to be able to use. So how do i go about it? Thanks
Pretty sure that Stuart (Peasie) was able to buy client manager on the back of ICB membership but you would need confirmation of that.
There used to be a Sage bookkeepers club but that's been dropped and now there is only the Accountants club so if they chose to be pedantic I suppose that they could say that only the members of recognised accountancy bodies would be considered (ACCA, ICAEW, ICAS, ICAI, Cima, Cipfa. Maybe CIOT, Possibly IFA and AIA although those two are not chartered)
Also I'm still not sure if client manager is the product that one needs to work as a bookkeeper rather than an accountant. If it was then why in the accountants club do you get client manager and Sage 50? Sure that Mark will come back soon to confirm whether I was looking at completely the wrong product or the right product in the wrong way in which instance I'll change my above posts.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Shaun, also i was thinking about another cheaper way using sage line 50, to use as one user and one company but work from the back ups for different clients if you know what i mean, but it means in this case would need to be few back ups on separate storages just in case one goes tits up :)
Thats hell of a good reply Shaun! Thats the thing, i have no experience of filling accounts at all and i am not going to offer such service, and as you say for dummies like me it will be very hard. But i know people who does that though, but guess that they were lucky to get going. Hmm never mind but at least i am determent to try to look for clients, see what it comes back with. My full time workplace is looking after new starting agricultural businesses and one of colleagues said that i should try to approach them or to mention to some other people about me. So not totally defeated as yet, but will see.
-- Edited by daz28 on Monday 5th of November 2012 04:03:50 PM
I think what you have priced is 25 separate versions of SAGE 50 to be resold onto clients rather than getting a multi version for yourself. The link you should be look at is; http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-client-manager if you then add to basket the 25 company version is £750+VAT, £915+VAT for 50 company version, £970+VAT for 75 company version right up to £2750+VAT for 2000 company version (though guess this is just used by those who dont sleep or eat).
You also get a standalone version of SAGE 50 and SAGE payroll for showing clients/potential clients how it works.
Benefit with SAGE client manager is that is can be used for all version of SAGE up to the highest version of Line 50 (accounts professional).
Daz you could as you say just buy a one company/user licence and switch between backs up for companies but if SAGE know you are doing this then expect they wouldnt support you if anything went wrong (though not saying what you are proposing isnt done in practice).
For the clients that I do bookkeeping for then I do their bookkeeping in client manager then post the TBL into VT to do year end accounts. Also have a client that I do monthly management accounts where they maintain the records themselves on SAGE. Get a copy of their SAGE back up each month, restore onto client manager, do a few management account adjustments eg stock, prepayments, accruals, depreciation then produce TBL which export into excel and use th produce monthly managemenet accounts in excel.
Whilst I am no fan of the Sage licensing I really thought that I must have misunderstood something on that one so many thanks again for putting me back on the straight and narrow.
I do think that the Sage site could be more helpful in that you really need to know exactly what you are looking for before venturing there as there are so many very similar products it seems very easy to make a costly mistake as shown in this thread.
Reading how you use Sage that's the route that I'm looking to go with Quickbooks (QB > VT) for any clients I pick up that use QB. I know that Natwest are now pushing Quickbooks, Barclays are now pushing Quickbooks as well as Sage. Lloyds push Sage. Those are the big three in my area for new businesses so not seeing what is coming through from HSBC at the moment. (Assume RBS will be the same as Natwest. Bank of Scotland would be the same as Lloyds).
My client base at the moment are small ltd's (all except one self employed) so VT Transaction+ is fine and makes the annual move across to VT Accounts very smooth.
I've got a nice arrangement with a local chartered practice that they look after me in the eye's of my primary supervisory body (#2) in exchange for me giving them first refusal of clients who I don't want or can't handle which is basically any who approach me who have been using Sage for some time (surprisingly not as many as I expected #1) which would make it silly of me to suggest that they change using software that they are happy with.
Thanks again for the advice Mark,
kind regards,
Shaun.
#1 I would actually say that the bulk of people who approach me are either new starts who have been given software and don't know how to use it or they have been using Excel. (I've also had one person turn up with the ledger books that you can still buy).
#2 I trade under the IFA banner but don't do anything that could upset the applecart with the ACCA (re. regulation 8) whose banner I fully intend to practice under one day. Despite being IFA and only PQ ACCA I still regards ACCA as my primary supervisory body.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I have just spoken to one of my colleagues at work who has worked with accountants in the past, all she said "Best of luck". It started to worry me, because she mentioned that accountants will be blaming me first if something goes wrong. Also they will be expecting me to do everything their way, and also people wont be wanting to pay me for doing books and then pay an accountant separate. So is it all the case? I wasnt expecting everything to be straight forward but not that bad.
As a general rule small clients (who are the one's most likely to approach you) are looking for bookkeepers to be cheaper accountants. Larger clients are looking for bookkeepers to prepare information for their accountants.
The bulk of clients that will approach you will be small and expect a full service arrangement as clients cannot see the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. All they want is someone to ensure their legal compliance.
That's a worrying expectation as an accountant spends many years learning their trade in order to be able to give advice.
Many people here offer a full service from data entry to filing the clients books for micro businesses.
The level of knowledge required should not be underestimated as when it comes to being sued the basis is that you are responsible for :
- What you knew - What you ought to have known - What you ought to have done about it.
The assumption is that if you file a clients books then you know the current regulations in order to properly represent the client.
Any PII insurance that you have will restrict it's cover to your expected level of knowledge so for instance if you were AICB and gave advice to a client on (say) how to finance a purchase then the PII would like as not, not cover you.
Similarly if you filed an incorrect tax return due to a lack of knowledge, again the PII would not cover you if you had never taken any tax qualifications or never previously worked in an office preparing tax returns.
All in all it's a big game of kerplunk. Do the wrong thing and it will come tumbling down on you in the most costly manner.
Everyone comes to this with different prior experience. Not sure what yours is but you will know what services you are qualified and experienced to offer and what you are not.
If only bookkeeping then you will have a much smaller customer base available to you and a lot of competition for every client.
Clients play that and you can find yourself being offered less than you would stacking shelves in Tesco's (there are A LOT of self employed bookkeepers out there).
When you get to MAAT MIP level you will be deemed to be an accountant (by everyone but accountants!) and will be able to look at the full service to clients but at level III you would as identified only be looking really at bookkeeping roles where you will really struggle in a very competitive market to make money at it over the amount that you are paying in fee's and licences.
Sorry,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
