I hope somebody could help me. I am a new in bookkeeping - I mean I've done courses (bookkeeping, AAT and Sage Line 50), but I do not have any experince. I have a client who wants me to do some bookkeeping job for him. He has been self-employed for 1 year and has started the company in August 2009. He wants me to put all the invoices etc. from August 2009 into Sage Instant Accounts. To be honest I heel lost. Can anyone guide me how should I start? He told me that as a self-employed everything was 'zero' - I assume the opening balance was zero. I know I should enter all the coustomers and suppliers. He wants me to enter all the invoices for that period. Is there anything else I should do before I start? What about the small receipts (e.g. from cafe)? Thanks
Sounds as though you could do with a Sage refresher to enhance your confidence before taking this one on.
The book that you need is the BPP AAT Foundation bookkeeping with Sage and spreadsheets with Excel (check out ISBN's 0751746479, 0751722758 or 0751716154 depending on which version you need for the version of Sage that your using). It takes you through doing all the tasks of doing the books for an imaginary company so comes at matters from a different angle to the sage certification courses.
The book doesn't come with a version of Sage so fingers crossed you'll have one available to practice on from other sources? If not there's V14, 15 and 16 available on Amazon but they are not that cheap (if you buy one of these the book that you need is 0751746479).
The client is talking about zero opening balances and you're lucky enough that this is a new start so everything that you enter will be on a squeaky clean company. Excellent one to start out with.
Good luck Samantha,
Shaun.
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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.
Surely there should be an opening bank balance at least which would need to be entered with the corresponding double entry being to capital account (3000 range). Otherwise how did the client buy things?
You only need to use Customers and Suppliers for people sold to or bought from on credit. Anything paid for either by cash or cheque at the time of supply can go through bank payments/receipts to the relevant nominal code thereby saving inputting time.
Cafe receipts I would think would go through the Petty Cash Bank Account unless they were paid by cheque.
Is the client or does s/he need to be VAT registered? If so are they on accrual or cash accounting or flat rate?
Shamus, semsley - thank you for the advice. Unfortunately I am not able to buy those books or even the Sage - I just can not afford this at the moment.
Can you advice me if I am right? I thought I will do everything this way: I will sort out all the documents - so they will be enter into Sage chronologically. (Do I have to enter them chronologically? What if I miss one?) I will enter the financial year: April 2009 - March 2010 (or should this be from August 2009 to July 2010? The owner doesn't know too much about accountancy, so he will not advice.) What about the tax rate? Should I enter the rate ech time I enter the invoice or is there a place I could enter it once only? Most of the products are tax free - apart from one plus tax on delivery. The client is VAT registered, but I do not know if he is on accrual or cash accounting or flat rate. To be honest I do not know what does it mean. Can you explain, please? Then I will enter all customers and suppliers. And then the invoices. When I finish enering the invoices I will put the small receipts - like from cafe, taxi etc (through the Petty Cash).
At the moment I will be not able to enter any payments, as I do not have such information. Would I need to receive bank statements to do so? Should I do bank reconcilation to find out what is paid what not? If so, can I do this in Sage or do I have to produce separate document for it? Anyway for the payment I need to wait until the owner comes back from abroad-I think.
Please help me with this as I am afraid I will do something wrong - and this is the last thing I would like to do. Thank you in advance!
So reading between the lines, the client is away and the Sage system is completely fresh so you can't actually mess up anything that's already there... So, you do have a platform on which to learn but you don't have the text books to be able to walk through a client before going live with this set of books.
In theory the approach that you suggest is an acceptable loose framework but you will need those bank statements.
You mention Cafe receipts. Don't forget that those would in most cases need to go to drawings. Also there should be evidence that the taxi journeys were wholly and necessarily incurred on company business otherwise they too would be drawings.
The year relates to the entities reporting period. If the client is a limited company the company year is not likely to be in line with the tax year however, if this is a sole trader then although company books are based on when the company starts trading the entities tax period relates to the tax year. Take a look at the HMRC help sheet 222 which talks about basis periods and accounting periods.
You state that you cannot afford the books at the moment. Just to confirm, you do have MLR and PII in place don't you? Sorry, I know that it's stating the obvious but you could get yourself in a lot of trouble legally and financially if you haven't.
Hope that this answer helps but from the sound of matter you need more of a lifeline. Do you know any experienced bookkeepers locally who might be able to give a little more hands on help to get you started?
good luck,
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.
.... Hope that this answer helps but from the sound of matter you need more of a lifeline. Do you know any experienced bookkeepers locally who might be able to give a little more hands on help to get you started?
good luck,
Shaun.
I agree Shaun
And if you let us know which area you are in Samantha I am sure we must have a member on here who would be willing to help.
Sorry, it might look very stupid, but I do not have MLR and PII - what does it stands for? Is this a kind of insurance? How expensive is this? Do I have to have this? I am REALLY NEW in this subject and I just thought it could be a great opportunity for me to take this job. And I do want to do everything properly. I am in North London, the work I need to do is in West London.
If you are not registered for Money Laundering Regulations then you are not allowed to offer your services as a bookkeeper. To do so contravenes the Money Laundering Regulations (2007), Terrorism Act(2000) and Proceeds of Crime Act (2002).
To offer your services without MLR carries the risk of heavy fines and/or imprisonment.
PII is Professional Indemnity Insurance which covers you (to an extent) if you are sued for negligence so if you make a mistake in the books that has an adverse effect upon your client they can seek for you to put them back in the position that they would have been in had the mistake not been made... That can amount to a lot of money.
Generally you should look at a minimum of £50,000 of cover regardless of your level of income. You will not be able to get PII insurance unless you have either two+ years experience or are qualified with a practicing certificate from a recognised supervisory body.
Samantha, I don't like to say this and I'm really sorry but the impression that your giving I think you might be in way over your head with this.
Your best option may be to sell this client to one of the qualified bookkeepers on this site who is able to service this client. At least in that way you would come away with a referral fee.
You did state in your original message that you had done AAT and Sage line 50 and my earlier replies assumed MAAT level of knowledge.
I cannot emphasise strongly enough that for you to do these books without cover for MLR would be illegal and without PII would be very foolish.
Sorry.
__________________
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.
Shamus, thank you for your edvice. Although it was not nice to hear I shouldn't take yhis job I had to agree with you. I just told the client that I will not take this. You are right - I should start everything properly. I've decided that I will look for some job where I will be supervised, so I would get some experience first I have no idea how to find this kind of job if everybody asks for 2 years of experience, but I hope finally I will find something
Shamus, thank you for your edvice. Although it was not nice to hear I shouldn't take yhis job I had to agree with you. I just told the client that I will not take this. You are right - I should start everything properly. I've decided that I will look for some job where I will be supervised, so I would get some experience first I have no idea how to find this kind of job if everybody asks for 2 years of experience, but I hope finally I will find something
I think that you did the right thing Samantha. It is better to not get in over your head, especially when it comes to being covered for Money Laundering and having insurance in place to protect yourself and any future clients. Good luck with the job hunting and maybe use the time to also do some studying from home
The advice really wasn't meant in a nasty way but I could see that you were getting in too deep too soon.
as your lucky enough to be situated in London you should find it easier to find entry level temp positions in Sales Ledger, Purchase ledger and credit control.
Whilst you may not find these roles fulfilling from an all round accounts perspective (credit control can be with some companies) you will be surprised at how much you pick up on the job especially if you swap employers every 3-6 months.
As you move from position to position you will find that you are able to gain more demanding roles with more responsibility.
If you join the AAT as a student you could use that at interview to say that you are studying towards AAT which will impress potential employers (Note that as a temp you will not get any financial support from employers for your studies).
Regardless of whether you sign up with the AAT now, once you have income coming in think seriously about doing the full AAT qualification then go self employed when you have the experience from temping combined with MAAT (You will be able to get your portfolio of experience signed off from your temp work).
We're talking a time frame here of two to four years dependent upon how much time per week you can allocate to your studies but at the end of it you will be where you want to be with the skills and confidence to build your own business.
For the temp positions look at the Reed or TotalJobs websites which always have good selections.
I know that I came on a bit strong in the last message but you could have ended up in a lot of trouble had you continued down that route.
As you go through your job search and studies remember that we're always here to help where we can.
Glad to have been a help Samantha,
All the very best and 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.
I also live in London and there are some jobs out there for part time/temp roles - that is what I am doing a the moment, studying and combining this with a job - even though I have a number of years experience in accounting I am still having problems finding a suitable balance. I have registered with Reed and had a few responses, def agree anything like credit control or the dreaded bought ledger role will give you some experience and a foot in the door as such.
Total Jobs aren't much cop - the Job Centre website does however bring up more options so if I was you check there every morning.
Good luck I may be able to give you a few more agency contacts if you want - but I am more property accounts experienced.
- I just can not afford this at the moment.
