Advice Please - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

PH · Newbie

Advice Please

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Paula,

sorry, not completely sure how far Cima allow you to take self employed work. I know that with the ACCA it's only to trial balance plus VAT and Payroll so puts a lot of restrictions on what you are allowed to do for clients.

Assuming that Cima are a little more realistic then self employment is an option but it's a really, really difficult market out there at the moment.

Accountancy practices are keeping work in house that they would previously have outsourced to us and many businesses are doing their own bookkeeping to save money.

However, there is still work to be had. Especially temp work on client sites.

One major problem is that the training companies are churning out thousands of people each year and having them believe that there is more work than people to do it. Which to be honest is a blatant lie.

In this scenario of over supply experience can make all the difference but it's just getting that foothold and getting it generally known that you are able to offer services above and beyond that of your direct competitors.

The work seems to come like a snowball gathering size and speed as it rolls down a mountain. Word of mouth seems to go further and gain more clients than advertising. I personally seem to fluctuate between having nothing to do and not having enough hours in the day.

Good luck with starting out. Its a hard slog to get started but once you have a few happy clients (which may take a lot longer to find than you think) it picks up speed quickly.

Good luck,

Shaun.

RobH · Expert

Hi Paula,

Isn't it crazy you are considered over qualified for a job. I would rather have someone over qualified working for me than someone who doesn't know how to do a job!

On the self employed route I seem to be picking up plenty of work just now but you have to be realistic that it takes time to get known. Nobody is going to come up to you and ask you to be their bookkeeper.
I have spent far too much on advertising in the past with poor results and I have to echo Shaun's comments 'that word of mouth' is the way to build up the business, which means getting out and about. When you get a client, ask them if they are happy with your services, hopefully they will say 'yes' in which case ask them if they know anyone who could benefit from your services. If they say 'no' ask why and put it right! They never say 'no' even if it is out of politeness!!!

Anyway good luck!

semsley · Guru

Word of mouth is, in my experience, certainly the best and cheapest (free) way to build up customers. However, you get to a point where, as Shaun says, there aren't enough hours in a day. I'm at that point at the moment but can't stop taking on more work because my husband has been out of work since Nov 2008 and (because I work for more than 24 hours a week) has received nothing from his 40 years of contributions to tax and ni after his 6 months contribution based JSA ran out in April 2009. I'm currentlly teaching him (with the assistance of Frank Wood - book) book-keeping and he is enrolled on an AAT course at our local college which should have started last Sept but the tutor was ill and he's still waiting. However, even when he has qualified he won't be able to earn even half of the salary he did in civil engineering.

Marky65 · Guru

Hi Sheila

I am sorry to hear about your husband. Don't get me started on JSA etc, I had that a couple of years ago and whilst I had not contributed so many years as your husband it is extremly frustrating to be in that position of having paid so much to be told hard luck you can't have anymore. If only you both sat around all day doing nothing without any intention of working then you would get given so much oops nearly got on to my soapbox, better get off

Regards

Mark

Blacker9999 · Veteran Member

HI ROB,

WAS LOOKING AT YOUR SITE AND WOULD BE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A TELEPHONE ANSWERING SERVICE HERE IN BELFAST, COULD YOU GIVE ANY ADVICE.

REGARDS

RobH · Expert

Hi,
I set the telephone answering up about two years ago because I thought it would be a useful additional income. I currently have 14 clients on it and last week had two hot enquiries for my low user tariff. It brings in around £500 per month now. I have my software guy coming in next week to work on linking the calls with the pc screen and then I am looking to offer it as a low cost license/franchise. I don't want to breach any regulations here or even to be attempting to sell anything so if you want more information can you email me directly please.

Mike · Veteran Member

Blacker9999 wrote:

HI ROB,

WAS LOOKING AT YOUR SITE AND WOULD BE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A TELEPHONE ANSWERING SERVICE HERE IN BELFAST, COULD YOU GIVE ANY ADVICE.

REGARDS

I was going to say that in the current climate anyone looking to make a living exclusively out of just offering a very limited payroll and bookkeeping service is unlikely to survive.

You could consider providing these things in the context of a wider portfolio of business services (subject to having the necessary professional indemnity insurance in place) .

For example, basic things such as setting up a telephone answering service as you suggest. But also consider other complementary services such as financial and business planning, writing business plans, helping businesses to source additonal finance, Database design, website design, spreadsheet design, general business consultancy services etc

That way, you're not restricting yourself solely to the limited revenue likely to be available through any book-keeping services you provide.

Also, if you have in depth knowledge of some of the microsoft applications such as Excel and Access it is a fact that these skills are likely to be in greater demand than basic book keeping skills.

However, you would need to ensure that you had the necessary Professional Indemnity Insurance in place before you started to offer any of these additional services to guard against the risk of being sued should something go wrong.

-- Edited by Mike on Wednesday 10th of March 2010 07:38:46 PM

RobH · Expert

I would agree Mike that if you have extra services you can supply then offer them. Unfortunately i am near hopeless at most of the things you suggest so I would not personally offer them, but someone with those skills could. The telephone answering works well for me as you do not need any specific skills apart from being able to speak and pass on a message, the additional benefit is that you canoften pick more work up. I had a guy statrting a football academy come in last week for call answering, but now Ihave his accounts and payroll too, this works in quite a lot of cases. However just picked up an accountant this week who saw a recommendation for my services via Accounting Web, so I don';t think she'll be using my payroll services!!

I also offer utilities via Utility Warehouse (if anyone wants to join just let me know!) and commercial utilities via a broker. his is also quite lucrative but is more of a longer term thing.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Mike,

True but you need to do cost benefit appraisal before taking on the extra's.

Offering the extra services means that you would need to take on additional staff which of course you need in place before offering the services and if you find out there is less demand than you expected then in bringing in the extra you may be making a lower profit than you were previously.

I think that website design should be left to website designers rather than bookkeepers and accountants.

Setting up companies for people can be quite high return for minimal effort but it's not work that comes along everyday.

The Excel that people use is the tip of the iceberg. Most casual users of Excel should not contemplate offering that service.

Database design is a similar dark art. Anyone can do it, few can do it well.

Helping business to source finance I would say is accountants rather than bookkeepers work and depending on how they go about it, such may mean that they would need to be licenced.

Business planning / writing business plans again is accountants work that most bookkeepers are not trained or experienced enough to offer.

People need to remember what their PII will cover them for and when you get into financial planning, properly the territory of those trained and experienced in financial planning there could well be issues with being sued for poor advice.

Whilst I agree in principle that diversification is no bad thing, the readership on this site needs to realise that anything that they turn there hand to will need training, experience and in many cases licences, additional subscriptions and different insurance.

Shaun.

Wella · Expert

Hi Shaun

I agree with you.

I would rather do one thing well than do a lot of things mediocre.
In a prevoius life I was a power user of Excel and Access and I wouldn't dream of offering to create a custom application in either (I'd do it for myself but not commercially) I also tinkered with website design for myself and it didn't take long to realise that there is a lot more to it.

What's the saying? "Jack of all trades.......". Personally a scatter gun approach to services, may do more harm than good, in the long term.

Having said that, I also agree with Rob, that anything I can do that doesn't require a higher level of training or knowledge, I would consider. One idea running through my head at the moment is mailing services for the smaller businesses but still in the research stage at the moment (you don't even need to be able to speak for that Rob).

Bill

-- Edited by Wella on Wednesday 10th of March 2010 05:12:58 PM

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Bill,

I'm not too bad with Excel myself. Even so, I offer it as a value added but don't sell myself on it (I've found in banking it's an expected anyway).

I'm also a database designer for DB2 with 25 years experience under my belt so know a bit about that side of things than many and think that it's a case that the more that you know the more that you realise that your skills are restricted to a product or one part of a product.

Personally I wouldn't dream of offering to design an Access or Oracle database when my experience is with another database even though I probably know a lot more about database design concepts than many Access users.

I'm the sort of person that has the brilliant ideas then goes through all of the reasons why I shouldn't do it before committing myself to anything.

I'm sure that some profitable business opportunities have escaped me but so probably have several law suits so I'm quite content with where I am and the services that I offer at the moment.

Like yourself Bill, to commit myself to advertising any additional services I would need to be able to link the new service in my mind to the existing one rather than having a business offering several unrelated services.

Shaun.

RobH · Expert

Hi Bill,

what kind of mailing service are you thinking about? Mail shots and the like? That could be interesting, not sure what people mcharge for that.

PJC Bookkeeping · Veteran Member

Further to what Rob said about mailing services has anyone tried email marketing? Email marketing was featured in an email I received from BusinessLink earlier this week. Anyone having success with it?

Peter

PJC Bookkeeping Services

peter1162 · Veteran Member

Peter

I would be interested in e-mail marketing can you forward me the e-mail please.

My e-mail address is jock1162@yahoo.co.uk

Thanking you in anticipation

Peter

ProBowlUK · Senior Member

PJC Bookkeeping wrote:

Further to what Rob said about mailing services has anyone tried email marketing? Email marketing was featured in an email I received from BusinessLink earlier this week. Anyone having success with it?

Peter

PJC Bookkeeping Services

Have not done any email marketing, but was a Web Developer for a couple of years.

These days emails are much more that just a bit of text.
They often look like web pages and sometimes contain Flash graphics; that requires some programming/HTML knowledge.

smile

-- Edited by ProBowlUK on Thursday 11th of March 2010 12:22:41 PM

Wella · Expert

Hi Rob

It was something I have been toying with for ages.

I originally come from a technical engineering background and worked for a certain Japanese car maker. Part of my role was involved in recalls (glad I'm not working for them at the moment) and I was amazed at how much they were charged per letter to print and send out vis Royal Mail, recall notices and the the price didn't even include the letter headed stationery and envelopes. That was supplied.

Admittedly the service was exeptional, secure and precision timed.

It just got me thinking that smaller businesses may need the same service but on a smaller scale, maybe 50-1000 letters (I was dealing with 10K to 50K letters). It could be for anything from service reminders to a marketing campaigns. Like I said, still in research stage at the mo.

RobH · Expert

Hi Bill,

I know some firms offera fulfillment service, which I have always taken as meaning that they send out brochures etc when a potential customer has requested one following an advertising campaign. Quite labour intensive but it is all about using your spare capacity, so I can see that working. Let us know how the research goes.

PJC Bookkeeping · Veteran Member

Peter,

Have forwarded email from BusinessLink.

Hope you find the email marketing article useful.

Peter

PJC Bookkeeping Services