Hi Rowland
Are you looking at being their Internal Accountant / doing what you do now and also then filing the year end Accounts etc as employed by them?

or being self employed and just looking after them as a client with what you do now or even taking on other clients?

Reason I ask is there are several issues or should I say considerations with each different option.

AAT is a good start for being self employed and dealing with sole traders/partnerships and smaller limited companies, with say a bolt on tax qualification such as ATT. If going for Chartered status you will need to set aside some considerable amount of time to complete your studies and some carry restrictions as to what you can do until such practice certificates are held (eg ACCA - only allow you to go up to TB, so you would not be able to progress the Accounts further than you do now, until you have the exams and your practice supervision period under your belt/all signed off)

But the other reason that I asked how far through the Accounting process you would go, ie the final accounts part, was in part to consider the ethics side of this one as my question is - how can an internal accountant provide the objectivity and independence to be able to complete the year end position? Certainly worth checking closely, as part of your research what the views of the likes of AAT, ACCA, CIMA, ICAEW are.

I do not believe there is any legal obligation on a company to engage an external accountant to prepare its year end accounts etc, unless of course its of a size which is subject to an audit, but whether it would be wise is another issue of course, given what John has indicated above and the disclosures you would have to make within the accounts as to your position.