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in the UK as either a self employed bookkeeper working from home and providing services
to your own customers or working for a firm of accountants preparing books for their
companies.
BookKeeping Basics
The history of bookkeeping comes from the term "book keeper" who is generally a person
who keeps the "books" for an organisation or business.
In fact the basic system of manual double entry book keeping was invented more than five
hundred years ago by a Cistercian monk called Luca Pacioli. His bookkeeping system still
survives today and is still used throughout the world.
The term books is used because before computers where invented the business would write
down their figures in paper ledgers and keep records of their sales and expenses as they went
along. The main books kept by business were/ are:
• Sales ledger - listing all the sales made including when payment has been received -
in larger companies they have a credit control function to manage customer accounts
which is also called the accounts receivable function.
• Purchase ledger - listing all the purchases made and when payment was made - in
larger companys they may have purchasing departments who manage this function.
• Cash book/ ledger - shows the other half of the entries from above - it's effectively
the companies bank statement but will have timing differences due to cheques being
issued but not yet cashed (for purchases) and cheques received for sales but not yet
cashed.
These books or ledgers are then transformed into accounts for tax and company accounting
purposes. The statements produced will be a Profit and Loss Account a Balance Sheet and
cash flow forecast. The tax and other non cash related items such as depreciation are
calculated when the accounts are drawn up. These are the bookkeeping basics every business
owner must produce each year for tax purposes and to satisfy HMRC
There are many bookkeeping training courses available and tutorials online that can help
although most people who start a booking keeping business are likely to be qualified accounts
in one form or another. The recommended route for people thinking of starting in this arena
look at the book keeping course and training that are offered below:
You can start from home so long as you have enough space to take client paperwork and
store it. Customers are likely to provide you with a carrier bag of papers, invoices, bank
statements and other related items and it'll be your job to make sense of it and prepare the
financial accounts from it.
You'll need to have an easy method to get client paper work from your customers. Prepare
some form of checklist that they need to complete so you can get everything in one go.
Perhaps this will be trial and error at the beginning with your first few customers. You can
offer clients to email scanned statements into you or you may have to collect them.
Alternatively of course people can use courier services or drop them off to your premises.
As it's likely you'll need to meet your customers face to face perhaps visit them on your initial
meeting and collect the paperwork there and then.
Start-up Costs
Most businesses operating from home have minimal start-up costs but you should investigate
the types of insurance required - see below. Other costs may include:
• A computer of some description
• Back up hard disks
• Bookkeeping software to make life easier for you or at least an accounting software
package that accountants endorse like Kashflow or Sage.
• A lot of printing paper
• Postage costs
• Storage cabinets
• Marketing costs to promote your services
• An additional telephone line and / or an answering service
Then it's just a case of your time invested in the business to prepare accounts.
Bookkeeping Insurance
You will need insurance for your bookkeeping business as you are providing an essential
service for small business owners and mistakes happen so it's best to insure against problems
which could occur.
The professional associations can provide discounts so check with them otherwise search for
the following:
Professional indemity insurance and also cover you for the dishonesty of your
employees, partners or directors, defamation infringement of intellectual property
rights, negligent misstatement or misrepresentation and loss of documents or data.
• Public liability insurance covers you for claims against you from third parties for
personal injury, or property damage eg: an accident at work caused by someone
tripping over a computer cable. It's not unknown for damages to reach six figures in
public liability insurance cases and insurers sell cover based on the limit of liability
the business needs.
If you are starting from scratch then here are a few ways to get those first customers
• New business start-ups - bear in mind that existing businesses will generally have
book keepers or accountants already so your success rate with these will be less so
look for new business start-ups. You could partner with some of the company
formation services to see what businesses are being formed in your area, contact
businesslink or your local chambers of commerce but basically any organisation that
deals with startup businesses.
• Small growing businesses - many one man band businesses that start to grow may be
looking for your services. Most sole traders are likely to prepare their books
themselves but need someone to prepare accounts and get them to the inland revenue.
So promote your services through the many online business forums and offer
impartial advice to get recognised.
• Member get member - once you have a few customers use the "member get
member" technique to win more business. This works by offering both your current
customer and any customers they introduce a discount or bonus on the work you
undertake. Think of a great offer then contact your current customer base.
The worst thing you can do is sit at your desk waiting for the telephone to ring. Ask all your
friends and family members to distribute your leaflets. Ask them to pass loads onto others
they may know and that way you'll get your marketing messages to as many as possible