Extra income for a trainee Accountant

dsh_3

Hey Guys

Im wondering if some accountants out there can help me. Im looking to bring in some extra income for me and my family by doing some work from home. Im working full time as a trainee accountant and for a while this was fine, but now that my newborn is getting older i could do with some extra dosh (couldn't we all!).

So here i go : Has anybody here done this before and, if you did, how did you go about it? Just wondering how you got clients, what kind of services you offered etc. Im thinking at the moment that i can offer bookkeeping, year end, personal and corp tax services to small sole traders and partnerships. I can also run payroll but not really fond of payroll. Is there anything else you think i could offer?

Im just looking for some ideas really. Any help would be appreciated. Apoligies in advance if ive posted this topic in the wrong area, its my 1st post!

Thanks

theculverhouses

Hi there,

I'm an accountant and over the past few years have built up a small portfolio of work outside of my normal office work. The way I started this was by word of mouth with friends and by staying small at first. Income tax returns, corporate accounts, book keeping, payroll, VAT returns are all things that can be offered but I would suggest that you start off with book keeping and VAT returns.

You could put an advert in the local paper. Local book keepers in Plymouth (where I work) charge around £15 per hour. The only few things I would 'warn' you about would be:

1 - your clients will expect you to know the answer and to get it right. You need to be confident and have the ability to research answers and document your findings for your client.
2 - tell your boss or ask for their approval. At the end of the day they pay your wages and for ethics purposes will need to know and have this documented.

Other than that, enjoy the work. You should know all about registering as self employed and adding this income onto your tax return. Anything else I can help with just reply to this thread.

Regards
Tim

jessicamb

Just a thought - if you are still training would it not be better to put your focus onto finishing your exams so you can get a more substantial salary hike sooner rather than later? The difference between part qualified and qualified is considerable for CIMA/ACCA.

Timmne

Bear in mind though that as a trainee accountant, you simply won't have the experience necessary (although you could, I suppose if you're essentially QBE) to manage clients properly.

I'm an accountant and have a few clients too - besides actually offering your clients a good service (which is difficult when you work full time), you have to run your business too which takes more time than you think - bookkeeping, CPD, admin - all takes time.

I think Jessicamb's right - just spend twice as much time as you do, or as much time as possible getting the exams out of the way. There's no worse feeling than when you know you're not performing for your clients, or when you make a mistake. I've had experience of this from back when I started out in accountancy although luckily for me, mistakes were found by my bosses and corrected before the client saw them!

It's very tempting to think you can manage clients but you need to be prepared for a lot more than you think - it's far more prudent at this stage for you to get a bar job somewhere or something unskilled (as I did); this also acts as a release from your F/T job!

HTH