bookkeeping business

accountingbod

Hi all

I am thinking of starting a bookkeeping business in the next month or so.
I am a part qualified ACCA accountant and want to earn some extra money to pay off my debts and pay my mortgage earlier than usual.

I would still need to work full time so this would be an evening/weekend based business. Eventually though, when qualified i would be looking to set up a full time practice.

Has anyone any experience of setting up a business alongside their day job and if so, what did you find was a good workload to balance your personal life with work?

I am married but don't have kids (YET!) although this may be on the cards in a year or so

Thanks

Nick

Pennywise

I did this 10 years ago and never looked back. I thought it would be part time on the side of the main job, but that wasn't practical for a number of reasons so I went f/t self employed a lot sooner than I expected.

Anyway, first things first, does your current employer allow you to do other work? You'd need to check your contract of employment and it would also show goodwill to tell your employers anyway and explain why it won't affect your work for them. Nothing worse than an employer finding out the wrong way whether it's allowed or not.

Make sure you understand the ACCA rules about "practising" before you have a practicing certificate (PC) (i.e. once you've qualified and got your requisite years of approved supervision). This does limit you to book-keeping and management accounting - you can't prepare/submit accounts nor tax returns and can't "sign off" any accounts. ACCA are very strict on this and plenty of students and graduates get expelled for "practising" without a PC.

You'll need to personally register with HMRC for money laundering regulations in your capacity as a book-keeper and then comply with the money laundering regs (ID proof etc) for all your personal clients.

On a more practical level, I had trouble dealing with clients, i.e. meetings, phone calls, etc., because the day job got in the way. Clients don't really like not being able to meet and talk to you during the working day. I think this would be worse for a book-keeper as they may need you to work at their premises on their computer, doing data input etc., so you'd have to attend when they're there (i.e. probably not evenings and weekends). I'm not sure you're employer would be too sympathetic if you took and made personal phone calls re your own business at their workplace.

I found that having the day job was actually far more of a hindrance than I imagined. I used up all my annual holiday allowance in half days here and there to go and meet clients. I found that I was losing potential clients because I had to let phone calls go to the answering service when I was working at my f/t job desk and people wouldn't leave messages. My work-life balance was completely ruined and I found it very stressful having to work, visit and phone clients in an evening when I should have been unwinding from the day job.

I'd go for it, but be very careful about what you're taking on. Some simple book-keeping where you can take away a pile of invoices for a small business, i.e. plumber or corner shop, and enter into the software in your evenings and weekends at home, is probably fine and probably easily do-able, but try to steer away from more demanding jobs such as on-site data entry and more complicated jobs, especially those with tight deadlines as what takes you a day in your day job (8 hours) can easily take a full week of evenings! I remember a few times working through the night to meet a tax return deadline!

accountingbod

Hi Pennywise
Thanks for the great response
I called ACCA yesterday and they said i could prepare up to trial balance without any problems which is fine by me. I dont feel ready to do whole accounts yet anyway!
Good advice on the workplace and on HMRC - i didnt know that. I will speak to my boss but dont invisage any problems as i work for a really down to earth company.
I was going to aim for sole traders and small shops for exactly the reason you suggested. One of my main worries was to do with having to deal with clients that got in the way of my day job which i i know i would not be able to cope with.
I really want to get started as i am in my finals now and want to have built up a couple of customers by the time i am qualified.

Thanks for the inspiring words of advice and congratulations on what sounds like a successful business yourself

pitkin2020

I think penny covered most aspects. Working full time and a business alongside is hard, anyone that says it isn't has never done it!!. When you work for yourself you don't work 10 hours a week and call it a day you work all day until you can so a 9-5 job turns into 2 hours before and 7 hours after atleast lol.

One thing I found that worked in my favour was the fact my partner was home during the day so she was able to handle all the calls and emails whilst I was in my full time job and have everything ready to go for when I finished the F/T job, if you don't have that luxury you could look at a call handling centre as a temporary solution, all calls will be answered which is better for clients especially during office hours.

As mentioned above check your current employment contract to see if you are ok to work outside of work you really don't want to lose your job before your ready to go.

Best of luck and say goodbye to proper meals and sleep lol, but once you see the light at the end of the tunnel and you can drop the full time job its the best feeling ever.

Acc72

Also, do not under-estimate the amount of time and effort required in order to get clients.

You may be better contacting local firms of accountants with a view to them sub-contracting their book keeping work to you ?

I am not sure what the rate of pay would be and how this would compare with getting your own clients, however if you come across something unusual you could always ask the accounting firm for guidance.

Also, if you went down this route would you need to worry about all the money laundering regulatory stuff as the end customer will be the accounting firms customer (if you see what I mean !) ?