Finding a bookkeeper

Savvy_Sue

I know that personal recommendation is often advised, but apart from that can anyone give any helpful advice on how to find one?

We're a small charity in Bristol and we need someone with experience of QuickBooks to come in one morning a week. This might end up being a permanent position, but the initial intention is to have someone who can come in and teach us as we go along. We've had several sessions with someone who's shown us how to set the books up, but even now I haven't learned how to record deposits, and there seems to be a huge amount still to get our heads round.

Our new financial year starts on 1 May, and I'm taking a sabbatical of at least four weeks in June. Even if I wasn't, I don't feel I'll be up to speed any time soon, and I can't see any way of either my very part-time colleague or I getting a good start to the financial year. The person who's help with setup isn't in a position to give more intensive support.

I've got a range of places I can email to get word out, and our local voluntary services council will advertise for us for only £20, but any other ideas would be welcome!

ukbill69

We have a book keeper at £60 for 6 hours work.

longforgotten

Do you really need a book-keeper or just need someone to teach you how to use Quickbooks ?

If it's the latter you could check out if there are any courses in the area, or contact Quickbooks as they may run them. Wouldn't be surprised if the course is a bit expensive but maybe cheaper than a book-keeper in the long run

Savvy_Sue

Thanks for your responses.

longforgotten wrote: »

Do you really need a book-keeper or just need someone to teach you how to use Quickbooks ?

I think in the short term, both. In the longer term, we probably could do without one - well, we've managed without for over 10 years, BUT in the last 5 years the size of the staff team has doubled and our income's gone up from £100,000 to c. £250,000. Meanwhile the paid admin team has gone up from 27.5 hours to 39.5 hours.

Obviously the book-keeping takes more time than it used to, because not only is there more of it, it's more complicated - when we had a few grants going to very specific areas (mostly individual salaries) it was easy to see whether it had been spent in the right way. Now we have some Lottery funding, and that covers two salaries, their office costs, training, and some of the individual support they give to our clients. Working out whether we've spent it all has become a major headache under our existing system, hence the decision to use QuickBooks.

My very part-time colleague really doesn't want to do book-keeping. I don't want to, but I can see strategic arguments for me doing it, and I know I could do it. Equally I can see strategic arguments for someone else doing it: they'd need to be 'in tune' with what we do, but someone who really knew what they were doing could probably do it faster than me. Especially as they wouldn't also be expected to answer the phone and doorbell, deal with the 'generic' email, fix the photocopier and anything else which breaks, and 101 other things.

And in the short term, we start a new financial year in 2 weeks, and I disappear for a month in June. We could carry on with our old system until I get back and I deal with the backlog, but that doesn't appeal much either ...

longforgotten wrote: »

If it's the latter you could check out if there are any courses in the area, or contact Quickbooks as they may run them. Wouldn't be surpised if the course is a bit expensive but maybe cheaper than a book-keeper in the long run

yes, we've thought about a course. One problem is that if it's geared to a company a fair bit of it won't be relevant - for example a significant part of our income is unsolicited. So I don't need to spend hours learning how to make sure that invoices aren't outstanding, or generating reminder letters, which I guess most businesses would! I could probably list from memory all the invoices I've generated in the last few months, AND tell you whether they've been paid or not!

Which is why we thought of getting someone in ... bespoke training and support at the same time, IYSWIM.

WHA

Try searching the quickbooks website https://www.advisers.quickbooks.co.uk - 21 advisers found searching for book-keepers covering Bristol, some of which are doing just book-keeping, others doing systems set up and training.

Savvy_Sue

WHA wrote: »

Try searching the quickbooks website www.advisers.quickbooks.co.uk - 21 advisers found searching for book-keepers covering Bristol, some of which are doing just book-keeping, others doing systems set up and training.

Sorry WHA, that link not working - any clues?

WHA

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Sorry WHA, that link not working - any clues?

go to https://www.quickbooks.co.uk and click on "find a local one to help" in the professional advisers section of the home page

lifeisgood

The BT Adult Learning Centre has a Quickbooks course - and it's cheap! I don't know how good it is, but other courses on the site are good.

http://new.btlearningcentre.com/adultlearning/info/CourseBrowse.aspx?courseGroupId=6#

duhelu

Hi
if you have not yet found what you are after I can recommend someone. She is much, much more than a bookeeper and can help you with planning, training, VAT advice, etc all the way through to handing the accounts over at year end for signing by an accountant.

She charges £25 an hour for time on site and travelling (plus mileage) and lives in Cirencester. I am sure she can provide you with lots of people who can vouch for her work and being value for money.

If you would like contact details let me know where to send them.

Savvy_Sue

thanks, I'll send you a pm with my email address!