bookkeeping course

treasureirealnds

I'd like to enrol on a bookkeeping course in the hope of working from home eventually.
I have a couple of self emp friends who are forever moaning about doing their books. Which gave me the idea of doing a course and eventually starting up my own little business from home.

it has been many yrs since my school days. I have spent last ten years working for dss/dwp. I have 4 GCSE's and a GNVQ Int in Business.

We are on a low income and receive WTC and bit of housing ben.
would anyone be able to offer me any advice on finding a course that i could possibly get help with fees?

anyone started from the bottom on this sort of thing and have any success stories?

txs in advance

anna77_2

treasureirealnds wrote: »

I'd like to enrol on a bookkeeping course in the hope of working from home eventually.
I have a couple of self emp friends who are forever moaning about doing their books. Which gave me the idea of doing a course and eventually starting up my own little business from home.

it has been many yrs since my school days. I have spent last ten years working for dss/dwp. I have 4 GCSE's and a GNVQ Int in Business.

We are on a low income and receive WTC and bit of housing ben.
would anyone be able to offer me any advice on finding a course that i could possibly get help with fees?

anyone started from the bottom on this sort of thing and have any success stories?

txs in advance

I am doing the Open University Certificate in Accounting, which is a more comprehensive course than a simple bookkeping course (the certificate is equivalent to the AAT Technician qualification and would exempt you from part 1 of various accountancy qualifications if you wanted to take your studies further - I don't want to do this but thought this would give me an advantage when looking for work). The course costs just under £2000 but I got my fees paid for as I am in receipt of WFTC and my income is less than £14,000. In addition to that I got a £250 grant towards other costs, and I also qualified for a £250 grant towards getting a computer and I am in the process of applying for a grant to cover 1 year internet costs. You would still probably qualify for some financial assistance if your income was a bit higher than that. Also, if you collect Tesco points, you can now use these to pay some of the fees if necessary. Well worth looking into it.
Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions on this course.

tru

Do you have a Neighbourhood Project in your area? I did a bookkeeping course (for free) through them, I didn't have to go to the college, the college sends a lecturer out to the NP office as long as there's at least 8 people on the course.

After that I did a computer course (small fee but free if you're on benefits), I just wanted to learn more about Excel but it didn't work like that, I had to do 5 modules :rolleyes: I took what I'd learned about bookkeeping and put it with what I'd learned about Excel, and now I do my bookkeeping on the computer I quit my job and started working (self-employed) for a couple of ebay sellers, most of the work was on spreadsheets (listings, formulas for costs, profit etc). Then I started selling my own stuff and was able to write my own spreadsheets for myself.

There's probably a course where you can learn bookkeeping on spreadsheets, I did the courses separately because I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just grabbed any courses that were free :rotfl:

before_hollywood

i studied sage at local adult education centre, took a year to do, cost approx £160 without any financial support

mikewebs

My local FE college offers free courses if you are on means tested benefits and (I think) tax credits. I would approach one and ask - If you can, study the Association of Accounting Technician course (I'm doing it and it's really good). If you can't get on that particular course there are numerous book-keeping qualifications available.

HTH

pugsley29

I'm doing bookkeeping part time I'm finding it really annoying and tedious, you really have to have attention to detail, and sometimes it doesn't seem logical at all, I have had to do it as it links to a conveyancing course I'm doing. I think the jobs fits in well if you have kids as most small businesses let you take the books away with you and you can work form home. Maybe you could start with Pitmans level 1 manual and pitman's level 1 computerised accounts. I have got a good book by frank woods, 6th edition which is simple to use, maybe have a look at your library.


I'm doing it at my local community centre it's a small class and friendly, I think you either love bookkeeping or hate it, but if you are planning to run your own business you need to know it to stop fraud etc.