New business idea

CKhalvashi

MattyT97 said:

Thank you for all of your feedback. Taking what you all have said into account, I have decided to scrap this business idea and have a rethink.

What do you think of a business that involves offering a bookkeeping service for businesses but also offer free personal finance advice for the employees of my bookkeeping clients? Would this be a better idea?

If this is where your experience lies, then likely this would be a much better idea.

Just make sure on the 'free' service you are earning from the other end, while giving the best deal you can.

The financial advice may be more draining on time than the bookkeeping, you may also need to be licensed (the FCA can advise on the specifics).

I get where you are coming from with the free element, there is a social element to everything I do (meaning the focus is not just to earn as much money as possible but to help people and communitieswhile serving an undeserved market), but you need to be able to earn a living at the same time.

Notepad_Phil

You would need definitely need to ensure that the free part does not take up too much of your time - maybe you could hold a session every x months at the employer offices for any interested employees to come along to.

theoretica

MattyT97 said:

Thank you for all of your feedback. Taking what you all have said into account, I have decided to scrap this business idea and have a rethink.

What do you think of a business that involves offering a bookkeeping service for businesses but also offer free personal finance advice for the employees of my bookkeeping clients? Would this be a better idea?

I would not expect many businesses to be prepared to pay more for this than for book keeping alone - it would be a nice to have, but muddly for the business finances to have bookkeeping cost and staff perk cost in one.  So, it would be a nice extra, it might catch the eye of some employers, but the time spent on staff advice would probably best be classified in your business as 'advertising' rather than a money maker.

Daliah

If you have the skills, and appropriate licence, to advice people on personal finance, why not simply become a financial adviser? You can do this as an employee in an adviser's firm, or on a self-employed basis.

Ergates

MattyT97 said:

Thank you for all of your feedback. Taking what you all have said into account, I have decided to scrap this business idea and have a rethink.

What do you think of a business that involves offering a bookkeeping service for businesses but also offer free personal finance advice for the employees of my bookkeeping clients? Would this be a better idea?

Offering bookkeeping services to business is a perfectly solid idea - this is what accountants do.   If you're working on your own, then you'll probably be looking at smaller businesses as clients  (larger businesses will look for accountancy firms rather than individuals).  This would limit the number of employees your clients would likely have, so whilst there is nothing wrong with that part of your idea, and it's a nice thought, but I don't know how many takers you'd have.

As you seem attracted to the idea of helping people with their budgeting (and as you seem willing to do it for free), why not look into doing it as a side thing rather than your main job.   Like - work as a "normal" accountant (bookkeeping for businesses, etc) 4 days a week and do 1 day a week offering free financial advice.  There may be charities that you could work for.

Or, you could just work as a standard financial advisor.

Daliah

Financial advice is a regulated activity. You can’t circumvent the regulatory requirements by offering it for free. If you tried regardless, you’d get into trouble with the Regulator before long, and probably have your reputation in tatters 

born_again

Would be interesting to see how many companies would be bothered by someone offering their staff free personal finance advice.
As you would have to price your bookkeeping at a point that interests them (so cheaper than who they use now) & still be able to make something out of the "Free" advice, which would have to be outside companies working hours at a guess. 
You will also need to take the tests to be a Financial Advisor & the cost of the training.

Zanderman

I'm still curious as to the nature of these 'business ideas'. The first and subsequent one seem naïve in not acknowledging, up-front, the existence of existing systems, competition with existing suppliers and complexities of acquiring clients.  The recent points by others about complying with regulations on financial advice also stress a complexity the OP doesn't seem to mention.

It would be helpful - and might result in more targeted advice - if the OP could tell us a little about their status is in all this. Are they a financial professional already or are they just toying with career ideas? Is it a real project or an academic exercise?

Knowing such background would, probably, lead to better advice.

Eco_Miser

The help with budgeting and personal finances that the OP describes is not 'financial advice' as offered by IFAs and regulated by the FCA. There may still be some licensing requirements, and there are massive Data Protection requirements.

CKhalvashi

Eco_Miser said:

The help with budgeting and personal finances that the OP describes is not 'financial advice' as offered by IFAs and regulated by the FCA. There may still be some licensing requirements, and there are massive Data Protection requirements.

In the way that I'd run such services as a business, you'd need to be licensed in the same way as this site is, largely as I'd run it something similar to a more personalised version of MSE to ensure that although not bulk, there is some income from this. Gas, electricity, credit cards, internet providers etc can pay very good commissions to give OP a very good income stream (potentially even going to mid-6 figures based on a 2000 hour year and no other staff) to build up over the years on my very rough assessment of the proposal they may wish to offer including licensed services, while remaining free to the end user.

You are of course correct that just offering advice on budgeting you would not be. I've done this as a voluntary service many times for many people and also directed a number of people to MSE and other resources over the years.

The licensing aspect depends largely on how OP would wish to take their business. I personally, however, have no desire to get involved with anything in financial services so while I can come to rough calculations in my head based on what I know of the market, this wouldn't necessarily be for OP.