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Bookkeeping Qualification


Pezerinno

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HOLA441

Hello HPCers hoping for some advice.

I'm flirting with the idea of going into bookkeeping but I wonder if this sort of thing can be automated (and will be) in the future by software? What about an AAT qualification? Does anyone know if you have to be particularly academic to do these?

I'm currently in a predicament whereby I'm mid twenties, 30k in debt (business failed when I couldn't keep up the work load due to cancer), no savings, no qualifications (apart from standard GCSE/A-levels) or experience. My reason for looking into bookkeeping is when I was self employed I always enjoyed doing the figures (for reasons I can't fathom).

I thought I would ask on here before researching this further as I generally appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

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HOLA442

You'll be one of those with a paper qualification but no experience. Thus unhirable.

AATs are ten a penny too.

I'm experienced, qualified with a better qualification (they say) and can't find a decent job.

As above:

Book keeping low level generally isn't worth outsourcing though, nor is absolutely low level box full of receipts type accounts prep work worth outsourcing.

What killed all the jobs at my firm in Bury was when they bought a £2000 scanner which wasn't OCR software equipped it just changed everything to PDF GIF or JPEG. It was just that it was capable of scanning all sizes and thicknesses of paper.

For cash books and such like they got the Pole to photocopy the pages and then scan them.

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HOLA443

There will be something in accounting/bookkeeping that you are all missing. And in 10 years you will look back and say 'Why the ****** did I not just think of that'.

Only issue is working out what it is. Same with most things.

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HOLA444

You'll be one of those with a paper qualification but no experience. Thus unhirable.

AATs are ten a penny too.

I'm experienced, qualified with a better qualification (they say) and can't find a decent job.

As above:

Book keeping low level generally isn't worth outsourcing though, nor is absolutely low level box full of receipts type accounts prep work worth outsourcing.

What killed all the jobs at my firm in Bury was when they bought a £2000 scanner which wasn't OCR software equipped it just changed everything to PDF GIF or JPEG. It was just that it was capable of scanning all sizes and thicknesses of paper.

For cash books and such like they got the Pole to photocopy the pages and then scan them.

What is better - no experience & paper qualifications or no experience & no paper qualifications?

I'm not sure what to do... :unsure:

Once I'm healthier and able to work I was hoping to get volunteer job which might give me enough experience for an admin job but I thought whist I'm off sick I could be looking into some form of qualification.

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HOLA445

There will be something in accounting/bookkeeping that you are all missing. And in 10 years you will look back and say 'Why the ****** did I not just think of that'.

Only issue is working out what it is. Same with most things.

Not sure I'm in full control of your line of thought here... You'll have to ignore the thickie in the corner...

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HOLA446
Well let us in on the secret then? Electronic receipts perhaps?

I reckon there will probably be a strong push for a cashless society such that the bank runs the only way to threaten the government/banks cannot happen. HK today there is little need to carry cash about. Octopus cards can direct debit money into your card. Which leaves a nice audit trail which a computer can turn into a set of accounts.

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HOLA447

Not sure I'm in full control of your line of thought here... You'll have to ignore the thickie in the corner...

There are lots of things people thought were dead and buried. Which still have life left in them.

An example is radio, the USA and Europe thought it was old outdated tech which had nowhere to go. The Japanese however figured out that it had many other applications. As such they started making pocket radios, and sticking radios into lots of things. They extended the life of what seemed like a dead as a dodo technology/product. They made a lot of money.

I have similar thoughts tbh, back in 1996 I remember going to college with about 2-300 floppy disks, it became ridiculous when we started taking in 1-2000 floppy discs. We'd download things and split them up into the floppies. 1.8mb each (as we used an Amiga to put them back together again). Stephen thought for a minute and we started to bring in 2GB hard drives instead. The moment we plugged in the IDE cable we had a thought.

You know I wonder why we can't have an externally mounted connector where you can plug a storage device into the front of the computer. Wouldn't that be great? We were thinkng of USB memory sticks.

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HOLA448

There are lots of things people thought were dead and buried. Which still have life left in them.

An example is radio, the USA and Europe thought it was old outdated tech which had nowhere to go. The Japanese however figured out that it had many other applications. As such they started making pocket radios, and sticking radios into lots of things. They extended the life of what seemed like a dead as a dodo technology/product. They made a lot of money.

I have similar thoughts tbh, back in 1996 I remember going to college with about 2-300 floppy disks, it became ridiculous when we started taking in 1-2000 floppy discs. We'd download things and split them up into the floppies. 1.8mb each (as we used an Amiga to put them back together again). Stephen thought for a minute and we started to bring in 2GB hard drives instead. The moment we plugged in the IDE cable we had a thought.

You know I wonder why we can't have an externally mounted connector where you can plug a storage device into the front of the computer. Wouldn't that be great? We were thinkng of USB memory sticks.

So bookkeeping might not necessarily be a bad idea then?

You must be really rich with the memory stick idea :)

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HOLA449

You must be really rich with the memory stick idea :)

I didn't invent it, I merely had the inking of the idea but no technical skills to actually be able to implement it. My current pet project is the hyperbike. Spec is 55mph capable yet can return 310mpg. Problem is I don't have a wind tunnel, I intend to test body shapes by jumping out of a plane with scale models in my hands and see which side flips me over due to higher resistance.

Regarding book keeping. I'm not sure, Jo makes an OK living out of it, but it's one of those pushed onto user technologies. Like ATMs whereby instead of a bank teller you have a machine so people self serve. Like super market tills.

10-15 years ago book keeping software was niche and rare. Today book keeping software is effective and cheap. Anybody can do it on a home computer, its just that some choose not to. B's a company I shared an office with lost a lot of business because of this. They had three FT book keepers, the excuse given when they left was they hadpretty much bought a copy of sage line 50 themselves and decided to get a NMW bloke to do it themselves.

End of the year they print out the nominal report ledger, punch in a few journals and jobs done.

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HOLA4410

Btw as a final note, you don't need ANY qualifcation to do accountancy/book keeping type work.

You can just do it, as to if anybody will have any confidence in you who knows.

I remember taking over a company mr TB's he had a ton of clients and was not qualified. His accounts at first glance LOOKED ok, but dig a bit deeper and it turned out none of them actually balanced and he would hide things all over the place. Made worse by the way he kept no notes at all.

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HOLA4411

I didn't invent it, I merely had the inking of the idea but no technical skills to actually be able to implement it. My current pet project is the hyperbike. Spec is 55mph capable yet can return 310mpg. Problem is I don't have a wind tunnel, I intend to test body shapes by jumping out of a plane with scale models in my hands and see which side flips me over due to higher resistance.

Regarding book keeping. I'm not sure, Jo makes an OK living out of it, but it's one of those pushed onto user technologies. Like ATMs whereby instead of a bank teller you have a machine so people self serve. Like super market tills.

10-15 years ago book keeping software was niche and rare. Today book keeping software is effective and cheap. Anybody can do it on a home computer, its just that some choose not to. B's a company I shared an office with lost a lot of business because of this. They had three FT book keepers, the excuse given when they left was they hadpretty much bought a copy of sage line 50 themselves and decided to get a NMW bloke to do it themselves.

End of the year they print out the nominal report ledger, punch in a few journals and jobs done.

Well NMW doesn't sound too bad at this stage.

Are there some obvious qualifications I should be looking at to make me more hireable?

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HOLA4412

Well NMW doesn't sound too bad at this stage.

Where are you living? A company I know needs a book keeper.... I'm not doing this job because it makes no sense to do this job. The travelling time + expenses are over 70% of the take home pay of the job.

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HOLA4413

Where are you living? A company I know needs a book keeper.... I'm not doing this job because it makes no sense to do this job. The travelling time + expenses are over 70% of the take home pay of the job.

Thanks for the heads up but I'm not looking for work at this minute as I'm undergoing chemotherapy. I'm down South.

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HOLA4414

Not sure I'm in full control of your line of thought here... You'll have to ignore the thickie in the corner...

Well let us in on the secret then? Electronic receipts perhaps?

Just talking hypothetically. I don't have a clue myself !

There are lots of things people thought were dead and buried. Which still have life left in them.

This.

There are always things that people look back on and realise they were so obvious. There will be some niche corner of the bookkeeping/acccounting market that you could make a fortune in. Just working out what it is.

I have yet to find my golden ticket. No harm to be thinking about it though. May just pop into the head one day.

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HOLA4415

There are always things that people look back on and realise they were so obvious. There will be some niche corner of the bookkeeping/acccounting market that you could make a fortune in. Just working out what it is.

I have yet to find my golden ticket. No harm to be thinking about it though. May just pop into the head one day.

I actually know what it is actually, I thought of it a few years ago. The thing is if I did this HMRC would send asassins after me as they would lose almost 100% of their tax take from people who are not on PAYE.

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HOLA4416
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HOLA4417

Hello HPCers hoping for some advice.

I'm flirting with the idea of going into bookkeeping but I wonder if this sort of thing can be automated (and will be) in the future by software? What about an AAT qualification? Does anyone know if you have to be particularly academic to do these?

I'm currently in a predicament whereby I'm mid twenties, 30k in debt (business failed when I couldn't keep up the work load due to cancer), no savings, no qualifications (apart from standard GCSE/A-levels) or experience. My reason for looking into bookkeeping is when I was self employed I always enjoyed doing the figures (for reasons I can't fathom).

I thought I would ask on here before researching this further as I generally appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

AAT is well worth doing. The automation of bookkeeping actually increases the requirement for people who know what they are doing, because the likes of Sage will post the transactions to the ledgers and add everything up for you, but you still need someone who can tell Sage to put it in the right place. It is like if you can't speak or write English, then Microsoft Word isn't really going to help you.

There is always a demand for experienced book keepers. Getting experience is difficult though.

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HOLA4418

AAT is well worth doing. The automation of bookkeeping actually increases the requirement for people who know what they are doing, because the likes of Sage will post the transactions to the ledgers and add everything up for you, but you still need someone who can tell Sage to put it in the right place. It is like if you can't speak or write English, then Microsoft Word isn't really going to help you.

There is always a demand for experienced book keepers. Getting experience is difficult though.

Thanks. Would you say you had to be of a particular type academically to do an AAT? For instance being good at mathematics?

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HOLA4419

Hello HPCers hoping for some advice.

I'm flirting with the idea of going into bookkeeping but I wonder if this sort of thing can be automated (and will be) in the future by software? What about an AAT qualification? Does anyone know if you have to be particularly academic to do these?

I'm currently in a predicament whereby I'm mid twenties, 30k in debt (business failed when I couldn't keep up the work load due to cancer), no savings, no qualifications (apart from standard GCSE/A-levels) or experience. My reason for looking into bookkeeping is when I was self employed I always enjoyed doing the figures (for reasons I can't fathom).

I thought I would ask on here before researching this further as I generally appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

Sorry to hear about your circumstances Pezerinno and wish you a speedy recovery.

What is your strategy to deal with the debt? Bear in mind that AAT and other accounting bodies have standards for their members about personal finance.

http://www.aat.org.uk/content/item18528/

BANKRUPTCY

Applicants for Student registration

In relation to an application for Student registration, the guideline starting point is:

Not to admit him if he is the subject of an undischarged or discharged bankruptcy order, but to admit him if the Association considers there to be mitigating circumstances.

When considering the implications of bankruptcy on potential or continued Membership or Student registration, the AAT should consider:

a) The reasons for the indebtedness, the circumstances of the bankruptcy or arrangement and the extent to which the Member, Applicant, Student or Affiliate was personally at fault.

(i) The more the Member, Applicant, Student or Affiliate was personally at fault, the more appropriate to tend towards severity in the sanction, particularly if he had been reckless or dishonest.

(ii) On the other hand, if there were factors beyond the control of the Member, Applicant, Student or Affiliate, this may be considered a mitigating factor.

It will be for the Applicant to satisfy the Association of suitability for Membership.

Affiliates and Students

Where an Affiliate or Student becomes bankrupt or has made any composition or entered into any formal arrangement with his creditors, he will be subject to a disciplinary investigation (in accordance with the AAT's Disciplinary Regulations).

He should be advised that if he subsequently applies for Membership, his case will be considered on an individual basis in accordance with the Association's policy on applicants for Membership.

Duty to inform the Association

The Disciplinary Regulations impose a duty on the membership to inform the Association if he is made bankrupt, or has made any composition or entered into any formal arrangement with his creditors. If he fails to do so, he will be subject to a disciplinary investigation (in accordance with the AAT's Disciplinary Regulations).

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HOLA4420

Sorry to hear about your circumstances Pezerinno and wish you a speedy recovery.

What is your strategy to deal with the debt? Bear in mind that AAT and other accounting bodies have standards for their members about personal finance.

http://www.aat.org.uk/content/item18528/

Thank you timestamp. A family member has kindly taken on the debt for me for a small interest fee so there is no actual documentation of me being in debt. I was just a sole trader and as soon as I'm earning plan to pay it back as quickly as possible then regroup as it were.

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HOLA4421

Thanks. Would you say you had to be of a particular type academically to do an AAT? For instance being good at mathematics?

Bookkeeping doesn't need mathematics, its simply addition and subtraction. You need to understand what the numbers mean of course and an understanding of commercial law is useful.

The AAT is a worthwhile qualification in its own right and can also be used as a stepping stone to one of the Chartered bodies. To dismiss the skills needed to keep a well ordered set of accounts because there is inexpensive software available is a bit dismissive. Its a task that lots of business people prefer to get someone else to do. It may not be because they can't do it, it might just be they prefer to do something else. Something they enjoy more or something more profitable for them.

As an example most of us could probably carry out repairs on our cars if we had to. I used to work on my cars myself I don't any more because its easier and more convenient to let a garage do the work. I don't have to grovel around using jacks and axle stands, I don't graze my hands or get them greasy and dirty.

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HOLA4422

Bookkeeping doesn't need mathematics, its simply addition and subtraction. You need to understand what the numbers mean of course and an understanding of commercial law is useful.

The AAT is a worthwhile qualification in its own right and can also be used as a stepping stone to one of the Chartered bodies. To dismiss the skills needed to keep a well ordered set of accounts because there is inexpensive software available is a bit dismissive. Its a task that lots of business people prefer to get someone else to do. It may not be because they can't do it, it might just be they prefer to do something else. Something they enjoy more or something more profitable for them.

As an example most of us could probably carry out repairs on our cars if we had to. I used to work on my cars myself I don't any more because its easier and more convenient to let a garage do the work. I don't have to grovel around using jacks and axle stands, I don't graze my hands or get them greasy and dirty.

Thank you. I'm definitely going to look into it. Mental arithmetic is a strong point so maybe that will be an advantage - for a moment I pictured math whizz's going in for these types of qualifications.

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HOLA4423

The AAT is a worthwhile qualification in its own right and can also be used as a stepping stone to one of the Chartered bodies. To dismiss the skills needed to keep a well ordered set of accounts because there is inexpensive software available is a bit dismissive. Its a task that lots of business people prefer to get someone else to do. It may not be because they can't do it, it might just be they prefer to do something else. Something they enjoy more or something more profitable for them.

What do you base this on? Are you an accountant yourself? I've generally seen AATs been treated like dirt tbh.

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HOLA4424

What do you base this on? Are you an accountant yourself? I've generally seen AATs been treated like dirt tbh.

You have worked for some dreadful firms though Ken. And they have been accountancy firms rather than being the accounts department of a company.

For my most junior staff recruting I always ask for part-qual AAT, it shows some degree of commitment to their profession rather than just doing it for the money.

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HOLA4425

Thank you. I'm definitely going to look into it. Mental arithmetic is a strong point so maybe that will be an advantage - for a moment I pictured math whizz's going in for these types of qualifications.

Your view of accounts prep isn't realistic.

Accounts prep/ book keeping etc has almost nothing to do with maths. It is a very very loose association, just because you play with figures doesn't mean you are a maths whizz. It's to do with repetition and gathering evidence to support your figures in case HMRC comes knocking.

Thus on your accounts says Assets Bank account £1000. If you're lucky you have a small bank account and a statement which says £1000. Circle it, xref the bankstatement with E1 and back xref E1 with E2 the bankstatement. If you are unlucky reconcile and analyse it (which is even more tedious than it sounds). Between purchases, overheads, wages taxes drawings and cheques. If you are really unlucky you'll have a client who simply doesn't write anything on his cheque stubs.

Do the same for sales & debtors, creditors and accruals, prepayments, VAT, PAYE, fixed assets, depreciation directors loan accounts. Finding figures or reconciliations to support the figure you'll put in the accounts. Print them out xref all of them carefully so the cheif can see where figures have come from in an instant.

Make your postings on your software. Then print it out. Xref your schedules and breakdowns in Q section and X section. Generate a list of unknowns for section B.

Investigate all variances above 5% (excel works it out) phoning the client asking why there is such a difference.

Hand it to your manager who will have a cursory glance. He or she will call the client for a chat if they care about clients. Send them a bill. The cheif will come back with a list of journal entries to change it to what the client wants. Send them a bill.

Job is done.

Another box of documents then lands on your desk and you do it all over again day in day out.

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