Has anyone done a book keeping course?

[Jedimastermama]

I’m just interested to know how you found the course.
Next year I’m looking to retrain (nursing) and want to work from home in next few years.
Any advice very much welcomed.
Thanks

[Cottipus]

I did AAT foundation a couple of years ago, which has a bookkeeping module.

I did distance learning whilst working 3 days a week and studied on my days off, it took about 7 months- though I’d have finished it quicker if I could have booked assessments sooner. Fair bit of study, there were a lot of assessments (5?) which I had to go to a centre to do and pay for.

I self funded. It wasn’t cheap- using the cheapest DL provider once I’d paid to enrol, study materials and the assessments it came close to £1000.

[Scrowy]

I think it would be worth speaking to some bookkeepers to see if Making Tax Digital has made much difference to their business.

I don't know about other sectors but certainly in the farming industry the move to MTD has led to lots of people cutting out the middleman and doing their own VAT returns etc since they are having to pay for cloud based accounting like Xero and Quickbooks anyway.

Even if it hasn't affected business too much I suspect that book keepers will now need to be familiar with a much wider range of accounting software than they were previously.

[AntCrawley]

I wouldnt have thought there are enough jobs for that now.

[Jedimastermama]

Thank you all for advice. Yes, I need to look into this idea more throughly.

[Oblomov19]

People keep saying this. That there won't be the need for them. I am puzzled by this.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?

When it all goes wrong, and you need someone who knows what they are doing, to unpick all the mess.
Ahh yes. That'll be a book-keeper then!?

[Sunshinelollipops1]

@Jedimastermama agreed with what other posters have said. With it all going digital the need for “bookkeepers” will reduce even further. @Oblomov19 you’ll still have accountants for when things go wrong to work out final tax etc, but the middle man job of bookkeeper is likely to be less in demand.

OP could you not use your nursing background more? How about first aid courses (both adult and child)? Another friend does cosmetic treatments (Botox) etc.

[Oblomov19]

Sunshine, the accountant will call me! And pay me an extortionate hourly rate, to fix it!

[moomoogalicious]

Yes i did

Mtd hasn't made a difference as bookkeepers are still needed to input the data onto the cloud based software. A vat return still needs to be checked before submitting. In fact alot of my business is based around this. There are also lot of non vat businesses that require a bookkeeper.

However its not as easy as doing the AAT course and away you go. You need a good working understanding of double entry. I was lucky in that a friend of mine allowed me to do her books and i built my business from there.

And to the pp who said they'd pay an accountant to unpick any errors. Who do you think they pass that work onto!

[Oblomov19]

Exactly Moo. Sunshine do you think the accountant does it themselves? Not!

[Sunshinelollipops1]

@Oblomov19 read the World Economic Forum report 2018 about jobs likely to disappear with increased technology - bookkeeping is one. I’m not saying there may not be work for experienced individuals like yourself, but I wouldn’t recommend for a newbie changing career.

[user1497207191]

Mtd hasn't made a difference as bookkeepers are still needed to input the data onto the cloud based software.

Quite the opposite. Due to the ability for cloud software to automatically import transactions from your bank account, paypal account, shopping cart, etc., it massively reduces the time spent on the actual manual "data input". Likewise with all the new options that scan and read invoices/expenses etc and automatically convert into spreadsheet format or even automatically import those into cloud software too. The real "market" now is for book-keepers and accountants who know how to set up the imports/links.

I've just moved over a client from manual book-keeping to virtually fully automated. They used to give us all the paperwork, till reports, invoices, bank statements etc and we used to manually enter it into desktop software. We've changed all that now. We set up Xero with automatic links from their till software and bank accounts, and all purchase invoices are scanned and read and then automatically input into Xero. The only time spent is now scanning and uploading the invoice images - everything else "pops" into the Xero software each day. Time spent has been dramatically reduced. The only manual input is the occasional petty cash payment but we're trying to get them to start putting that through the till also, so that the payments come through via the automated feed from the till.

It's the way forward. We're onto our next project next month which is a pub/restaurant where we plan to do exactly the same.

[Scrowy]

Yes, that's what I suspected User and certainly that's what we now do.

For the last two years rather than the accountant getting a big pile of hard copy receipts and invoices every quarter, I simply scan them in and reconcile the pdf with the automatic bank feed as I'm going along.

It hasn't reduced our overall accountancy bill much overall as the money we have saved on paying their bookkeepers we now spend on more in-depth tax planning etc.

Obviously there will still be people that hand the whole lot over, but if you have a rough idea what you are doing and are reasonably computer literate then small businesses/ self employed people will probably be able to do most of the bookkeeping role now themselves if they wish to.