Any self employed part time accountants / book keeprs about?

[migandtig]

Hi, I am CIMA qualified and was made redundant before DC2 came along.
I'm seriously considering doing P/T accounts and book keeping; but want to know if I can reach anywhere near the £80 a day I would need to cover the nursery fees...

It's a bit of an ask, but would anybody who does this sort of thing be willing to have a phone conversation with me about the nature of the industry, work, rates etc.
I'd be happy to pay for an hour of your time, send you flowers, chocolate or gifts for your DCs as a thank you

If you would, please send me your name / number to:
spanna_sale @ yahoo.com
and we could arrange a suitable (child free) time for a chat.
And I promise not to reveal RL details on MN.

Thank you!!

Doh - posted twice...
(that's what comes of trying to MN with a baby on your lap)
Ignore this thread

I'm a part time accountant, I use a cm for ds and dd is at school so my childcare costs aren't as high as yours but I work the equivalent of 2 days a week(spread over 3 days so I can work school hours) and after tax/childcare etc I take home half my earnings IYSWIM. The good thing with accounts/bookkepping is in general employers are flexible with hours as tasks don't have to be done 9-5 on particular days(apart from the obvious deadlines for VAT etc etc) so they can be more flexible. When ds starts school i'm hoping to work 5 days a week for school hours so I don't pay childcare.

I work in practice not industry though so I don't know how relevant any info I have would be.

There are lots of accountants on mn so i'm sure someone more helpful will come along later.

I'm a part time accountant, too. When both dcs were in nursery I did wonder whether it was worth it - I paid out about half my take home in nursery fees. Now one is in school and the other about to get 15 hours free it'll be great. My employer has let me move to school hours too as, as Eddas said, it's the kind of job that isn't too time specific. I work in industry. I keep an eye open for other roles and p/t are few and far between.

I haven't investigated freelance work but some friends who have find it tough to get clients - I think it depends on how much you want to earn - if you are happy at £20 - £30 per hour you should be ok IMO but I know people who won't work for less than £80p/h so consequently don't work very often.

mydoorisalwaysopen, I thought you were me for a second as my ds(dc2) will get 15 hours free from Sept, such a nice feeling and halves my childcare costs which is brilliant! I think you're right about the part-time jobs not coming up often, although it depends what you want to do, practice part-time jobs don't seem to appear anywhere. I'm just lucky i've been in my job since before dc, I was full time and my employer was happy to keep me part time after ml. Having said that I do see alot of jobs locally to me for bookkepper roles within companies for part time hours.

I'd forgotten to factor the free 15 hours thing in. DC1 will qualify from Jan, maybe I should wait till then. Although I did hear that its a max of 5 hours per day - so as DC1 does 2 days at nursery I can only claim 10 hours; and it's at something like £3.50 per hour, and is it term time only? Still 'every little helps'

It's the freelance side of things I was thinking of. PT Accounts jobs are like gold-dust, and PT (employee) book keeper doesn't pay much above minimum wage.

In my head I had a vauge plan to find a couple of clients wanting management accounts / business analysis a couple of days a month, hopefully paying something like £25/hour. Then maybe fill in the other days while the DCs are in childcare with some book keeping for other clients. Hopefully this would add up to more than the nursery fees.... Although I fear I may find I get days free to clean the house, then manic weekends where I have to work...

have you thought about approaching local firms of accountants to see if they need anyone like that to recommend to clients? I know my firm were keen to have bookkeepers(good ones) to recommend rather than do it in-house as we tend to make losses on our bookkeeping work as you can't justify charging the whole amount onto the client.

If I were to go down the self-employed route at some point(have kinda tried but half-heartedly already) I would ask my current employer if they would recommend me or approach a local firm and offer to do a free or cheap job for them to show my work so that they would then(hopefully) recommend me with confidence.