… Or in truth, just the one request for a follow up; but I have been toying with the idea of writing this, my farewell blog, for some time now.
Two years ago I was suffering from a shortage of time and I decided to outsource the work – it didn’t pan out as I’d imagined it would.
Looking back what I needed was a break, a bit of time to step back and sort my thoughts out, but that’s not something that’s ever likely to happen when you’re running your own business – certainly not in the early years. I was hoping that getting someone on board would give me that chance.
Instead I felt like I had twice as much work to do and twice as much worry – will they do it right? will I pick up on any mistakes? how thoroughly should I check?
After about two months of this I made the decision to quit. I wrote to my clients, blamed the economy and bad market conditions and gave them all notice that I was closing the business as of 31 Jan 2014. Enough time to finish up their outstanding books, and enough time for them to make alternative arrangements. I felt better almost immediately after hitting send.
Closing a business you’ve spent months and months building, is a numbing task and not one I enjoyed in the slightest. Telling The IAB and HMRC were top of my list, after that it was just whoever else needs to know. But pulling the whole thing down felt like such a waste.
I put the final task off for so long I almost ran out of time – Yep, you guessed it, my ’13/14 SA returns were filed with on a week to spare! So much for Mr Hyper-Organisation.
This last year has seen a lot of personal change for me and the dust is only just starting to settle. But if I hadn’t closed the business when I did I wouldn’t have had the space or time to accomplish what I have since. It needed to happen, so I’m glad it did.
I will start another business at some point, maybe not bookkeeping, but doing something. This whole process has taught me a lot, and right or wrong here’s what I’m taking away from the experience:
- Done is better than perfect. It’s practice that makes you better.
- Delegate everything you can. Spreading the load stops you burning out too quickly
- Have a plan and then bin it. Reality won’t ever turn out the way you imagine but you still need to have a strong idea of where you’re going.
- Find a backer. Even if you don’t need the money, having someone to be accountable to is a big motivator.
- Find a trusted mentor. This should only cost you the price of a coffee but will give you insights and advice you hadn’t even considered.
- People don’t tend to follow all the rules and they mostly get away with it. Which sucks if you’re doing your best to be good.
- Running a business isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle. Find a way to align your business with your personal life – and I don’t mean just have your office at home.
- Don’t work for friends. They either expect too much or you give too much away.
- If the only reward you get from your business is money, you’ve missed out on a major opportunity.
- Your first business will probably fail. But that shouldn’t stop you doing it anyway, because the one after that will have the benefit of your experience.
Thanks to you all for reading, and thanks for being there with your advice and comments. I can honestly say I’ve learned the hard way.
The bookkeeper has left town.
“When you’re faced with a difficult choice and you’re not sure what to do – find the third option.” – Don’t know (might have been Mary Popins/might have been Riddick).
Good morning bookkeepers everywhere! The end of the summer business season is nearly here and Autumnal weather has definitely arrived.
During this last year (and it’s been almost a year since I last posted to the blog) I’ve had to face and make some difficult choices to do with the business.
Regular readers will remember that in May last year, after months of worry about an imminently ending contract, I secured a new job within the same company. This secured my income for the foreseeable future and took the pressure off my needing to build my bookkeeping business quite as fast as originally planned. I scaled the marketing and promotion right back and concentrated on servicing those clients I already had and learning the new day job.
The new job has worked out very well. It is demanding and challenging and I have a good boss. However, devoting more and more time to the day job saw my business start to slip significantly; with emails being left unread and clients waiting longer than they should (or I ever intended).
I’ve even started to turn down business (four so far this year) because I simply couldn’t commit.
My business reputation was being damaged and I was too tired to really care.
I quickly realised I was avoiding a decision. My rent was secure and there was food on the table, so why do I even need a bookkeeping business anymore? Should I continue on simply because I’d started; it would be a waste to fold my hard won business so early on. But who wants to be included in the statement, “Most new business fail in the first two years.”?
Then again, why not concentrate on the day job and free up all that time at weekends and evenings? Why not scrap the business and call it a day? Why not quit?
I decided to do just that several times: Quit. But I kept on, not quite telling anyone about it. Dealing with queries at the last possible moment and only punching in numbers when I absolutely couldn’t avoid it any more. Even a very small business like mine demands a minimum level of care and attention that’s difficult to maintain long term unless you’re completely committed – and there was no way I was as committed as I should have been. My business was dying through lack of care and attention.
Then I was reminded (by my partner) that I had already planned for this.
“What do you mean? When?”, said I.
Right at the beginning, before I had clients, while I was doing nothing but thinking and learning and moulding my idea of what I wanted the business to look like, I’d already come up with the solution; hire another bookkeeper.
So that’s what I’ve done. Over the summer I have found and trained a newly qualified bookkeeper who will, bit by bit, take over the day to day looking after of my clients needs, leaving me to run my business.
The next few months will see if I’ve genuinely started to expand my business or if I’ve just slapped a plaster over a bigger problem.
Until next time…
One year on and it’s time to reset the numbers. No, I’m not getting confused – I know it isn’t April yet!
There’s a fixed page at the top of this blog called This might be useful, which asks a series of questions that every bookkeeper starting out needs to know – at least that is what all of the reading I did at the beginning suggested to me.
The results have been gathered in and I’ve reset the polls. I’d like to thank everybody that took part during the first year; your responses have been a massive help to me personally, and I know other new bookkeepers have found the results very useful too.
It’s nothing more than a summary of opinions from a small group of people, and should not be considered as anything more. Is not very scientific, but as a straw-poll it has been invaluable.
Below are the results for October 2011 to October 2012.
Where do your clients come from? (22 replies)
68.18%/15 replies – Word of mouth
13.64%/3 replies – Advertising
13.64%/3 replies – Website / Web searches
04.55%/1 reply – Direct marketing
Telesales and Networking events – 0 replies
Who/what gives you most of your work? (27 replies)
59.26%/16 replies – Sole traders
22.22%/6 replies – Limited Companies
14.81%/4 replies – Accountant referrals
03.7%/1 reply – Payroll
Partnerships – 0 replies
How long have you been a practising bookkeeper? (27 replies)
51.85%/14 replies – Less that 12 months
25.93%/7 replies – 1-5 years
11.11%/3 replies – More than 20 years
07.41%/2 replies – 10-15 years
03.7%/1 reply – 15 – 20 years
5-10 years – 0 replies
Who supervises you for MLR? (23 replies)
34.78%/8 relies – ICB
21.74%/5 replies – IAB
21.74%/5 replies – AAT
21.74%/5 replies – HMRC
How much do you charge an hour? (29 replies)
37.93%/11 replies – £10 to £15
37.93%/11 replies – £15 to £20
13.79%/4 replies – more than £25
06.9%/2 replies – £20 to £25
03.45%/1 reply – Less than £10
Which software do you prefer? (29 replies)
48.28%/14 replies – Sage
20.69%/6 replies – Spreadsheet (I assume this also includes VT)
17.24%/5 replies – Online alternative
13.79%/4 replies – Quickbooks
Now you’ve read the results, please take a few minutes to kick off this years This might be useful.
Been a while hasn’t it?
Obviously I’ve been a bit busy and haven’t got around to blogging. Mostly weekends have either been spent doing those summer things that need to be done; like weddings, bbq’s, festivals and so on. But crammed in between those diarised events, there has been a fair amount of bookkeeping to boot.
At this stage I’m starting to get a much better handle on my business and how it’s run. By that I mean the routine tasks and jobs that need to happen and by when. Although all of my clients give me paperwork (in varying states of order) different clients require different things. The tasks are essentially the same but the method can vary wildly.
Today I’ve spend several hours on one particular client. I’ve recently taken over this work from another bookkeeper, and have learnt a few important lessons along the way. Mostly about not trusting my own assumptions!
When I first started the work it was agreed to move the client from Quickbooks to Accounts Portal. It’s my preferred accounting software and the client agreed to move across as the previous bookkeeper provided Quickbooks and he’s never had direct access. This solution allows him access whenever he wants it – although to date he’s never had time to do so (or I suspect the inclination).
It theory switching from one package to another is simple. Get the most recent trial balance, a list of outstanding debtors and creditors, and Bob’s your uncle. Bish bash bosh, done!
But in reality, this is not how it worked out. Some nominal accounts were easy to decipher from the name. The usual, standard, “everybody has them” ones. Others were a little harder to decipher; some almost impossible.
I decided to write a list of items that I needed to clarify and paperwork I wanted to see; this list turned out to be nearly two pages long. I didn’t really want to go back to my client with so many questions, but I consoled myself that although it might look like a lot, there was no way I could be accused of not being thorough!
About a week later my client popped round with a stack of paperwork and my list in hand. The paperwork turned out to be new day to day items – and the list had the following remarks against two items: “Yes” and “Not sure, I think so”.
My client explained that he hadn’t a clue what I was talking about as his previous bookkeeper had dealt with everything and he’d not got that involved. He did bring a USB stick with a backup of his Quickbooks files, “… if that’s of any use?”. It wasn’t much – I don’t have Quickbooks.
This was 9 weeks into the businesses second VAT period of the year, 3 weeks before I’m supposed to file the first VAT return (my first VAT return ever). I started to get a little worried that I might not be able to get this lot nailed down in time.
Queue a saving grace: the previous bookkeeper had agreed to meet with me to examine the accounts using her laptop, software and files, and answer all of my questions!
The meeting went well and many of the answers provided were as I suspected they would be. But the one I was sure would be a problem, was simply my mistake. I had assumed that the previous bookkeeper had simply stopped working on the accounts and the TB I was working from was inaccurate. I assumed this because the balance in the bank was out by £500 or so from the bank statement I had at that date.
This discrepancy turned out to be a couple of cheques that had been entered prior to handover, and hadn’t cleared until after handover – as soon as this was pointed out it all made sense.
Top tip: Don’t assume it’s them straight off – double check its not your mistake first!
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What do you do when a client doesn’t pay?
Difficult one for a new starter. You need the clients, and you need the money. You don’t want to upset your new found client by continually asking for your money, but you do actually want your money.
Two of my clients so far have been less than fourth coming. The first was an oversight on their part; after I’d sent two monthly statements and still hadn’t got anywhere a phone call and a quick chat cleared everything up, payment made to my account that day.
The second is still ongoing. A sole trader and standard end of year “Here’s a bag of paper, how much tax do I owe?” scenario – I quoted for the work, did the work – and at the end realised they probably wouldn’t have the money to pay me. Hmmm.
Invoice sent by email, I suggested a meeting to hand over the paperwork. At the meeting we agreed a payment plan. It was over more months than I’d have preferred but it would be something. There was zero chance of me getting the full amount in one go.
Two months on and still no payments.
What to do? I’d done the work, completed the SA online and handed back their paperwork already – I had nothing to bargain with. It was obviously going to be difficult to get them to stick to the agreement we had struck.
After another week of unanswered emails, I called and after three rings was diverted to answer phone. It wasn’t looking good, so I started to research how to make a small claim via the courts. Then my phone rang – it was the client.
“Sorry, been manic! Terribly busy, I know I’m late paying, what are your bank details, I’ll sort it today.”
Which thankfully he did.
I’ve been lucky. I now know that what I should have done in the first case is to call straight away, and now hope my client would “pick up” he owed me money from another piece of paper (I now know) he never reads.
In the second case, I should have got half the money upfront. Not a big ask when I have no idea if they’re good for the money or not, and pretty cheep bookkeeping from their poi t of view if they do decide to not pay.
Of course the next thing will be when a client just refuses outright to pay anything at all. Fingers crossed it wont happen, but odds are it probably will.
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Nothing much has changed with my business as far as the usual numbers are concerned. Same amount of clients, no networking or active client hunting has been taking place – which is bad of me, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
Softly, softly catchy monkey: I judge myself to be at the “Do good work” stage. As soon as I can do that without worrying all the time that I’m missing some trick nobody’s bothered to mention, then I’ll worry about “Get more clients”.
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Good intentions.
I want to write this blog every week, I really do. But the reality at the moment is that it’s unlikely. work is becoming routine and there’s not a lot new to write about at the moment. I’ll keep you all updated whenever I can with news and thoughts – which might end up meaning fewer blogs and far between. If there’s an area of starting-up in bookkeeping I haven’t covered and you’d like my take on how I did, or am doing it – please email me and I’ll happily work an answer in to the next blog.
Till then, Ta-Ta!
Now that things have started to settle down a bit it’s time to take stock, get my bearings and move forward.
As I’ve mentioned countless times before, I’ve been quite busy the last few months. But I’ve only been busy dealing with what has been in front of me. I haven’t gone anywhere near a networking event, a Tweet or CPD – and a lack of regular investment of time into these areas will be fatal to my business unless I come up with a plan to “fit everything in”.
Back to the drawing board… well, not quite.
You may recall that I wrote a business plan many months ago. So this weekend I brought it down from the shelf I placed it on (shortly after I’d put up the shelf, in fact) and had a read through.
Only 8 months down the line it’s amazing how out of date it was. Almost all of the research I’d done is still relatively sound, but a fair proportion of my assumptions and conclusions were, to put it politely, either wildly optimistic or utterly unworkable given my situation. Goodness knows how I’d have coped had my day job really fallen through and I was left fending for myself on (at that point in time) zero clients. I would give some specific examples, but it’s too embarrassing.
There are things that my business plan couldn’t have accounted for, and equally there are things I missed out on completely because I either didn’t think they were relevant, or I didn’t see them as a problem.
So here I am with a “road-map success” that I don’t really trust any more and no plan of what to do or where to go next.
I’m now fully aware of the need to revisit the business plan, work in what I’ve learned, adapt what I know is realistic and what I know isn’t and hopefully come up with something a bit more like a Business PLAN and less like a Business Daydream.
Broadly speaking I’m still on the same path as intended. I have a bookkeeping business with some clients – tick. But of course that’s only the beginning and certainly nowhere close to the Grand Master Plan as I had envisioned/daydreamed about for months.
Also, during this transition period of hobby-to-business, I need to be careful of maintaining my grasp of the big picture. Not the Grand Master Plan per se; but keeping an eye on the day-to-day bigger picture. This was highlighted to me by a follow-up comment about last weeks post, on the Bookkeepers Forum. Running about and busting a gut to get X number of clients on board is all very well, but there’s another side to the coin which includes costs and time (and cost of time), which must be factored in if there’s a snow-ball in hell’s chance of making it to year 3.
Things I am going to remember when writing the new (and improved) business plan:
- Everything takes longer than I thought it would
- Costs go up, rarely down
- Customers want more for less
- I am not Superman, I need to sleep sometimes
- No customer has fitted neatly into my “Ideal Customer” profile, yet (now thinking it’s unlikely, but not impossible) – allow for more flexibility
- Allow for mistakes and double check everything
- Don’t get too hung up on the detail, because it will follow regardless, and I haven’t been right yet
- Create milestones that can be worked on in quiet periods (and don’t need too much attention when it’s busy)
- Include allowances for personal matters that might crop-up
- Make sure CPD is in there
- Write a marketing plan – apparently they’re quite different
Note: If anyone has more tips, items, revelations, experience they’d like to offer-up, there’s a comments box below. Thank you.
Now, to back-track slightly…
My business plan may well be hopelessly out of date, retrospectively unrealistic and a bit of a joke when I look at it now – but it was my plan. I wrote it at the beginning to help me on this journey and so far (broadly speaking) I’m still on track. Regardless as to whether each and every nuance of it was on the money or not, it was an important process to go through because it coalesced my thoughts and ideas into something physical and something tangible. I certainly didn’t refer to it every day; I haven’t even looked at it since I wrote it. But, I wrote it and that gave me a sound working knowledge of what was in it; including which paths to take and which direction to head in.
You don’t go to the shops without a list, do you?
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My Business in numbers
Nothings really changed from last week – which means in 6 months time I’ll be facing some tough times. Another reason to get my plans up to date, and get on with some business!
I was starting to beat myself up about not writing this yesterday, but I realised the reason I was putting it off was because I had work to do. Real paying work. Now there’s a thing! So, sorry to be a bit flaky, but it’s more likely that the blog will be published Sundays from now on, possibly even Monday.
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Dear Diary,
Early last week I got a call which went something like:
Him: How do you feel about doing my books for last year? It’s a rush job.
Me: How long would it normally take you?
Him: Well, hmmm.
Me: Is it something you would usually do yourself in one evening?
Him: Yeah, kinda.
(I did some quick sums in my head) Me: Ok, £60 all in.
Do you see what I did there? That’s right. Without even looking at the job I guessed at how long it would take (I assumed about 4 hours) and multiplied that by mates-rates to arrive at £60.
That evening I got an email with spreadsheets, bank statements and more, attached (last years too, for comparison). The parcel crammed with paper arrived in the post on Wednesday afternoon and I started straight away; and I timed myself.
In total, over the course of Wednesday evening, Thursday evening and Saturday morning, it took me 9hrs 10min. That’s bloomin’ accurate too – I paused the stop-watch (who owns a stop-watch any more? Obviously it was a smart phone app.) every time I made a cup of tea or rolled a cigarette (yes, I started smoking again) or, well, anything not directly related to the job in front of me.
The thing I will not do is go back to my friend and say, “Hey, listen – I made a mistake, it’s not £60 it’s closer to £140.” But what I am going to do is stop grasping at straws and saying the first price that comes into my head.
I’m not worried about it. I guess that this is one of the bits most people struggle with when they’re starting out. One in a long line of “bits” you have to eventually get comfortable with and get a feel for. Next year I’m quoting something a little more appropriate.
Learning curves – you gotta love ’em!
—
Thirty-nine pounds and ten pence.
The end of June was also the end of first trading quarter for client No. 1. That being the case it was time to issue my first invoice and receive my first official, bona fide, sole trader, self employed payment for services rendered. My fee arrived in the form of a cheque.
It’s a nice feeling to finally be getting some money in, rather than seeing it disappear out the door in dribs’n’drabs. The amount isn’t huge, but I think it is fair. They haven’t actually sent me any bookkeeping yet, the two hours I charged was simply for time spent on their affairs (general administration, preparing sales invoices etc.) over the last few months with some recharged items (postage, etc.) No doubt I spent almost double that actually staring at my PC figuring out “processes” that will work for them/me/us in every eventuality, so it’s easier for me (and them) in the coming season.
From tomorrow onwards, they’re both on a non-stop tour, putting up / taking down marquees at music festivals up and down the UK – for two months solid. Very best of luck to my No.1 clients – I hope the weather is kind!
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The day job.
Apparently I was a little short on details last week, but in my defence, I wrote and published the entire blog from my phone. To assuage any fears that I might be sinking or may have made too bold a move, trust me, I haven’t.
It’s fun, it’s busy, it’s exacting: I’m a personal assistant, and according to my peers, a highly organised one. Who’da thought?
It is a beast of a job. There’s a lot to it and it demands my constant attention when I’m there. I have to think ahead, plot, plan and scheme my way through the week. I have to manage my director and (slightly less so) the six managers who report to my director. The best thing about this role is that with all of the responsibility I seemingly have, there is actually none that I have direct accountability for.
It’s exactly the kind of job I’ve been looking for for a while. I report to just one person (who is probably the nicest person I’ve ever met at his professional level), my opinion on a variety matters are sought and valued. I’m flexible enough to work late when I need to, which in turn means I can claw that lieu time back when I’m busy as a bookkeeper (this week for instance).
Meetings and targets go round in cycles, and at this point I’m half-way through the second cycle since joining the department, so I’ve got a reasonable handle on what happens when, where and who’s allowed to know about it (discretion is a big part of the job). I’m given lots of mini-projects that nobody else has time to do and thoroughly enjoy doing them.
However… my director seems to be under the impression I’d eventually like to join the department as something more than a senior admin. To be honest, that’s not something I’ve really considered seriously. My sights are set somewhere else, I am after all a bookkeeper, with my own growing business. I don’t really have the disposition to be a manager for an organisation again. I’ve done that and have come to the conclusion that there are easier ways to earn a living than having lots of accountability without necessarily having the right corporate tools at your disposal to do the job right fist time. Other peoples politics – bah! – no thank you.
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Client update.
Client No. 2 still needs to get back to me with some missing information, so I can finalise his 2011/12 books.Then it’s getting him to sign off on them and doing the SA online. Fingers crossed there’s a rebate (I won’t know until I get the info back from him) – because that’s probably where my fee is being paid from – if not, having looked at his numbers, it’s probably going to end up being a payment plan of some sort. Still, a regular something is better than a one-off nothing, I guess??
Client No.3 still needs to sign and return his engagement letter – then I can sit down and start building his books on the new system. He’s transferring from Quickbooks to AccountsPortal. One of his gripes with the old bookkeeping was that he’d never really knew what was going on. He’d get a monthly P&L and Balance Sheet, with a (fairly meaningless) pie chart stapled to the back. If he had ageing creditors or debtors he wouldn’t be alerted to the fact until the monthly management reports turned up – and even then, he’d have to look hard to see if there was a problem. I’ve shown him AccountsPortal and the front page Dashboard had him sold straight away. I’ll be inputting weekly and encouraging him to check the AP dashboard at least once a week.
Client No.4: See Dear Diary, above.
Client No.5 – no, not yet. I suppose this should really be called the “Current Prime Prospect”. Haven’t heard anything since he called me out of the blue two weeks ago. I’ve sent a follow-up email since, but no reply as yet. However if clients No.2 and No.3 are anything to go by, this is how I see it happening: We’ve had a chat, he’s spoken to me and (I assume) liked what I have to offer over his current providers – now he’s thinking about it. I’ve never really thought about it like this before, but changing your bookkeeper must be like swapping banks for some people? Yes the bank you currently have are a pain in the arse and you really don’t feel you’re getting the value you pay for, but they are the devil you know.
It takes time to finally act on what has probably already decided by the time they picked up the phone and called. Luckily, I’m in no rush and have no plans to harass anyone into doing business with me.
And finally; I seem to be getting a lot of enquiries by email asking me to apply for bookkeeping jobs (three in the last month – is that a lot?). “Working one day a week for a company in blagh, specialising in blagh, with a monthly turnover of blagh and blagh members of staff. Please apply if you’re interested.” Now, I’d love to apply to one of these to see what goes on, but really don’t want to waste anybodys time – and I’d have to say no if I did (somehow) manage to get the work.
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My business in numbers:
New business cards this week: 0, Handshakes this week: 0, Inquiries this week: 0, Meetings this week: 0, Total Clients: 4
Total LinkedIn connections: 90, Klout score: 15
Twitter Following: 238, Twitter Followers: 163
After a nine week hiatus from blogging, I’m back. With shorter, worser written and less meaningful diatribes about hardly anything to do with bookkeeping.
Well, almost.
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Dear Diary,
Have you ever heard the saying, “May you live in interesting times”? I call it a saying, in some cultures it’s more like a curse.
About ten weeks ago I applied for and got a new job (within the same organisation), a promotion.
To tell the truth I was a bit worried about it at the time, and because I had 4 weeks notice to give to my old department before starting in the new role, I ditched bookkeeping for a short time and spent most of May revising for my new job. A necessary evil – and one I haven’t objected too.
The first day in the new job went well – although it was a bit or a trial by fire affair. The first week went ok, but I sensed that there was still more than I was being told.
The second week saw me gripping the tip of an iceberg and about to drift aimlessly into a shipping lane – but I was sort of learning how to steer this beast of a job.
It’s now the end of June and around the time I promised myself that I would pick up bookkeeping again and get back to blogging and study and so fourth.
But bookkeeping, it seems, wont be put aside so easily and once you’ve done a certain amount of ground work, it takes on a life of its own.
Quite out of the blue, about two weeks ago I signed up a new client. About a week ago I signed up another client; again, utterly unexpected.
This week – I’m on a promise from a third client, if I can make it to the appointment on time.
As an additional bonus, the very new and very demanding day job is going extremely well too.
—
Client update:
You all know about my first client. Their business is going very well, although there have been several set-up issues which have been frustrating. Nothing to do with the individual’s involved, but more centring around the distances involved between the three of us (two directors and me) and how best to communicate and get things done.
The business bank account set up has been a nightmare. Forms the length of which I was gobsmacked by, compounded by the requirement for me to complete the obvious bits, then post to Wales for one set of signatures, then posted on to London for the second set and finally posted to the bank for processing. Slow, onerous and irritating beyond belief.
It seems we might be finally there with the bank account – well done to all involved for keeping their cool!
Several months ago I met an entertainer in Brighton whilst on a BusinessLink workshop. If you think you remember who I’m talking about – yes, that’s the one.
Well, earlier this month his paper tax return forms arrived at his home and he panicked. I’ve never seen a paper return and I must admit that it does look like an impressive wad of paper (hardly anything compared to opening a business bank account though) – guess who he called? Amazingly my prediction of getting a call from a fellow BusinessLink workshop delegate came true. He signed my paperwork last week and I’m halfway through his receipts and invoices (he’s not done too bad at all, so far).
Quite apart from the fact he actually a nice guy, the great thing from my point of view is that he’s perfect referrer material. If I do a good job, he’ll definitely talk to others about me. Note to self: do a good job.
My third client is, again, someone I’ve spoken to before. It was a huge surprise to receive another call from this business as I thought I’d screwed this up months ago. But call again he did.
On Thursday afternoon I rocked up to his office and we started talking about his business; some background, the product, his life, my experience, recession, hard times, bookkeeping and then onto my fees.
All I’m going to say at this point is: I have a client, but he got me cheep. Too cheep really, but it’s a mistake I knew I was going to make, and I’m glad it was with this business, which has only a very few high value transactions per month + VAT returns each quarter.
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Networking update:
Haven’t done any. To busy and too tired. However, I do bump into people I know from networking semi-regularly, and there’s always a polite hello and an email follow up if I have a good reason for it.
Going on the above timescales, I wouldn’t expect any business from any networking activity I’ve already done for another four months or so. Of course that means that if I’m not doing business promotion now, I won’t be picking up any work in eight months time.
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Blog fail:
Without anything bookkeeperish to write about and knowing I needed to concentrate on other things for a time the blog took a back seat. Now with things settling down a bit (by settling down I mean furiously busy but starting to resemble something like a routine) I feel more able to pick up the reigns again. Who knows, next week I might be able to tell you I’ve started studying again.
See you next week.
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My business in numbers:
New business cards this week: 0, Handshakes this week: 1, Inquiries this week: 1, Meetings this week: 1, Total Clients: 3
Total LinkedIn connections: 90, Klout score: 15
Twitter Following: 238, Twitter Followers: 163
Last Sunday I hunkered down with nothing but a stack of receipts and a barrel of tea to compile my books for the year 2011/12. Now, I know the theory of this process quite well, but this is the first time I’ve actually done it on live paperwork.
You may remember that I’m an avid proponent of cloud accounting software, such as Accounts Portal, Kashflow and Xero; but these solutions charge a monthly fee, and even though the cheapest of them all, Accounts Portal, only charge around £5-8 pm (depending if you can find a deal or not), that is still a big commitment for a business like mine – i.e. one that hasn’t generated any income yet!
I really wanted to get deep inside the numbers anyway and so I opted to do it manually and be grateful for the exercise in first principles. I’d been thinking about doing it this way for a while so, the first step was to sort the receipts into date order and then to put them aside and spend an hour or two (or three) fiddling about with excel to create an analysed cash-book.
As well as a Cash a/c and Bank a/c, I included an Owners Loan a/c – as most of the purchases made this year didn’t come from any particular set aside fund – if I’ve needed something I’ve been purchasing it out of my own money and just keeping the receipt/invoice. I could have just submitted all of these receipts on an end of year expense claim but I didn’t think this was a particularly tidy way of doing it and my preference was to limit the expense claim to stuff the business can’t usually buy directly for itself; like mileage, some postage and using my home as an office, etc.
At the end of the year the balance of the Owners Loan a/c can be moved to Capital or Drawings as necessary.
Analysed out from there were 18 individual accounts under 6 general headings: Assets, Professional costs, Office costs, cost of Promotion/Marketing, Training and Misc.
It was really good fun. I know there were certain key things missing, like any income and bank recs. but even so I took the whole thing to ETB, made a few adjustments (found this which helped a lot with calculating prepayments) and posted the loss to the Capital a/c.
Bang-tidy!
There’s still a little bit of poking-it-with-a-stick to do, but the P60 has turned up already so there’s nothing stopping me from submitting my SA return, except for nerves. Got to do it at some point – hopefully next week.
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Client update
I had a call from my new clients yesterday. The long and short of it is that they’ve decided to create a Limited company rather than go with a simple partnership type set-up as I was expecting. The mum of one of the Directors is an accountant, and after taking her advice they had the company set-up and sorted in less than a day. I’m still doing the books, thank goodness, but I’ll be dealing with mum at year end and, I guess, each quarter when I produce the accounts.
After doing my own books and looking at the amount of transactions they expect to generate, I suggested that for the first year I produce their books manually using excel. Mrs.P (accountant/mum) seemed happy with this proposal as did the junior of the two directors – just need to get this signed off by the senior guy now.
It’s not as I was expecting this to turn out, but I’m happier knowing that there’s now an accountant at the HMRC coalface (as it were), and not little old me.
Of course this does mean that I now only have one client and not two.
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Dear Diary
After months of the the day job getting in the way of my doing some proper networking this Thursday I managed to steal the day off to attend my home-ground networking event.
This is a very comfortable thing to do now and it was excellent seeing faces I knew quite well. Relationships that I’ve been nurturing via LinkedIn and Twitter were quickly acknowledged and conversations were easy flowing. I even managed to talk to more than a few people who had made me nervous before – accountants among them – and got a few leads worth following-up.
It was an event of extremes too. On one hand I was cornered for about 20 minutes by someone who I met almost back at the very beginning (August last year). We chatting about how her business was going and she thanked me for the help/advice I’d given via Twitter – all pleasant enough – but she quickly found her stride and it became a full-on pitch at me – which, when I am clearly not looking to buy her product (I really do not need to loose weight at 6’3 and only 13st), I found to be a little rude. She’d already told me her husband did her accounts (not an accountant or bookkeeper BTW) and that she knew several other bookkeepers as well (subtext: bookkeepers who she would recommend over me), so where was the reciprocity? What was in it for me? I couldn’t get a word in.
On theother hand, after bluntly disentangling myself from the weight-loss fairy with a crowbarred, “We really should get on and do some networking, shouldn’t we?”, I started chatting to a photographer who does something a bit special and who set about showing the product to me using his iPad. It was a new take on an old idea and was very impressive, to say the least. I could instantly see the benefits and applications this would have for any number of businesses (sadly not mine though). We chatted for a long while and he invited me along to another networking event further along the coast.
I’ll be going along next month.
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C.P.D.
I’m motoring through Lv3 Manual much faster than I thought I would – something to do with not having come across anything new yet and being halfway through the first book already. I’ve flicked forward and just from glancing at the content, there’s nothing for me to get too worried about until well into the second book!? But maybe I’m wrong and I’ll turn the page this afternoon to a big, ‘orrible double entry monster! (not a nice image, sorry about that)
I’ll keep you up to date with this, but so far the City and Guilds Lv1 and Lv2 courses I studied included much more in-depth study than comparable levels from the IAB (and I suspect the ICB also).
I find it surprising that only the IAB are willing to accept these, what I now consider to be, excellent qualifications as exemptions for membership – maybe they are the only ones to have actually looked at the content of the C&G course in any detail?
Lucky for me 😉
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My business in numbers:
New business cards this week: 5, Handshakes this week: 3, Inquiries this week: 1, Meetings this week: 0, Total Clients: 1
Total LinkedIn connections: 90, Klout score: 26
Twitter Following: 176, Twitter Followers: 105
It’s unsurprising that when you put your name and phone number into the public domain there are going to be people other than potential customers who will take the opportunity to call you. Advertisers, web-site developers, marketing specialists and recently – phishing calls.
If you don’t know what phishing is, it’s where less than scrupulous people contact you and exaggerate a truth so much as to make it almost a bare-faced lie (sometimes it is just a very believable bare-faced lie) in order to convince you to part with your personal details, bank details or money. If this is done over the phone their aim is to spin you a yarn, getting you to agree with each of their very reasonable assertions, slowly building trust until it would seems rude of you to say no when they ask you the big question. I tend to lump scam sales calls in with phishing calls/emails as their aim is pretty much the same – to fleece you out of cash.
I’ve had two of these calls this week. One direct to my mobile phone from the “Metropolitan Community Support Magazine” wanting me to advertise and help get the little kiddy-winkies off the streets and one to my home line claiming I was breaking the law by not having a separate business electricity supply for my home office (I laughed at this last one until he hung up).
Being an ex-salesman (and a cynic) I’m always ready with some questions to ask every unsolicited sales call. If they’re genuine they’ll try and answer them, if not they become evasive/aggressive or hang-up abruptly.
“How did you get my number?”- “Can you email me the details?”
- “What’s your web site address?”
- “What’s your telephone number?”
- “What’s your business address?”
These are really basic questions, but you’d be surprised how they sort the genuine from the not so genuine. My advice is never buy or agree to anything on any cold call without first looking into the company by asking the above questions and then doing some follow-up research. Be on guard to anything that doesn’t ring-true. I suspected that any genuine police-backed magazine sales people would not use a term like “kiddy-winkies” when describing community projects in my area (that and I don’t live in the Metropolitan area). The way he swore at me before hanging-up kind of confirmed my suspicion.
What’s you’re favorite phishing/cold-call story?
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Dear Diary
For a short week it sure has dragged. This might be something to do with the fact that last weekend I spent most of my time glued the seat in front of my PC and didn’t really get a break at all. But as ever, it was worth it. Website V3 is almost ready to go live and all I’m waiting on is for my “go to IT/web guy” (we’ve all got one) to embed my new business blog into the site.
I’m reaching the end of my own technical expertise with webdesign and HTML, so V4 will likely need to be built by a specialist. Plenty of time for that though – V3 is pretty slick, taking all the design elements I liked from the previous two and including a few new ones I’ve seen and liked on other businesses sites.
I also got a letter from HMRC titled, “It’s time to complete your tax return”. Never done this before but I am looking forward to doing it, mostly for the experience. Obviously 2012-2013 saw me making a loss and I don’t expect to pay any tax – the HMRC “Income Tax Losses Toolkit” gives some explanation of how to deal with this but I’ve asked for a some help from the Bookkeepers Forum here. Hopefully it’ll become clearer with a real-world explanation.
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C.P.D. update
It’s been a full-on week as far as ongoing training is concerned. Landing with a thump on my door-step were the course materials I ordered before Easter. IAB Lv3 Manual, IAB Lv1 Payroll and module 1 (of 12) IAB Lv4 Personal and Business Tax.
It looks like a hell of a lot to wade through, but I’ve already started and the first Tutor Marked Assignment for Lv3 is completed and sitting on my desk-top waiting for me to go over it again with a fine-tooth comb before sending off to be marked. I don’t mind saying how good it feels to be flexing those bookkeeping muscles again 🙂
Lv1 Payroll was purchased simply as a reference material for the moment – Payroll is an area of which I know next to nothing other than was touched on in my C&G Lv2 Computerised Bookkeeping course (and that only showed how to make the relevant entries into the Journal). I’m aware I need to at least know the basics. Lv4 P&B Tax seems like an obvious next step too, and again this will be mostly for my own research.
I might have bitten off more than I can chew (my boyfriend certainly thinks so), but in reality I’m only studying towards an exam for the Lv3 course at the moment, with the other two being useful asides. The great thing about home study is that I can set my own pace.
This week also saw me sitting on a training course provided by the day job: Intermediate MS Word. Not a course I’d been looking forward to, especially as it landed on a day I would have preferred to attended my favorite lunching networking event. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. It’s MSWord, how hard could it be?
My preconceptions turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong – and I was stunned at just how much I took from this course. Obviously it was aimed for use within the confines of the day job, but I could instantly see how if would be useful for my business too. We covered in some depth: Tables, Mail Merge and Templates. Of course I knew about these things already – but the intermediate course delves into all of those extra buttons a novice tends to shy away from.
The biggest thing I learned this week: Don’t look a gift course in the mouth.
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My business in numbers:
New business cards this week: 1, Handshakes this week: 0, Inquiries this week: 0 Meetings this week: 0, Total Clients: 2
Total LinkedIn connections: 89, Klout score: 25
Twitter Following: 167, Twitter Followers: 99
At the day job this week I got a text from my partner, which said: “If you can speak can you call me re an enquiry ;0) x”
As you can probably imagine, I dropped everything and called straight back. My partner had taken a call on the home line (which now acts as my main business line) from a Mr.G and please would I call him back. There were no other details to give other than the name and a number.
Not wanting to seem too keen I waited half an hour before making the call. With the name and a vague idea of location from the STD code in the number I did some crafty Google searches and… drew a blank.
I did get excited for a moment when I searched LinkedIn and the name threw up a freelance product designer – but then I scrolled down to see he was from California. Probably not the same guy.
Because I was at the day job, and because my morning had involved taking lots of calls from “the general public”, I was in the phone-zone. I mention this because generally I’m less comfortable on the phone and it takes me a while to warm-up. Not sure why, but I just prefer it when I can see peoples faces (or write an email) otherwise I tend to forget things and jump quickly from point to point as each new one occurs to me.
Having spent some time a few weeks ago creating a client interview form, cobbled together from two examples on bkpr.co.uk, most the questions were still fresh in my mind even though I didn’t have a copy of the form with me. Of course I utterly forgot to ask questions like, “Are you registered for VAT?” and “Is your company Limited?” – annoying, but there you go.
The call went well, but I soon realized his aim was price. How much would I charge him? After months of networking and gradually coaxing people into making professional connections with me, I wasn’t prepared for this sudden change in pace – and I really should have been. Rather than say I would get back to him with a proposal, I tried to work it out on the hoof and plucked/best guessed some figures from thin air. If I’m honest I came across a bit wishy-washy on this last point. Not great.
What I did get was a list of regular transactions and business activity, the size of workforce and some background on why he was looking for a bookkeeper – and importantly, how he’d got hold of my number.
This was on Monday, and we agreed to speak later in the week. I called him Thursday lunchtime to see how his search for a bookkeeper was coming along and to wish him a Happy Easter, he replied that he’d done nothing else with the search and that we should talk next week.
15-20%, but definitely worth chasing up again next Friday if I haven’t heard anything.
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Prospect update
Remember Mr.X? Well, the new business format launches immediately after the Easter break. It’s been delayed a few times but there’s rumors of a deal they just couldn’t say No to being the cause of this latest launch-date postponement. Which intrigues me. (I can’t help hoping there’s room for little old me in amongst all this wheeler dealing.) There’s an ongoing dialogue that has built up between Mr.X and me so I’m looking forward to being able to congratulate him on his latest venture when the time comes.
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End of the year
Something else I’ve been looking forward to for a while: preparing my own accounts for self assessment. Until today I had only a rough idea of how much I’d spent on my business so far. After a quick totting-up the total comes to £547.91 and if you add mileage it comes to £630.20 – I thought it was going to be closer to £1200 – but of course I didn’t get to include the original two courses. Saying that, today I’ve spent another £425.00 on more courses which I can include next time round.
With my first clients on board I can start to claw some of this investment back 🙂
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Pricing advice from Business Link
Partly in response to Brigitte’s blog comment last week, partly because I’ve struggled with the same problem and partly because it crops up on the Bookkeepers Forum every so often: How do you set a price for your services?
The obvious answer is to look at what everyone else is charging and charge the same – but that’s not a great business model. In that situation one would probably end up undercharging and going bust quite quickly. From the outside looking in, you’ve no idea how they arrived at those prices.
It wasn’t until I read Brigitte’s comment last week that I recalled how this problem was solved at the (now no longer operating due to cutbacks) Business Link workshops. It went something like this:
“Calculate how much you need to live, eat and maintain the roof over your head, then add how much it will cost to run and grow your business (by week, month or year), then divide by the amount of hours you can reasonably expect paid work (by week, month or year). The figure that you’re left with is what it costs you to work. Actually costs you. This is your hourly rate. And don’t forget to round it up, so you can pay for the fun things in life – like a holiday? (eventually)
“Do your sums – it’s your business, your time and you set the price. If it turns out that the sums don’t add up and your hourly rate is way beyond what others are charging for exactly the same job, you need to look at your costs and reduce them somehow or be prepared to justify your price to prospective clients. If your hourly rate is way under what others are charging, double check to make sure you’ve included everything you should have (like tax) and calculate it again.”
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My business in numbers:
New business cards this week: 0, Handshakes this week: 0, Inquiries this week: 1 Meetings this week: 0, Total Clients: 2
Total LinkedIn connections: 88, Klout score: 25
Twitter Following: 158, Twitter Followers: 94
the bookkeeper's in town 