Ok so you’re either thinking about starting your own business or have already got it up and running and have managed for a while to get by managing your own books by yourself and are now finding all too much to keep on top of the paperwork.
It is an all too familiar position; most people have found that they keep telling themselves that they do it tomorrow or later or at the end of the week, and before you know it your deadline is upon you and your all stressed out to get it in on time, It’s time to get help!
Affordable professional help
Being a small and/or at home business owner are you tired of the lack of affordable professional help available? So you need to find professional help whom are able to offer such things such as:
· Free and up to date accounting advice
· Realistic solutions to card payments and cash flow issues,
· A good supply of Bookkeeping/Accounting forms for the small business readily available
· Advice with managing online card merchant accounts.
· What sort of Accounting software is suitable to your type of business
· Tools & Resources helpful to your Business, those that are current and up to date, to know today, what others will find out tomorrow.
· Where you can access free spreadsheet bookkeeping templates
· Who run forums where Like Minded people, like you, can discuss online business issues that are not just financial issues?
· That have links to other useful sites
· Where you can also advertise your own business.
· The ability to Use the latest of modern technology to effectively manage your accounts from the other side of the country without massive Technical costs to your or themselves.
Certified And Accredited
Bookkeepers:
It is important that you find a bookkeeper that is certified and accredited Accounting technicians. There are many governing bodies but the two most, well known governing bodies are:
1. The AAT (association of accounting Technicians)
o The Association of Accounting Technicians, or AAT, is an accountancy organisation with over 108,000 members worldwide. The AAT is a technician level qualification which entitles those who have completed the exams and obtained relevant supervised work experience to call themselves associate accounting technicians. The AAT is based in London but there are branches all over the UK and the rest of the world.
Professional recognition
The body is sponsored by four of the UK chartered accountancy bodies. These are:
· The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA);
· The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW);
· The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS); and
· The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).
AAT versus CAT (Certified Accounting Technician)
· The one UK chartered accountancy body which does not sponsor the AAT is the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). This organisation used to be a sponsor of the AAT but broke away in order to form a rival body which offers the Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) qualification. The ACCA implemented this policy as it wanted a technician level qualification which followed the same business model which it did, ie. one with a global presence.
· Whilst the AAT is recognised as a professional qualification by the Department of Trade and Industry in the UK, the accountancy professions there, the USA and existing and former British Commonwealth countries, CAT is not. CAT is a professional academic qualification within the ACCA examination structure. AAT is both a recognised academic and vocational qualification in its own right.
2. The ICB (Institute of Certified bookkeepers)
The Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (”ICB”) is a not for profit organisation that promotes and maintains the standards of bookkeeping as a profession, through the establishment of a series of relevant qualifications and the award of grades of membership that recognise academic attainment, working experience and competence.
Started in the United Kingdom in 1996 the ICB has grown rapidly and now has a world wide presence in over 50 countries.
The Institute’s objectives
· to promote bookkeeping as a profession
· to enable bookkeeping to gain recognition as an integral part of the financial profession
· to promote training in the principles of bookkeeping
· to develop personal study skills and improve confidence of those persons who undertake a course in bookkeeping
· to enable the achievement of a qualification, which may be used to enhance prospects for progression into higher levels of study
· to improve the career prospects of its members
The ICB is the largest bookkeeping body in the world, with over 150,000 members and students. By offering career advice and support to bookkeepers the ICB has helped many throughout the world set up a successful practice.
You cannot buy your way into any of these associations, like most trade governing bodies, but have to take stringent examinations and also to keep memberships you must also keep up your CPD (Continual Professional Development), and also have current professional and Indemnity Insurances.
A professional Bookkeeper should be able to answer most of your day to day financial questions, before you need to start thinking about a Chartered Accountant, which is when the price will jump up dramatically. They should be able to process personal tax returns and give you basic help with corporation tax calculations.
In most cases a Bookkeeper should, if unable to answer your questions, then know exactly where to find the answer or to put you in touch with the right person.
Accountants:
Now be careful here as there are many people out there that can call themselves an accountant, but what you are really looking for is a chartered accountant. There is often some misconception as to the type of accountant needed, or indeed that there are more than one type and below are just two of the main types of Chartered accountants there are:
1. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is a British chartered accountancy body with a global presence that offers the Chartered Certified Accountant (Designatory letters ACCA or FCCA) qualification worldwide. Since Chartered Certified Accountant is a legally protected term, individuals who describe themselves as Chartered Certified Accountants must be members of ACCA and, if they carry out public practice engagements, must comply with additional regulations such as holding a practising certificate, being insured against any possible liability claims and submitting to inspections.
Continual Professional Development – Before 2005, Continual Professional Development (CPD) was mandatory only for holders of practising certificates and insolvency licences. From 2005, ACCA is extending mandatory CPD to all members on a phased basis:
2. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is a UK based professional body offering training and qualification in management accountancy and related subjects, focused on accounting for business; together with ongoing support for members. CIMA has two grades of full membership:
o Associate – designated by the letters ACMA
o Fellow – designated by the letters FCMA
To be admitted as an associate a candidate must have:
o completed a period of qualifying practice of at least three years, documented and signed by appropriate witnesses
o Been proposed and seconded for membership by two individuals who have direct experience of the candidate’s work experience but who do not need to be members of CIMA or even accountants.
To become a Fellow a candidate ACMA must, in addition, have appropriate experience at a senior level.
Summary
It is very important when you look at any of these professionals to view their portfolio and testimonials to see what experience they have in what industries. For example a bookkeeper or an Accountant may have worked primarily for manufacturing companies and yours is an online business. Although they will understand the principles, it will take them a lot longer to understand your business and also may not have the contacts and resources easily available to hand that is relevant to your business.
So before you go head long into picking that all important Professional help, take the time to interview & research them just like you would with an employee or a supplier and ask for some testimonials from their current customers that are of a similar industry to yourself. Try to get it right 1st time. But don’t worry if you don’t, because you can always change!
Author: Monique Davis MICB CB Cert. MAAT & CIMA Student
Website: http://www.davisbusinesspro.co.uk Helping Your Business Grow!
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India – a mysterious country rejects rules and has an aversion to change; India that is a subcontinent with a 5000-year old history. A civilization united by its diversity which has made it a land of great liberties. But don’t be disorientated but the big number of temples that remind you of the spirituality of Indians. The new India they are usually referring to the shiny new offices and businesses parks on the outskirts of the cities. For the tourist India can be overwhelming, and it has certainly become a more stressful place to visit.
The best travel place and things to do in India
Delhi, India
Delhi is the symbol of old India and new . . . even the stones here whisper to our ears of the ages of long ago and the air we breathe is full of the dust and fragrances of the past, as also of the fresh and piercing winds of the present.
Bangalore, India
Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka. With its salubrious climate, tree-lined avenues, trendy, yuppy downtown, and the software flood, Bangalore truly offers one a picture of striking contrasts. There are old beautiful bungalows, parks, hallowed places of worship and traditional market-places on the one hand, balancing with fashionable shopping malls, pubs, new architectural wonders and modern looking religious centers on the other. Check out what you like here and just get going!
Goa, India
The churches and convents of Goa, the former capital of the Portuguese Indies – particularly the Church of Bom Jesus, which contains the tomb of St Francis-Xavier – illustrate the evangelization of Asia. These monuments were influential in spreading forms of Manueline, Mannerist and Baroque art in all the countries of Asia where missions were established.
Mumbai, India
Ever since the opening of the Suez Canal in the 1860s, the principal gateway to the Indian subcontinent has been MUMBAI (Bombay), the city Aldous Huxley famously described as “the most appalling . . . of either hemisphere”. Travelers tend to regard time spent here as a rite of passage to be survived rather than savored.
Chennai, India
Chennai is a seaside (and a major port) city where the sea is a rhapsodist blue, hugging the second largest beach in the world. It has many monuments and temples exemplifying the contributions of the Chola and Pallava Dynasties to the ancient Dravidian civilization. Chennai also has the ancient churches and Cathedrals pointing to British heritage of 150 years.
Jaipur, India
A flamboyant showcase of Rajasthani architecture, the Pink City of JAIPUR has long been established on tourist itineraries as the third corner of India’s “Golden Triangle”, just 300km southwest of Delhi and 200km west of Agra. Though the “Pink City” label applies specifically to the old walled quarter of the state capital, in the northeast of town, exuberant eighteenth- and nineteenth-century palaces are scattered throughout the whole urban area.
North Bengal
If we have to be poor, we prefer being poor in a place like this. Poverty here is poetic and picturesque, not heart-breaking, nor revolting as in the slums of Bombay or Calcutta. This is about the villages in the Himalayans. And indeed, what can be more romantic than meet the New Year in a cottage in Himalaya Mountains?
Kolkata, India
One of the four great urban centres of India, KOLKATA (CALCUTTA) is to its proud citizens the equal of any city in the country in charm, variety and interest. Like Mumbai and Chennai, it is not ancient, its roots lying in the European expansion of the seventeenth century. The showpiece capital of the British Raj, this was the greatest colonial city of the Orient.
Agra, India
The splendour of AGRA – capital of all India under the Moghuls – remains undiminished, from the massive fort to the magnificent Taj Mahal. Along with Delhi, 204km northwest, and Jaipur in Rajasthan, Agra is the third apex of the “Golden Triangle”, India’s most popular tourist itinerary. It fully merits that status; the Taj effortlessly transcends all the frippery and commercialism that surrounds it, and continues to have a fresh and immediate impact on all who see it.
Varanasi, India
The great Hindu city of VARANASI, also known as Banaras or Benares, stretches along the crescent of the River Ganges, its waterfront dominated by long flights of stone ghats, where thousands of pilgrims and residents come for their daily ritual ablutions. Known to the devout as Kashi, the Luminous – the City of Light, founded by Shiva – Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. It has maintained its religious life since the sixth century BC in one continuous tradition, in part by remaining outside the mainstream of political activity and historical development of the subcontinent, and stands at the centre of the Hindu universe, the focus of a religious geography that reaches from the Himalayan cave of Amarnath in Kashmir, to India’s southern tip at Kanyakumari, Puri to the east, and Dwarka to the west.
Sikkim, India
A place with astounding valleys and spectacular mountains, where you lose mobile connection along with the sense of time. In author’s opinion, if Elves and Hobbits can exist anywhere, it has to be in North Sikkim. Now I know where to look for them
Kerala Zone
Call the GOD’s gift place; remember Columbus and the Spice Islands? – That’s in Kerala! It’s one of the most beautiful smelling cities in India. The language is Malayaam, which sounds like if you rolled your tongue indiscriminately and said “blublub”. The writing constitutes of what looks like a lot of curly ‘m’s and ‘w’s. So nice. Coconuts? Everywhere! Overall? Very fine!
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