Accountancy online package/course?
Discussion
I know this is in the wrong section but someone on here might be able to help me before it goes off to some other place that is quiet.
After a fair few years of paying an accountant £500 bucks a year I have decided to bite the bullet and try to do it myself for next year. I am thinking about online courses or an online package that I could use that is idiot proof. I have always used the excuse to use an accountant as I have two businesses and a rental property going through the books but what with a baby on the way I would like to try myself and save a few pennies.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Many thanks
Ave
After a fair few years of paying an accountant £500 bucks a year I have decided to bite the bullet and try to do it myself for next year. I am thinking about online courses or an online package that I could use that is idiot proof. I have always used the excuse to use an accountant as I have two businesses and a rental property going through the books but what with a baby on the way I would like to try myself and save a few pennies.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Many thanks
Ave

Can't offer any recommendations personally, perhaps take an introduction to book keeping course etc from a provider such as Kaplan?
But my honest recommendation would be to leave it with your accountant at £500 pa. Difficult to say without knowing your figures, but I reckon the firms I have worked for/ know people at (largely top 50 practices) would want atleast double that figure.
There are a myriad of tax reliefs, exemptions, rules and nuances in relation to the UK tax system that I really wouldn't want to be trying to tackle it without knowing what I was doing.
But my honest recommendation would be to leave it with your accountant at £500 pa. Difficult to say without knowing your figures, but I reckon the firms I have worked for/ know people at (largely top 50 practices) would want atleast double that figure.
There are a myriad of tax reliefs, exemptions, rules and nuances in relation to the UK tax system that I really wouldn't want to be trying to tackle it without knowing what I was doing.
A basic "accountancy" course will not really cover taxation to any great extent. I would hazard a guess that the taxation work your accountant does for you is far more useful and beneficial than the accounting work he does.
Obviously, if you were to embark on a full blown professional accountancy qulaification (four to five years of intensive study with tough exams each year- at least), THEN you might be in a position to ditch the accountant - but you would need to keep up to date with the myriad of law and tax changes that take place every year - like he/she does, no doubt. Merely keeping up to date costs me around £1,000 per year.
By all means learn more about book-keeping and accountancy, but don't assume that it will make the use of an accountant redundant.
Obviously, if you were to embark on a full blown professional accountancy qulaification (four to five years of intensive study with tough exams each year- at least), THEN you might be in a position to ditch the accountant - but you would need to keep up to date with the myriad of law and tax changes that take place every year - like he/she does, no doubt. Merely keeping up to date costs me around £1,000 per year.
By all means learn more about book-keeping and accountancy, but don't assume that it will make the use of an accountant redundant.
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