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• # 73116
• Thu 21 Jul 2011 04:00 PM

I see posts here regularly about starting a practice and getting a first client and I know from experience how easy it can be to get discouraged so I thought I'd post up my own experience and let you make of it what you will.  It will either put you off completely or encourage you to keep going (I hope!).  Anyhow, for what it's worth, here it is.

Year One

15th August 2008 - How exciting! I've just formed my own limited company - Needham Accountancy Limited - and I feel great! I've spoken to my boss who is very supportive and has agreed that I will stay while I build up a clientele, even possibly allowing me to go part-time as Needham Accountancy Ltd gets bigger. I've been working as a bookkeeper / accountant in private industry for about 15 years and it's time to see if I can make it on my own.

10th October 2008 - Redundant! Credit crunch has hit us badly and this has led to my redundancy. However, nice boss has said that I can take my desk and chair and filing cabinet with me to help get my home office furnished. Also paid me a couple of months' wages even though I hadn't been there long enough to get actual redundancy.

13th October 2008 - Get four weeks temporary work through Hays Accountancy and decide to put it through the limited company. It's a start and at least I can raise my first invoice.

16th November 2008 - invoice my first "proper" client for a final VAT return.

December 2008 - hellish news. My best friend is diagnosed with cancer again. Prognosis not good. Going to be spending a lot of time caring for her and her children. However, also sourced my first big client (a local pub) due to very helpful neighbour who took my flyers and went out and distributed them to over 300 local businesses! Impressed by the "advertising" I subscribe to Yell.com.

March 2009 - Get another six weeks subcontracting work in London. However, my friend's illness is starting to take its toll. It becomes impossible to work full-time and be her carer so I take the decision to stop working for a while and care for her, while living off savings.

End-April 2009 - My friend has gone into a hospice. Her youngest boy (12) is staying with me and I can at least get some work done while he is at school.

31st May - 30th June 2009 - My friend has passed away (31st May). Organise the funeral and arrange for her youngest boy to move into my house. Convert office back into a bedroom. Workspace now very limited.

31st July 2009 - I end the year having had 8 clients, 3 of which were one-off jobs. Turnover is low but then again it's been a hellish year. Hey ho, things can only get better!

• BKN Book-keeper of the Year 2013!
  
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• # 73117
• Thu 21 Jul 2011 04:02 PM

Year Two

August 2009 - Very cramped trying to work from home without an office and with foster child on school holidays. Dogs are a big distraction too. They didn't mind when I sat in the office but they do object to me working in the living room. I start trawling the job vacancies on the ICB website and pick up another pub for my portfolio of clients. I decide at this point to try and persuade regular clients to pay me a monthly stipend rather that being invoiced for "bit" work. It helps their budgeting and my cashflow.

16th November 2009 - I've moved out of the living room and into a small office. It is not possible to work from home although I'm not really big enough yet to afford the rent on an office. Nor am I big enough to afford the part-time assistant I seem to have acquired. However, I'm increasingly out of the office and someone should use it! It's not big and it has no loo (thankfully we get on well with the hairdresser next door!) but it is on a busy main street and the window is great for advertising space.

November 2009 - February 2010 - pootling along picking up a few small or one-off clients on the way. Constantly worrying about money and reach a low point at the end of February when I cannot pay my assistant's wage. I reluctantly tell her that I'll have to let her go and pay her the money as soon as I have it. She insists on staying, borrows her wages from her Dad and tells me that she has a feeling that things are just about to get better. She's an optimist, that one, and her optimism helped me through that low patch.

March 2010 - And she was right to be an optimist! March saw me trawling the ICB site again and picking up three new clients. Pressure immediately reduced on the cashflow situation. Not rich yet but not prepared to give up yet.

April 2010 - Form a link with a local accountant who I've known for a couple of years. He is willing to subcontract small amounts of work to us.

31st July 2010 - We've pootled along for about three months with no new clients but we've made it to the end of our second financial year. I say "we" because my assistant is an integral part of the team. We have increased the turnover on last year by about 150% (not difficult when it's low to begin with!) and have set ourselves a target for a 62.5% increase for the coming year.

• BKN Book-keeper of the Year 2013!
  
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• # 73118
• Thu 21 Jul 2011 04:04 PM

Year Three

August - December 2010 - managed to pick up 12 new clients of varying sizes and needs and it's obvious that the name is getting out there. Was able to reward my assistant for her loyalty by paying for her to start her bookkeeping studies at college.

January 2011 - Wow! We completed 25 self assessment tax returns this month as well as keeping our usual monthly crowd happy!

February - June 2011 - Picked up another 7 clients in this period. Again, various sizes but mostly biggish. The cashflow situation is getting much easier. We can see that we will just about make our 62.5% increase on turnover and I'm able to take more out of the business myself, which is nice! We decide that we want a 40% increase on turnover next year. My assistant has rewarded my faith by passing all her exams with 100%. We persuaded our office landlord to extend our office and to give us our own loo so we can now swing a cat (if we had one!)

July 2011 - We are contacted by a firm in Yorkshire who wanted to work with us. What they are prepared to pay will enable me to make my assistant full-time. Our local accountant that we had links with is beginning to shut down his practice due to ill health and is gradually passing his clients on to us and we are involved in the UK start up of an already successful Irish company and this should feed us a sizeable fee. It looks like we've already made the 40% increase. Oh, and we eventually get a proper sign to put above our shop window!

So, we're at the end of our third year and things are definitely moving in the right direction. It's been hard work but it has been rewarding. We now have clients ranging from several pubs to a film production company and it breaks down into 16 limited companies, 9 sole traders and 30 individuals for tax returns.

We have depended on the loyalty of these clients and couldn't have done it without their faith in us as a new practice.

Onwards and upwards for our fourth year!

• BKN Book-keeper of the Year 2013!
  
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• # 73124
• Thu 21 Jul 2011 09:21 PM

Well Done Liz 

Really enjoyed reading your story. Yes it is hard work getting started, and sometimes you hit brickwalls, but as you've proved, it can be done.

I hope that I'm lucky enough to have a first employee as good as yours.

You should feel very proud of yourselves.

Victoria

 

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• # 73125
• Thu 21 Jul 2011 09:24 PM

Good diary. I like reading things like this - although I don't so much like the idea of doing one for myself.

• . http://www.smbps.co.uk/
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• # 73130
• Fri 22 Jul 2011 10:36 AM

What an encouraging story! Thankyou for sharing it Liz, I am just embarking on my studies with distance learning (payroll and bookkeeping), had the materials a year before life afforded me the time to start but am now underway and I have to say its lovely to read a story such as yours. What a star your assistant is!

All the best to both of you in your fourth and consecutive years!

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• # 73137
• Fri 22 Jul 2011 11:42 AM

Mad Liz,

I'm sorry to hear about your friend and I hope her son is settled now.
Thank you for sharing your diary.  It always assures us that we are
not alone with our individual struggles to get our businesses off the
ground.

Onwards and upwards
Lisa

• Lisa McMahon
  
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• # 73140
• Fri 22 Jul 2011 12:46 PM

Wow Liz, I am now so inclined to start a diary! Thanks for sharing.

Your strength facing such adversity (economic climate, friend illness and death, Redundancy)  is , truly, an inspiration.

Hope to see you again soon at London meeting

Kind Regards,

Nathalie

• Provide bookkeeping and virtual accountancy assistance service in English and French @nckaccountancy.
  West Essex Twitter:http://nckaccountancy.co.uk
  E-mail: info@nckaccountancy.co.uk
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• # 73367
• Mon 01 Aug 2011 01:37 PM

Hi Liz,

What a lovely diary, I was just thinking, right before coming accross your post, that I would like to start a blog for my journy as a student and becoming a self employed bookkeeper! It was refreshing to read, although quite sad too :-(

Well done for all your hard work and determination which has paid off in the long run, just proves what you can achieve if you stick with it. And what an amazing assistant too!

I wish you all the best with your business,

Ruth

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• # 73368
• Mon 01 Aug 2011 02:37 PM

Hi Liz, I really enjoyed reading your story - just wanted to wish you all the best and hope that your practice goes from strength to strength!! Best of luck for the future!
Sarah

• Sarah

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• # 73486
• Mon 08 Aug 2011 11:51 AM

Hi Mad Liz,

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your posts about starting your practice. As a newly qualified and new practice member it can feel pretty daunting. It's reassuring to read that a bit of persistence and patience does pay off.

• GINA WESTWELL
  VICTORY BOOKKEEPING SERVICES 
  www.victorybookkeeping.com 
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• # 73501
• Tue 09 Aug 2011 08:07 AM

Thanks for sharing that - and what a lovely person you are to have done so much for your friend - just sorry it didn't have a happier ending.

Hope your business continues to go from strength to strength! 

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