Part of being an ICB Certified Bookkeeper is having a close relationship with their clients. As most bookkeepers deal with micro-businesses, having a personal touch is part of what makes ICB bookkeepers so great
Some bookkeepers even have clients who ring them up just to have a nice chat!
With 97% of UK businesses being small (with fewer than 50 employees) or micro-sized (with fewer than 10), this personal touch has proved successful. ICB Certified Bookkeepers submit 70,000 tax returns a year and are qualified and insured to carry out regular bookkeeping and VAT to a meticulous standard. Most bookkeepers also offer additional services search as payroll, self-assessment tax returns, corporation tax returns, annual accounts, cash flow forecasting, credit control and can help set up and run software such as FreeAgent, Quickbooks, Sage and Xero.
Most sole traders and micro businesses simply just need a bookkeeper to take care of their taxes. A lot of businesses that bookkeepers have as clients are small or micro-sized, meaning that they do not have to file as much information as medium and large companies. A micro-business for example may be eligible to claim audit exemption as a small company. ICB bookkeepers know these types of businesses and their filing requirements inside and out. ICB Certified Bookkeepers are excellent in their field. To become an ICB bookkeeper, they must have or study rigorous qualifications, and only once they have passed all the courses, can they go on to become an ICB Certified Bookkeeper.
For small and micro-sized businesses, bookkeepers can do a lot of the services accountants can do, at a lower price. However, bookkeepers work closely with accountants and can refer their clients if necessary.
Last month, we caught up with Chrissie Aplin C.MICB PM.Dip and Paula Veysey-Smith C.FICB to discuss the benefits of studying ICB Level 4 qualifications, and they had this to say about bookkeepers and small business tax:
Paula: ‘’We might be able to offer a better price than accountants, but we have our value. What is fundamental is that if we are doing the bookkeeping and we do the company accounts, there is a lovely flow. We know the business, we know the books, so it should be just a process of carrying on the process,’’
Chrissie: ‘’Some accounting firms work with bigger businesses, so someone who is just a sole trader who doesn’t have much bookkeeping and wants their tax returns done once every year, isn’t going to be high on their priority list. Whereas for a bookkeeper, it’s a bigger client.’’
If you are a small business owner and are pondering who is best to do your taxes, choose an ICB Certified Bookkeeper, who will make your taxes the priority, and give you the best results. By choosing an ICB Certified Bookkeeper, you can help take care of what you love doing: running your business. You can enquire about getting an ICB bookkeeper here.
