Self- Employeed or not?

s.hayes1234

Hi Everyone.
Im a qualified accounting Technician and haven't done my Acca Exams as of yet.
What I am wondering is can you be self-employed as an accounting technician?
if so, does that only involve book keeping, Vat returns etc. or can you complete annual returns?
What are my options?
Would love any input or advice.
I have small Children and would love the opportunity to work from home!
Thanks in Advance.

s.hayes1234

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

Hi Everyone.
Im a qualified accounting Technician and haven't done my Acca Exams as of yet.
What I am wondering is can you be self-employed as an accounting technician?
if so, does that only involve book keeping, Vat returns etc. or can you complete annual returns?
What are my options?
Would love any input or advice.
I have small Children and would love the opportunity to work from home!
Thanks in Advance.

Yes you can be self employed as anything you want if you are providing a service you are charging for. You just register with revenue and you can do your own book keeping vat returns and annual tax return. I do all these myself with no qualifications. Edit sorry you probably meant returns for other people.

s.hayes1234

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes you can be self employed as anything you want if you are providing a service you are charging for. You just register with revenue and you can do your own book keeping vat returns and annual tax return. I do all these myself with no qualifications

Do you File income Tax returns every year with no qualifications?
Do you not need a practising certificate?
I really taught that you had to have some forum of Acca Qualification!
Thanks!

Tenigate

You can do bookkeeping including preparing VAT and payroll returns and accounts to trial balance.
You can't prepare or sign off financial statements, or income tax returns even if the individual or company submit them themselves.

s.hayes1234

Tenigate wrote: »

You can do bookkeeping including preparing VAT and payroll returns and accounts to trial balance.
You can't prepare or sign off financial statements, or income tax returns even if the individual or company submit them themselves.

So Basically I would be able to do Book Keeping, and payroll?
If I do a vat return am I able to sign off on it? or put it up on revenue?

Tenigate

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

So Basically I would be able to do Book Keeping, and payroll?
If I do a vat return am I able to sign off on it? or put it up on revenue?

Just know that you can do vat, payroll, trial bals, bank recs, etc..

I'll leave that reply to someone else as i haven't used the online system (a long time ago used to prepare paper vat returns). I'm assuming there is a stage where the owner of the info signs it off electronically but I don't know.

Avatar MIA

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

So Basically I would be able to do Book Keeping, and payroll?
If I do a vat return am I able to sign off on it? or put it up on revenue?

Basically you don't need to be a qualified accountant to do bookkeeping work, completing tax returns would fall under the same. You do need to apply to Revenue for a TAIN (Tax Advisor Identification Number). All you need then are clients.

Somewhat strangely (although I understand the logic) you may be precluded from doing this work by your professional body once you sign up with them.

s.hayes1234

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Basically you don't need to be a qualified accountant to do bookkeeping work, completing tax returns would fall under the same. You do need to apply to Revenue for a TAIN (Tax Advisor Identification Number). All you need then are clients.

Somewhat strangely (although I understand the logic) you may be precluded from doing this work by your professional body once you sign up with them.

What do you mean by precluded? As is I wont be aloud?

s.hayes1234

Tenigate wrote: »

Just know that you can do vat, payroll, trial bals, bank recs, etc..

I'll leave that reply to someone else as i haven't used the online system (a long time ago used to prepare paper vat returns). I'm assuming there is a stage where the owner of the info signs it off electronically but I don't know.

Thank you for your help.

Avatar MIA

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

What do you mean by precluded? As is I wont be aloud?

Nope. Conditions of signing up with a professional body.

s.hayes1234

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Nope. Conditions of signing up with a professional body.

Im sorry I don't quite understand what your saying ?

Avatar MIA

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

Im sorry I don't quite understand what your saying ?

If you sign up to being chartered accountant (CAI or ACCA) or CPA (even a trainee) you cannot practice without a practicing cert, which precludes a lot of work.

s.hayes1234

Avatar MIA wrote: »

If you sign up to being chartered accountant (CAI or ACCA) or CPA (even a trainee) you cannot practice without a practicing cert, which precludes a lot of work.

What about IATI ?

Avatar MIA

s.hayes1234 wrote: »

What about IATI ?

Not sure, was never part of them, but I don't think they issue practicing certs, so you should be fine (I think).

s.hayes1234

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Not sure, was never part of them, but I don't think they issue practicing certs, so you should be fine (I think).

Thank you very much you were really helpful!

L.Jenkins

Avatar MIA wrote: »

If you sign up to being chartered accountant (CAI or ACCA) or CPA (even a trainee) you cannot practice without a practicing cert, which precludes a lot of work.

I'm sure you could practice, but not under the banner of CPA, ACA, ACCA etc without their certified course of studies, experience and relevant course to obtain said Practice Cert.

I know the conditions for the CPA are fairly stringent to obtain one, so if I go out on my own without meeting said conditions, I cannot then say I am a CPA Certified Accountant. I could only say I am an Accountant.

If I'm wrong, let me know.

Avatar MIA

L.Jenkins wrote: »

Avatar MIA wrote: »

If you sign up to being chartered accountant (CAI or ACCA) or CPA (even a trainee) you cannot practice without a practicing cert, which precludes a lot of work.

I'm sure you could practice, but not under the banner of CPA, ACA, ACCA etc without their certified course of studies, experience and relevant course to obtain said Practice Cert.

I know the conditions for the CPA are fairly stringent to obtain one, so if I go out on my own without meeting said conditions, I cannot then say I am a CPA Certified Accountant. I could only say I am an Accountant.

If I'm wrong, let me know.

No, and I think the logic behind that is that even if you don't explicitly say it it doesn't mean you are not.

ACCA took this type of thing very seriously, and you see cases where students/members were fined / struck off for breaking the rules.

ACCA had an exception, where you could do it for family and maybe charity, but the max you could charge was £50. Something like that.

s.hayes1234

L.Jenkins wrote: »

I'm sure you could practice, but not under the banner of CPA, ACA, ACCA etc without their certified course of studies, experience and relevant course to obtain said Practice Cert.

I know the conditions for the CPA are fairly stringent to obtain one, so if I go out on my own without meeting said conditions, I cannot then say I am a CPA Certified Accountant. I could only say I am an Accountant.

If I'm wrong, let me know.

I haven't gone as far to do my Accounting exams yet anyway. im only a qualified accounting tech. I know im entitled to use the letters IAIT after my name but im really not sure if it stops me practising on my own. My real question was what kind of self employed work can I do ? Can I submit annual income tax returns? or is it just Book keeping, vat, management accounts etc?

dbran

Hi there

It is pretty clearly set out in the fact sheet below.

http://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-members/2012/2012p/PC_factsheet.pdf

As a student member of the ACCA you are NOT allowed to hold yourself out to be in public practise, even if you do not refer to your membership of the ACCA and call yourself "Accountants". Public practice is basically the completion of a document that you would reasonably expect a third party to rely on such as tax return, set of accounts etc. You may complete bookkeeping work which would comprise preparation to trial balance stage, payroll. You may complete VAT returns so long as there is no element of "advice" being given eg the correct rate to apply, the correct VAT treatment of an invoice etc.

The last thing you want is to be hauled up in front of a disciplinary procedure and disqualified after you have done all that hard work in qualifying as ACCA. And that is exactly what may happen especially if things go wrong with a client and they report you.

dbran

dbran

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Basically you don't need to be a qualified accountant to do bookkeeping work, completing tax returns would fall under the same. You do need to apply to Revenue for a TAIN (Tax Advisor Identification Number). All you need then are clients.

Somewhat strangely (although I understand the logic) you may be precluded from doing this work by your professional body once you sign up with them.

As a member of ACCA you are not allowed to get a TAIN as that suggests that you are in public practice.

And that in my opinion is the reason why the whole situation is just crazy as an unqualified person who has no qualifications or experience who is not a member of any accountancy body can set as an accountant with impunity.

dbran

Avatar MIA

dbran wrote: »

As a member of ACCA you are not allowed to get a TAIN as that suggests that you are in public practice.

And that in my opinion is the reason why the whole situation is just crazy as an unqualified person who has no qualifications or experience who is not a member of any accountancy body can set as an accountant with impunity.

dbran

But, it's not Revenue that's disallowing members/students from getting a TAIN. It's their own professional bodies. Revenue don't care.

And ACCA (and other bodies) will be fine with you getting a TAIN if you have a PC. I can see the logic.