- Vidit Agarwal
- December 01, 2021
The very first question which may ponder in your mind before you start your accounting firm is how to start your own accountancy practice? These questions or obstacles may refrain you from starting your business. Many people are way talented in accounting but when it comes to start their own accountancy practice, they refrain because of the challenges or the obstacles they would encounter while going through the process of starting accountancy practice.
So to answer this question and to clear all the hindrances to start accounting firm, here are some top tips:
1. Qualification needed
There is always a question in mind that what is the degree which is required to start an accounting firm. To clear things out, if you are starting from scratch then there is no degree required to start accounting firm in UK but there are a variety of vocational courses or qualifications which you can attend. Even the people who had done college also need to take these courses.
The professional qualification courses that you can enrol in are:
- AAT- Also known as the Association of Accounting Technicians is the minimum qualification you need to start accountancy practice.
- ACCA- This another qualification that is Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, gives you the chance to become a qualified accountant and you can give your services to start accounting firm to the fullest.
- CAEW, CIMA and AIA are the other qualifications which you can attain to explore and to provide a wide range of services through your accounting firm.
2. Analyse Start-up cost
The one of the answers to the question “How to start your own accountancy practice” is what is the cost you are planning to invest to start accountancy practice? So, it is more important to consider the capital you are planning to start accounting firm. It is always advised that one should not go beyond his/her limits as well as should not go beneath the required investment. A suitable capital which is perfect for the business to start is always a good choice and decision. A business is always successful when it is continuously getting the right amount of capital and financial investments. The finance should always be clear towards the firm because it will give the right idea of how much capital is needed in the firm.
3. Making your Accounting firm stand apart from others
Yes, it is one of the top tips which can help you a lot to start accounting firm. Whenever someone is planning to start the business, the one thing which makes it special is how it is different from others. What are the factors which can make your accounting firm stand out? So, it is imperative to research and analyse that how can you make your accounting firm different from others. There is a simple notion that usually clients see what are the unique services our accountancy firm is providing others are not. So to start accountancy practice, the factors which make your accounting firm special should always be kept in mind.
4. Reach the clients
What is the target of your accounting firm? If you are confirmed about the target then is it the right target you are heading towards? The right market decides the future of any firm. So, one of the tips which should always be kept in mind to start accountancy practice is to find and mark the right market and clients to the firm. According to a fact, in UK, 99% of the businesses depend on the small accountancy firms. So it is easier to get a market for your accounting firm, but here also it is quite difficult to make the right choice of clients because if there are 99% of the businesses depend on small accounting firm then there will also be many small accounting firms working in the market. So, the question “How to start your own accountancy practice” is incomplete without the answer of the right choice of the market and the clients.
5. Get the Legal Nod
One of the most important factors to start accounting firm is to get the legal nod. As discussed above in the section “qualification” that the bodies like AAT, ACCA, CIMA are the ones which you can pursue to start accountancy practice. But other than these, it may require you to get the certificate to practice and to start accountancy practice.
So, the formal authorisation which allows the running of the accountancy firm is given by HMRC. Through them, you will get the agent code or commonly known as reference number for the authorisation of agent.
Data Protection regulations and Anti-money laundering regulations should be followed much precisely because to start accountancy practice you are going to keep the data information of your clients ,so you have to follow the industry guidelines and need to register with a supervisory authority.
6. Business insurance
Negligence at the accounting firms, copyright breaching (unintentionally) or unknowingly loss of documents or data could lead to the damage for the firm, so the insurance is one of those options which should never be neglected. Professional Indemnity Insurance is likely to be the key cover of your accounting firm. It gives the professional advice to avoid the damages which may occur in the future. So, to start accounting firm the insurance cover for the business is much needed.
7. Experience and Decision making
So the final and the most important tips to start accountancy practice is how strong you are in decision making and how much experienced and perfect you are in your business.
Several times a business collapse due to the lack of decision making or the bad decisions, so if the one is willing to start accounting firm, he / she should be firm and precise about his/her decisions.
Accountants should be experienced and perfect in their work and should firmly take the decisions in state of dilemma or the confusion.
Hence these above mentioned seven points are the best tips to start accountancy practice.
