Despite the name, a bookkeeper isn’t a librarian . . . but the notion isn’t far from the truth.
Instead of sorting shelves full of fiction, a bookkeeper is employed by a company to record and sort all of its financial transactions such as sales, purchases, payroll, accounts receivable and bill paying.
Such complex number crunching can seem mind-boggling. So, aside from reading blogs and checking out new vacancies on s1jobs, how do bookkeepers kick-start their career and keep up with all the new chapters in accounting?
Often the answer is through online training.
In fact, learning skills online is more popular than ever, with trainers able to cover virtual classrooms any time, any place, anywhere.
To find out more we met Elias (Al) Vanden Akker, of Ideal Schools, which has been helping bookkeepers pass their professional qualifications for 33 years.
How does it all work?
When I started the company 33 years ago it was what was known as Correspondence Study. Since then we’ve seen the rise of the internet and the ability to provide training by email as well as hard copy format.
We provide training for those interested in professional bookkeeping and give them the skills they need to pass their exams.
Since we cover material in both digital and paper form, they are prepared to work in any office environment.
We train on Sage 50 and Sage Payroll, the most commonly used software packages in our industry.
How do you tailor course material for those with different abilities?
We don’t tailor as such. The materials are taught to exam level for the AAT and the ICB (Association of Accounting Technicians and Institute of Certified Bookkeepers), so they are of a standard design.
Where we can help is by offering one-to-one tutorials and reframing the questions so that they make more sense to the student.
I’ve found that when English as a first language is an issue, the student will generally be very numerate – so they get to the required level quickly.
What advice would you give to anyone looking to start out in bookkeeping?
Firstly, they need to decide whether they plan to work for a company – usually an SME or smaller business, or to work for themselves as an independent bookkeeper.
Identifying a route enables bookkeepers to adapt their studies accordingly and achieve the right qualification for their chosen career path.
If they want to set up a practice, we give them as wide a skill set as possible.
We receive calls every week from someone in the world who wants to thank us for getting through the exams, or to say how they couldn’t have achieved their success without us, which is an incredible feeling.