If you’re thinking about setting up your own business, or creating a small practice on the side, start as soon as you can – clients are always on the move, remote working is the new norm these days and the cloud is more accessible than ever. Being Pioneers in Cloud Accounting, we are able to support you in the ways that you need, straight off the bat.
Setting up your own accounting business can be hard work, but that’s the price for working for yourself! Being your own boss is not easy.
To guarantee success you need a steady stream of customers. Still, with continued economic uncertainty, it can be difficult to get clients to sign up long-term- unless you show value!
If you’re smart, resilient, and focused, this time of year is the best time to set up a digital shopfront and open a practice.
Why? The UK tax regime ensures that November through February is when people are most likely to be online searching for a new accountant.
Right now, it’s likely to be because they need an accountant urgently having failed to prepare for the self-assessment deadline on 31 January 2022.
After the self-assessment deadline, it’s more likely to be because they’ve had a bad experience with their accountant and want to make sure they’ve got someone better lined up for next year. This puts you in a better position, as you want as much time with your clients as possible to understand their needs and requirements better.
Either way, there’s absolutely no reason the accountant they find shouldn’t be you and your new side hustle.
Here are the four Cs for launching a new business venture:
Cloud
We can understand why some established Practices might struggle to cut the cord and ditch the desktop but new firms have no excuse.
Use the cloud for accounting, client management and office software and your solopreneur or partnership journey will be smoother.
This not only makes you compliant in terms of accounting and future initiatives in line with HMRC but access to data.
You can access data and client records wherever you are, even if that’s in the office car park or on holiday!
Control the cost – Rules to costings
Bottom line software shouldn’t eat into your profit.
Be smart with your software purchases as it can help you pass savings onto your clients and thus win them over from the competition. In today’s climate, the total software tech stack should cost you no more than an average of 10%-15% of your total revenue.
Compliance
When trying to build a reputation from scratch, you need to get the basics right from day one. Or as we say at Capium, you’ve got to “do the needful”, without compromise.
Get yourself affiliated with a trustworthy industry body – there are quite a few to choose from! Get insurance and make sure you’re compliant with things like anti-money laundering legislation.
Just because it’s a sideline project, you can’t afford to mess it up or be half-hearted about anything: clients need to feel you’re serious. Who knows! This might end up being your full-time gig one day.
Connections
Focus on your client – who are you targeting and why is your Practice different to, and better than, the competition? Is there a need for your services in your group of connections already? Why not put some feelers out there?
Focus on how your services are unique and why they should go with you instead of another Accountant or bookkeeper. And no – a lower price point is not always the answer!
Contact Us
Capium provides an ecosystem of cloud-based accounting services – which are MTD-compliant! With clients seeing up to 70% return on investment in our software. This could be you – book a demo now to start your journey.
