“Life is like Accounting – Everything Must Balance”
When stepping into the heady world of business, one of the many factors to consider is nabbing oneself a decent accountant.
However, with a background in policing this was not an area I was too familiar with.
I launched my own business in 2020, following redundancy from my previous (non-police) job, and had decided that self-employment that involved a laptop and my imagination would be a good place to start. Writing has long been something that I have enjoyed following my time at university and an introduction to the writer’s club there.
Wordsbyredkite took off in the April of that year and I literally wrote for a single client who was a wedding cake designer pre-lockdown and a brownie maker following the collapse of his diary.
Get a Good Accountant!
I had taken advice from a couple of friends who had their own businesses and ‘get a good accountant that you can understand and like,’ followed by ‘QuickBooks is a life-saver as well as ‘use Starling Bank because it is incredibly easy’ seemed to be the three stand-out lines.
I took the second two literally but being married to someone who does their own accountants and believing that it couldn’t be that hard I ignored the advice about the first.
I am not necessarily what you would call savvy with cash and initially having money paid into my new ‘Starling business’ account kind of went to my head. I used the money to pay for anything from a new item of clothing to writing courses, food purchases, IT fees and treats for my daughter to travel expenses. It all came out of the same place and while I suspected that maybe it shouldn’t I had neither the knowledge nor self-restraint to do anything about it.
Then I met Dan from D&K Accounting.
While I talked about RedKite, I let slip my heinous ways and was rewarded with a suitably timed grimace that conveyed neither shock nor surprise. Simply understanding the fact that I was not a trained accountant. Over coffee, we chatted, and it soon became apparent that this bloke knew his stuff, while not taking himself too seriously and would be someone who I could call on for advice.
Okay, so I can be impulsive…
Eccentric is often a word used to describe me and I do have an impulsive nature – my writing often reflects this, but Dan took this in his stride, talked to me in an understandable manner, i.e., plain English and I felt that he was someone I could not only trust but also like.
Over more coffee he went through some basic dos and don’ts, explaining how I needed to start to use the personal account for my, well personal stuff. The fact that I needed to pay myself a wage and direct profit away was a lightbulb moment – and has consequently seen me making far more use of the excellent ‘Spaces’ that Starling provides.
If you don’t have Starling, then I heartily recommend that you pop that on your to-do list!
Setting up as a client was simple and easy. I received an email from D&K with my details and then a link to the QuickBooks site where I logged in and was taken straight to the part I needed. This was also easy, remember I am no tech queen, so the simpler the better if my attention is to be retained.
The fact that D&K has access to my QuickBooks account has put paid to my frivolous spending – I feel a tad grown up – and am making conscious decisions each month regarding where and how I use my income. I have also topped up that Tax and NI Space.
I have chosen to pay by direct debit monthly, from my business account obvs, so I know that I won’t have to worry about fees just after Christmas. I can think about jetting off on holiday instead.
Overall, my experience with D&K Accounting has been as near too seamless as one can get – if you take into account the fact that the client is fairly clueless when it comes to anything remotely growd-up!
Oh, and they sent this wonderful box of biscuits when I joined them – which were lovely to receive and a joy to eat!
WordsbyRedkite 