Bureau Services
3 reasons why commercially savvy firms are opting for the Bureau Service:
Low monthly costs | Low startup costs | No Software or training costs
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 1 - Low monthly costs. If you were a busy firm with 20 staff and you isolated your cashier from the daily hubbub and constant interruptions suffered by a typical cashroom, you would find that your cashier would spend about 8 hours per week keeping your books up to date.
Our SOLAS trained cashiers, who are not subject to these distractions and are skilled in using QuickBooks, charged a firm of this size less than £700 per month for a complete cashroom service. This is significantly less than a cashier’s salary and you do not have to pay NIC or holiday pay. Nor do you take on the various other incidents of employment. Our cashiers remain Kirklands employees so you have no employer’s liability for them.
The savings for small and startup firms are even more compelling. Small firms will typically only need 1 hour per week. Getting a skilled cashier to work for only an hour a week is impossible. Inevitably the firm ends up paying for more hours than they need, pad the job to cover other non book-keeping tasks and, without noticing find themselves having acquired an employer’s liability for another employee.
With the Bureau Service you avoid all of this and only pay for the book keeping services you require. Several of our smaller firms are paying less than £250 per month for a complete cashroom service. Currently we look after 7 firms accounts. 5 are existing firms who could not find a replacement cashier locally and 2 are new businesses.
Click here for current users costs analysis. |
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Low startup costs. Setup costs from £500 + VAT. We supply everything. All you need is a broadband line and PC that we can upload your client ledgers to.
Part of the package is that you can tap into our skills and experience. We have been involved in helping numerous firms set up their accounting systems. We know what works and what does not. We also know what the Law Society, VAT, PAYE etc requirements are.
We will be happy to handle as much or a little of this as you would like so that you can get on with the priority task of making your business profitable. |
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No software or training costs. Accounting software tends to require a lot of training, accordingly the package of software and training tends to cost about £3,000 - £4,000. Over and above that you will usually need a powerful PC to run the software and there will also be compulsory annual maintenance charges of upwards of £500.
If you opt for the Bureau Service you have none of these costs. You get access to SOLAS trained cashiers who have the knowledge, skills and experience to deal with a problem in minutes that you might wrestle with for hours. Their current charge out rate is £45 per hour and you only pay for the time they spend on your accounts. |
Accounts Information for Posting
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| Depending on how many entries your firm has and the staff you have available to assist, there are lots of different ways in which you can provide us with the information to update your accounts (whether we manage your in-house accounts package or we are providing you with a bureau service updating your accounts offsite and returning the resultant information to you in an agreed format.) |
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| We realise that the cost (all quoted prices subject to VAT) of the bureau service will play a significant role in which of the following methods you choose, so keep the following in mind while reading through and this may help you to come to a decision:- |
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If you require an in-house accounts package, the setup charge is from £2,500 |
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If you do not require an in-house accounts package, but will be happier if we host your accounts on our own systems, the setup charge is from £500 |
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| After setup, |
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Any service or support that we provide will be charged hourly at £45 on a monthly basis |
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Travelling expenses are charged at 40p per mile (from our base in Perth) |
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Suggested methods to provide us with the information
Regular visits from us | Photocopying | 2 sets of cheque/pay-in books | Daily banking sheets |
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| Regular visits from us |
| Provided you can give us a desk to work at, we can also come to your offices where you will have all the information we require to update your accounts. We will bring our own laptop – you have no need for any in-house hardware. If you have a printer in-house that we can hook up to, we can print off the necessary reports there and then. Alternatively, we will send you back the printed reports required to comply with the rules on our return to our own office. We can also leave you with an electronic copy of client and firm ledgers (stored somewhere on your network) for reference. This will obviously require travelling time and cost, but may require less input from your member of staff responsible for sending information to us for input. |
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| Photocopying |
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Photocopy all cheques paid in and out (suggest bulk copy – i.e. copy 4 cheques onto 1 page) |
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Make a handwritten note of the details on the photocopy (we will let you know what details we require) and send it to us (by any method – fax, email, post, LP).
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We will update your accounts accordingly |
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| Work between 2 sets of pay-in books and cheque books |
| Depending on how often you wish your accounts to be updated, you work on a rotational basis between 2 sets of books – you will send us (by recorded delivery) one set and while that is being updated, you will use the other set until we return them to you. If this is a weekly rotational basis, it would work as follows:- |
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Week 1 |
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Use number 1 cheque book and pay-in book to record details of all cheques paid out and paid in for each bank account (use cheque stubs and pay-in stubs to note all details – we will let you know what details we require). |
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Each Friday after banking, send number 1 cheque book and pay-in book to us |
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Week 2 |
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We will receive book set number 1, update your accounts and return your books to you. |
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Meantime, you will use book set number 2 and send these to us the following Friday by which time you will have received book set number 1 back from us. |
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Week 3 |
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We will receive book set number 2, update your accounts and return them to you. |
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Meantime, you will use book set number 1 again and so it continues … |
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| With each set of books we return to you, we will also send you (or transfer to you via a remote connection to your office) a copy of your client and firm ledgers in an agreed format so that you will always have something onsite to refer to for information. For client ledgers especially, we would suggest having a copy of this data somewhere on your network for each member of staff to refer to. |
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| Complete daily banking sheets |
| We can also provide you with daily banking sheets to fill in manually or electronically, whichever you prefer. This will have headings of all the details we require and you would simply fill these in and send us the information either by email, fax, post or LP. |
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| Whichever of the methods above that you choose, this will provide us with basic day-to-day information but we will also require you to send us supplementary information on a regular basis:- |
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Copy bank statements/online banking printouts. (This will allow us to confirm that your accounts are giving you a true up-to-date reflection based on what has actually gone through your bank accounts.) |
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Copy sales invoices that have been raised, paid or cancelled |
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Details of any interclient transfers (transfers between 2 different clients – ie. One client of the firm purchasing a property from another client of the firm) |
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Details of third party cheques (photocopies are an easy solution, with handwritten details noted) |
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A note of any queries/adjustments to be made |
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If you have a member of staff that can be responsible for minimal cashroom procedures, once we have updated your accounts we will train them on what has to be printed out to comply with Law Society accounts rules and best practice guidelines.
Of course, all of these methods can be mixed and matched to provide a solution that will suit your firm. In many cases we can begin assisting you with your accounts and tailor procedures as we grow your systems with you. |
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| If you would like more information on this or any of the solutions mentioned please contact Graham Gibson or Lynne Moffatt. We will be pleased to arrange a face to face meeting or an online session when we can discuss the options with you and give guidance on which one would suit you best. |
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Accounting Assistance
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