Are you looking to become a bookkeeper in Australia? Even if you’re starting from scratch, this is a very achievable goal, available to anybody with enough drive.
Bookkeeping also opens the doors to pursue several other related and expanded roles, such as accounting or business advisory services. Many bookkeepers also open their own businesses.
If you wish to open your own business as a bookkeeper, you need to start somewhere!
So how do you become a bookkeeper in Australia? Let’s find out.
What qualifications do you need to become a bookkeeper in Australia?
In Australia, you can feasibly enter the bookkeeping profession without a qualification and instead learn on-the-job. You can always get a job in the profession, or work for a practice, and either intern or perform more basic bookkeeping tasks.
Whether you’re looking to become a bookkeeper in earnest, start an <online bookkeeping business from home>, or set up a traditional brick-and-mortar establishment, you’ll want to get certified and become an accredited and registered bookkeeper.
Bookkeeping qualifications and certification
While you don’t need a degree to become a bookkeeper, to become certified, you certainly need to undertake further learning and certification. For example, you need to be certified if you want to eventually become a BAS agent – which requires further work experience and education.
Certification also opens the door to other roles including:
- Payroll officer.
- Accounts administrator (accounts payable or accounts receivable).
- BAS agent.
So, if you want to open a bookkeeping practice, certification is a must. In Australia, offers a certificate in bookkeeping and accounting.
This is currently known as a ‘Certificate IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping’.
You can complete this certificate at several educational institutions around the country, including TAFE and universities. You can also complete this certification course online.
Internships, work experience and becoming a BAS agent
Once certified, if you want to be legally capable of preparing and submitting Business Activity Statements you also need to register with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB). To do this, you need to be able to prove your competence and perform 1,400 hours of work experience.
You can complete your work experience hours in a practice, internships, or even by volunteering.
Once accepted by the TPB, you’ll become a registered and certified bookkeeper who can legally become a BAS agent.
Then, after you become a registered BAS agent, to protect yourself against losses incurred by clients or claims of negligence or errors, you’ll also need to get Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Bookkeeping training
Bookkeeper training comes in a few guises. Firstly, you’ll undertake basic training and education in bookkeeping from your chosen tertiary institution when you complete your Certificate IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping.
This bookkeeper training will be part and parcel of the course leading to certification. However, you certainly don’t need to stop there.
As mentioned, you’ll also need 1,400 hours of work experience and on-the-job training to register with the Tax Practitioners Board and become a BAS agent.
There is also a wide range of courses available from TAFE and other tertiary institutions that will enhance your bookkeeping and accounting knowledge and provide further specialisation and employment prospects.
For example, you can additionally receive:
- Diploma in Payroll Services.
- Diploma of Accounting.
- Advanced Diploma of Accounting.
- Accounting Software Certification.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a plethora more financial, business, and accounting degrees, certificates, and diplomas you can pursue.
These additional courses can help you expand your bookkeeping or accounting services and become more specialised and niche. They will also help you start your own bookkeeping business.
Using bookkeeping software
The use of bookkeeping software is a modern necessity. Every bookkeeper is now increasingly required to become an expert in accounting software, payroll software, invoicing software, and software to manage expenses.
At the least, a bookkeeper should pursue education or certification in the most used accounting software suites on the market. This way you can expand your client market and serve a wider array of businesses – as their software tools will vary.
These days, most businesses will be using some form of accounting or bookkeeping software on a day-to-day basis to perform financial transactions. It’s imperative that you’re able to access this data to perform BAS, payroll, GST, taxes, create financial reports, and other bookkeeping and compliance tasks on behalf of your client.
You can also become a tutor on the subject, by training your clients to get the most out of their accounting or bookkeeping software.
You’ll also have to become well-trained in a variety of in-house software tools, that you’ll use yourself to perform your professional bookkeeping duties.
Duties of a bookkeeper
So, what are the basic duties of a bookkeeper?
- Producing financial statements and reports.
- Reconciling business accounts.
- Pinpointing and fixing errors in transactions.
- Maintaining financial records.
- Helping to generate invoices and bank deposits.
- Prepare and file business activity statements (BAS).
- Undertaking payroll duties.
- Recording financial transactions.
Skills needed for bookkeeping
So, what kinds of skills will you require to become a good bookkeeper?
- A methodical mindset.
- High attention to detail.
- Ability to work with data.
- Fluent in numeracy.
- Being highly organised and task oriented.
- The technical capacity to work with multiple software tools.
- Excellent problem solving.
- Client facing people skills.
You don’t have to possess all these attributes if you’re keen to become a bookkeeper, but you should be in a mindset to learn these skills if they are not naturally ingrained.
