Caroline joined the Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise in 2012. Having already accomplished so much in her career as a chartered accountant, she wanted a challenge and a role that she was in complete control of.

Caroline joined the Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise in 2012. Having already accomplished so much in her career as a chartered accountant, she wanted a challenge and a role that she was in complete control of.

Caroline’s business has grown quickly, and within 10 months of her starting she was able to take on her first sub contractor working on a part-time basis. After 16 months her business was still expanding and she decided that she need someone full time to help her. She had researched various routes available to her but at a networking group when she announced that she was needing staff she was put in touch with the local college who had students studying Accountancy but were looking to combine their studies with work through the governments apprenticeship scheme.  “I really love the idea of nurturing a young person and helping in their education and personal development. I know that Jasleen, my apprentice, is getting a really good grounding in bookkeeping and this will only be beneficial in her future career” says Caroline. Taking on an apprentice means that Caroline has been able to take on a lot more client work, meaning that the turnover of her business has increased. She has also been able to delegate some administration and other work to her apprentice to develop her knowledge base such as raising sales invoices, credit control and marketing through social media.

“In 5 years’ time I want to have created a truly management style business where I am working on it and not in it. This will mean having a team around me whom I can trust. My time will be freed up to focus my effort on marketing so that the business can continue to grow and provide a source of work and income for me and my team”.

Caroline’s secret to success

A lot of hard work and determination. Seek out as many networking opportunities as possible, especially in the early
days when you have more time on your hands. Build up good relationships with local accountants. Get a good team
around you and invest time in them.

Business Challenges
“Missing the security of having a steady salary every month has been the most challenging part of my experience in running my own business. However, this has only spurred me on to grow my business as best I can. Also, it was quite scary for the first few months before getting clients on board. However, I took the advice from HO and my networking contacts and persevered with my marketing plan and it eventually paid off. In any case, all of the positive aspects of working for myself more than make up for any difficulties I have faced”.

Advice for people looking to take on a Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise?
Rosemary Bookkeeping’s training and support package is really well structured and relevant. My 12 week launch program was great because it involved a very structured program of activities, including weekly call ins from HO, webinars to watch, software training, networking suggestions, all sorts of activities to make sure that I was developing and marketing my business as fully as possible. In the early stages, I would advise people to do as much networking as possible. Don’t give up too quickly if your current groups aren’t working for you. I would say you need to attend a networking group consistently for six months to really get your name known. Try to talk to different people each time you go to a meeting. Also, there are lots of free events and training seminars available. These are great for learning and you also might meet some useful contacts.

About Rosemary Bookkeeping
Rosemary Bookkeeping is a British Franchise Association accredited franchise, based on a successful business which was established in 2002 and offers a unique bookkeeping system which is built around charging clients per transaction rather than per hour. The Founding Partners have over 60 years of business and bookkeeping experience between them in the essential business disciplines of accounting, operations, sales and marketing.

According to the Federation of Small Businesses, over 4 million customers NEED this service. By law, all businesses in the UK are required to keep records of their transactions which later are used by an accountant to file for tax and often VAT. Managing these transactions through bookkeeping is often the biggest headache to the small business owner and a task that is left at the bottom of the pile.

There is a growing network of established Franchise Partners in the UK either running their franchise as a management business with bookkeepers undertaking the work for them or working on client accounts themselves.