Hello! Come on in, make yourselves comfortable.

Welcome to Accounting Basics. My aim is for this site to be a premier destination for accounting advice and information that is specifically aimed at the approx. 99.3% of the population that wouldn’t consider themselves a specialist. I, myself, am one of the other 0.7%, a Chartered Certified Accountant who’s worked in accounting practice and industry finance jobs for over 15 years.

I’ve had a bit of an experience the last few years as I’ve worked directly with clients of all stripes who’ve had varying levels of understanding of accounting and what we do in firms to prepare accounts and tax returns. Some people follow along fine when discussing their financial statements, others ask many pointed questions. A surprising number often just want their tax bill figure and to be on their way. But it was one specific encounter that gave me the idea to start this website.

I’d assisted a client who was doing her own bookkeeping for a small limited company with the usual accounts and tax return, and hadn’t been able to have my usual face-to-face meeting to discuss the numbers. I went over the details on a Zoom call, then offered a follow up on email if there was anything confusing her. She’d asked me about how prepayments work, and I was about ready to jot something off and send it out as I usually would, but thought it might be better to point her to somewhere where she could actually learn, rather than just get a quick few lines from me.

But I couldn’t find anything.

Not nothing, obviously. But it was either competitor websites pushing their own services or articles so full of jargon even I needed a second to make sure I was getting it. Beyond that anywhere that offered basic information stuck it behind a paywall, usually in the form of a six-week course for just £299! So, I thought I’d just, well, make one. So I have. Err, am, as it’s a work in progress.

I feel that, if everybody was better educated on accounting, then everybody would benefit. Of course, not everybody will read this, but hopefully those of you that do will find something useful in these pages that can help you. And, it’s all free. For now at least. I don’t plan to ever charge anyone for the learning resources I’m putting together, but there may be some added value down the track that people would pay for.

So please, take some time to have a read through the site, and pop back regularly to see what has been updated. I’m going to try to get blog posts out every now and then, even if it’s just to break down relevant news or share updates to the site. And if you’ve got any comments or suggestions, fell free to drop me a line.