To achieve her goals, Samantha studies the following course package:
The ICB Career Path

The birth of a child, and the reprioritising that entails, is a common enough motivation for people to start the journey into bookkeeping. For Dorset-based mother of four, Samantha Shipley, her children were her reason to put away her arduous shifts in a bar and find work she could do from home.

She cut her bookkeeping teeth on accounts for her husband’s business and had always had a head for figures. Samantha started her studies with Ideal Schools after research led her to the Institute of Certified Bookkeeping as the best route to working for herself.

Ideal Schools proved to be a brilliant idea, and she hasn’t looked back, studying all through a house move in April 2017, and only accelerating when undergoing her fifth pregnancy.

Samantha said: “I started the process in October 2016, completing my level 2 to 4 by December 2017, and the last three modules - Self Assessment, FRS105 and Payroll – in the last few months. I had to, because I’m pregnant with my fifth child, and want to get the practice up and running before he arrives.

“To anyone thinking of taking the plunge into bookkeeping, I’d say it is hard work, but absolutely worth it. I thought I had a good idea of what I was doing, but I learnt so much from Ideal Schools. Even with 5 children, I manage to work 25 hours a week and hope to take the business to limited company status with three employees in the next five years,”

Her practice, Shipley Bookkeeping and Accounting, opened its doors in February this year, and she already has 6 clients, providing a mix of monthly books, VAT returns, with interest in end of year tax returns steadily emerging.

Samantha said: “ICB definitely had the best way to go into business for myself, and I thought that Ideal Schools had a well-laid out path into practice. I spoke regularly to Brian McVean, a lead Ideal Schools Tutor. He and the other tutors couldn’t have been more supportive.

“They’re always at the end of the phone in office hours, and out of them, while the Facebook page is a wonderful forum with a real sense of community. With students and students in practice at every level, it’s like a family all going through the same process, just at different stages.”