The Accidental Bookkeeper

The Accidental Bookkeeper

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a bookkeeper, I fell into it!

I had my tonsils out when I was 7 years old and decided I wanted to be a nurse, this was my dream career until I woke up one day at 18 years old saying “I don’t want to be a nurse’.
I then had to find a job with no idea what I wanted to do. I went for an interview as a junior bookkeeper with a company that sold coal and fuel oil and was offered the job and found a love of numbers.
One of the directors had been knighted and was addressed as ‘Sir’. This becomes relevant later.
I was one of four junior bookkeepers in the days of the ledger, I often joke that I don’t quite go back to the quill and ink, but almost.
When I got married, I moved to a job closer to our new home, to an insurance company, again as a junior bookkeeper. This was at the beginning of the computer age. They spent a fortune trying to develop a computer system, unfortunately it didn’t work, and I was one of a number of people made redundant. This was not a happy experience, we were split into groups, sat around a table and I was in one of the groups who were told ‘if you are round this table, you no longer have a job’. This was about six weeks before Christmas. Their only saving grace was that they offered a package that gave us counselling and helped us all get new jobs.
My next job was closer to home again, I worked in a Naval and Gentleman’s outfitters at the mouth of Portsmouth harbour. This was the first place I worked at that had a computer system, we often joked that the computer had better work conditions than the staff as it had its own temperature-controlled room. The backup looked like 8/10 lps stacked together in an old-fashioned cake dome! I still remember the day when I answered the office managers phone for her and left a message to ‘please ring Sir Georgie Baker’. Georgie Baker was the 80 year old gentleman who worked in the mail room.

After that I worked for a company that manufactured both pneumatic tube systems, similar to the systems that used to be used to send cash from the tills to the cashiers office and vacuum cleaners. The vacuum cleaners were orange in colour and we had an order from a company in Glasgow for a very expensive industrial vacuum cleaner, the brochure was in black and white so they didn’t realise the colour. Well, this was a Celtic supporters business and we had supplied a vacuum cleaner in Rangers colours!!! The cleaner came back, was painted grey and green and returned to the customer.
In 2001 we moved to New Zealand and I found employment at the Victoria University Bookshop in the accounts office. I thought I was broad minded before but this experience really broadened my mind. I was working with students, talking to Professors, who were the only people in the university who were allowed to have an account. Here the computer system had evolved again and the back up was the size of a video tape. We kept a weeks backups, todays backup was taken home and the previous four days were kept onsite.
In 2004, we moved from New Zealand to Australia where I have worked for a wholesale stationery shop, a company that supplies staff and goods to oil rigs and my last corporate job was for a civic construction and mining services company. I was with them for six years before I was ‘lucky’ enough to be made redundant. I say I was lucky because the company went into administration 18 months later and the remaining staff had to wait another 12 months before having their holiday and redundancy pay outs. Six years later and I still have lunch 3 or 4 times a year with the girls I worked with.
I spent two years looking for employment before admitting to myself that my age was going to be against me in even getting an interview. In 2018, I started my own business as a Virtual Assistant. At the time I couldn’t offer bookkeeping services because although I had the experience, I didn’t have ‘the piece of paper’. In 2020 I signed up for an online course to do a Cert IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting, that was done in my own time, 2022 and I had ‘started’ the course 4 or 5 times and never got further than the introductory pages. I started looking for ‘in person’ classes and started at TAFE in July 2022. I thought I had done my due diligence, phoned and asked how much time I would need to spend a week on study, was told 3 full days a week, signed up to do the course full-time, then discovered it was four days a week, plus as much time again for homework. I was given the opportunity to change to part-time, but I have a stubborn streak, I signed up for full-time, I was going to do full-time. The course was split into 2 x 10-week blocks with a one week break in the middle. Weeks 1-3 were great, then I was out with a chest infection week 4-6, the most important weeks of the semester. Somehow, I managed to complete and pass all bar one of the units.
I describe July – December 2022 as my time on ‘the crazy train’. Studying full time, running my business and getting a new puppy! Up at 4.30am, toilet training the puppy, working/studying until 7pm, 7 days a week, in hindsight I realise the insanity of it, but at the same time I’m glad I did it.
My Christmas 2022, I had completed all bar one unit of the course, and was exhausted. A very supportive husband, who took over running the house helped to make this happen.
Back to TAFE at the end of January 2023 to complete the final unit and at Easter 2023 I completed and passed the Cert IV Bookkeeping and Accounting course.
I now offer General Bookkeeping Services to Start Ups, Sole Traders and Small Businesses at an hourly rate working within your budget.
How did it feel to start my own business in my sixties, scary, challenging, some self-doubt, make that lots of self-doubt, but I have a great support system of my husband and friends, especially the friends I have made during my journey.
How did I feel going back to studying, knowing I was old enough to be grandma to most of the other students, scary, challenging, invigorating and fun. Would I study full time again whilst running my business – NO WAY JOSE, would I study again in the future, who knows!