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Finding my Xero family and beyond

Bookkeeping and Beyond launched in 2006 in response to a significant change in personal circumstances that resulted in becoming a single parent with two kids under 5, no income and a mortgage.

It was a time when Bookkeeping was not a recognised profession in NZ despite it being one for the oldest professions in the world. I was a typical kitchen table top bookkeeper, who had Managerial experience in preparing GST returns, producing profit and loss reports and liaising with the Accountant. It was a lonely time working in a silo of paper based manual systems and plenty of driving around to client sites due to nature of systems and the fact I did not have an office suitable to receive clients.

The set up included a second hand IMAC, one licence for desktop accounting software, a dot matrix printer, a fax. dial up internet and a bunch of floppy disks and a large filo diary that contained everything contacts, calendar, notes, receipt holder, business cards, to do lists (insert photo)

Soon afterwards, after one too many times having the kids use GST returns as colouring in pages, moved out into a office and expanded to employ staff.

Bookkeeping was a relatively new term when I started out and there wasn’t a lot of emphasis on what a Bookkeeper really did. When people thought of a “Bookkeeper”, they thought of it more as an administrative role VS an important accounting function. I found as time went on, unless you were an employee in a finance role, there wasn’t a lot of help or recognition out there for someone like me; an independent Bookkeeper.