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Accounting & bookkeeping courses
Beginner friendlyTake this bookkeeping course online and learn a bookkeeper's real work by doing it for four practice clients. You'll reconcile every account to the penny, prepare VAT returns box by box, run UK payroll from timesheet to payslip, and close the month with a clean file for the accountant. By the end, you're the person a business can trust with its books and its payroll, from the very first month.
Course overview
You start with a Bristol coffee roaster and café: sorting its paperwork, writing up its cash book and learning double entry the way bookkeepers use it every day. From there you invoice and chase customers, check and pay suppliers, reconcile the bank, prepare a VAT return and bring its payroll in-house. Then come a building firm on CIS, a sole trader under Making Tax Digital, and a new client whose last bookkeeper left mistakes behind.
By the end you can keep sales and purchase ledgers that agree, reconcile every money account, prepare a VAT return that reconciles box by box and run a monthly payroll with pensions and sick pay. It suits anyone starting out in bookkeeping or payroll, office staff ready to own the books, and owners who pay their own team.
Free course guide
Every module and what it covers, the price, how you're assessed and where the course can take you.
10-page PDF, free
Curriculum
An indicative outline of the modules and what each covers. Work through them in order, at your own pace.
Key benefits
Everything you need to learn the skill, prove it and put it to work.
Getting started
There is no application, no waiting for a start date and no sales call in the way.
Pay once. Instant access, yours for life.
Career outcomes
Bookkeepers and payroll staff are trusted with other people's money and pay, so proof that you've done the work matters. You'll have it: a month of books, a VAT return and two pay runs you can walk anyone through.
Source: National Careers Service (gov.uk), September 2026.
An example of the certificate for the Certificate in Bookkeeping & Payroll.
If you already keep books and just need the software, take Xero or QuickBooks instead: you'll get there faster. If you want the theory right through to a full set of accounts, start with Accounting Fundamentals. And if your job is mainly payroll in Xero, Xero Payroll is the more direct route.
A course advisor will talk it through with you free, and will say so if a different course fits your goal better.
Good to know
The whole of a bookkeeper's routine, payroll included. You'll learn double entry the bookkeeper's way, then sales and credit control, purchases and payment runs, bank reconciliation, VAT under Making Tax Digital, and UK payroll from new starter to the monthly pay run. Later modules add CIS for builders, quarterly updates for sole traders, month end and year end, and a capstone where you take on a new client from another bookkeeper.
Yes. The course starts at the beginning and assumes no accounts background. If you can use a spreadsheet at a basic level, you're ready, and every formula the course uses is shown to you.
No. You keep the books and run the payroll in Excel or the free Google Sheets, and check one pay run in HMRC's free Basic PAYE Tools. Working without accounting software is how you learn what Xero and QuickBooks do behind the screen, which makes either one quicker to pick up next.
This course if you're new to bookkeeping, or want VAT and payroll understood from the ground up. The Xero course if you already know the bookkeeping and need to do it in Xero. Taking this one first and Xero second works well, because the software makes far more sense once you know what a reconciliation is for.
No. You do the work for four fictional clients, from a Bristol café to a cleaning company with a messy handover, so every mistake you make costs nothing. If you already keep books for a business, you'll recognise the problems straight away.
It covers the work bookkeeping jobs are built on, and you finish with a month of books, a VAT return and pay runs to show for it. Day to day, the books are kept in software, so our Xero or QuickBooks course is the natural next step.
You'll have the skills, and the course covers what setting up involves. Anyone offering bookkeeping services in the UK also needs anti-money laundering supervision, from HMRC or a professional body, before taking on clients, so build that into your plans.
Yes. Complete the course and pass its final assessment and you get an OBA certificate of completion that an employer can verify online. It isn't a professional bookkeeping or payroll qualification such as AAT, ICB or CIPP. The books and pay runs you complete show you can do the work, not just describe it.
Download the free info pack first. It walks you through every module, what you'll build and what you need before you start, so you can enrol knowing exactly what you're getting. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch and we'll help you choose.
Free guides
What bookkeepers do, whether you need AAT or ICB, the software employers want, what the job pays, and what the law asks of you before you take on your first client.
9 min read
Both are capable cloud accounting tools. The real question is who does your books, which tool the accountants around you use, and which jobs you want.
4 min read
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Free info pack
Every module, the price, how you're assessed and where it can take you. Yours free, and it opens straight away.
Takes 30 seconds
