These bookkeeping tips and best practices will help your business improve its financial recordkeeping. Building a bookkeeping business is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ll guide you to the finish line with weekly bite-sized advice written especially for bookkeepers just like you. Check out the blog for articles from pricing to mindset to time management to leadership – written especially for bookkeepers just like you. In this FREE guide I’ve captured what I consider to be integral to the growth, profitability, and sustainability of a successful bookkeeping business. Bookkeeping involves the recording, on a regular basis, of a company’s financial transactions.

At some point, you may need to hire a bookkeeper or outsource your bookkeeping function to someone else. You should ask other business owners who they use for a bookkeeper and whether they would recommend the person. There are some online bookkeeping providers you should research. You’ll need create an electronic spreadsheet or ledger on a piece of paper.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Remember to connect everything to your accounting software to stay organized. It might sound intimidating, but a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated or even all that formal. It’s simply a chance to organize your ideas around your business and put them in writing.

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tips to boost client numbers and take your bookkeeping business to new heights

When starting an accounting firm, if you’re not crystal clear on what you are working towards down the road, prioritizing decisions, projects and initiatives becomes impossible. Great news, because this step-by-step guide will cover the critical 7 steps you’ll need to follow to set up a modern bookkeeping practice and to land your first clients. Experience workflow software that helps make sure nothing falls through the cracks. See why over 7,000 accountants and bookkeepers use Jetpack Workflow. See why over 7,000 accountants and bookkeepers use jetpack workflow.

• Knowing where you eventually want to end up is helpful when you begin planning.
• LinkedIn offers online courses and access to expert-led tutorials for $19.99/month-following a 14-day free trial.
• Once you complete it, you are considered a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.
• It’s also a place for you to clarify for your potential clients why they should want to work with you.
• Yes, to start a bookkeeping business you should know how the systems work.
• Many small companies don’t actually hire full-time accountants to work for them because of the cost.

However, make sure you do your research and consider whether other attendees are going to fit into your target customer before you invest time or money. Marketing your business doesn’t have to involve expensive advertising campaigns. Your marketing plan should also be largely focused around on-going initiatives that are still manageable during your busy times, not just when things get quieter.

Choose a Business Name

You could also just plan to spend less each month so you are keeping more of your income. Find the balance of deducting enough expenses but not spending on unnecessary things. It’s important to keep up with the technology trends and to be knowledgeable in the bookkeeping field. Bookkeepers aren’t required to have any outside certifications or credits, but it is helpful to always be growing yourself in your field. Maybe you decide to take one class per year at $300, which would break down to $25 a month.

• Before you start marketing and branding your business, you’ll need to ensure your name is available.
• If you’re having trouble with your business name, try a business name generator to jumpstart your imagination.
• Practice management software is arguably the most important piece of bookkeeping software in your own accounting practice.
• In fact, some businesses can get off the ground with $10K or less.

Email marketing sits near the top of the list of effective marketing channels. You can grow your list through your website and create simple campaigns to start. As you increase your email marketing know-how, you can develop more complex campaigns to reach prospective clients. Naturally, you want to spend the majority of your time serving clients. However, you need to know how to attract and land bookkeeping clients. PayScale, a site that tracks salaries and rates, puts the average hourly rate for a bookkeeper around $17 per hour ($10 on the low end and $24 on the high end).

FREE CHECKLIST!

Learn how to attract the perfect clients and sell naturally & comfortably. You don’t have to have everything perfect before you start. But what youshould haveis a roadmap and a mentor to help you avoid wasting your time and making mistakes. Achieve your business funding goals with a proven plan format. Balance sheets and income statements are invaluable tools to gauge…

From registering and encumbrance accountinging taxes on time to submitting annual reports to renewing licenses and permits, and more, it’s critical to know what you must do and by when. Fortunately, CorpNet has you covered on business compliance requirements. As you can tell, bookkeeping is so crucial for your business for many reasons.

Advertising costs and office supplies

That is why you need an accounting workflow software like Financial Cents. It was specifically built to help bookkeeping firms track the status of client work and important deadlines. I was able to grow my public accounting firm quickly by hiring certified public accountants and professional bookkeepers thanks to many of the marketing strategies that worked well. Following the above steps will help get your bookkeeping business off to a good start, but don’t rest on your laurels. Keep up with changes in the industry and continue to evolve your skills. Once you’ve established yourself as a bookkeeper, consider getting training and/or certification in accounting, which will allow you to offer more services at a higher price point.

Determining where clients will find out about you and finding ways to meet them there (e.g., Google My Business, Google Ads, etc…).

When you finish your work, you can stop for the day or focus on getting more clients. Once you’ve formed your entity, you must apply for an employee identification number with the Internal Revenue Service . The EIN identifies your business and is separate from your social security number . An EIN is optional for sole proprietors, but it allows you to receive 1099s at the end of the year from your clients without giving them your SSN.

I have a dream to help several number of other companies having bookkeeping challeges. I started my journey to this dream by drafting some 2 paged idea plan of bookkeeping business however my plan was sketchy and was missing alot. I want to be self employed in my proffession but one who fits in the 21st century technology. This is very inspirational right now, thank you for the information. I am currently working on starting a virtual office management service, specializing in bookkeeping.

And if you start your business as a side hustle before going full-time, they’ll be even lower. If you’re not ready to go all-in as a full-time, self-employed bookkeeper, you can start slowly by taking one or two clients as a side hustle. That gives you the chance to make sure that bookkeeping is really for you before quitting your day job to hang out your shingle. Similarly, if you just want to work part-time hours, you can do that, too.

Your network will grow and some of these local businesses and small business owner contacts will turn into new clients eventually. Collect business cards from every new business owner you meet. The next day, hop on to LinkedIn, sort through them, and connect with all business owners you met and send a personalized message. When you get clients, over and above the accounting work that you’ll be delivering to them, they’ll also need help throughout the year for ad hoc questions. Dealing with these ad hoc questions would form part of the support that you’ll be expected to provide. This will be a complete solution to provide to an accounting firm and small businesses.

We’ve answered the biggest questions about clients, costs, and profits below. Below, we’ve done the legwork for you to provide a free guide to starting a home-based bookkeeping business today. The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements. Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your bookkeeping business such as serving customers, procuring supplies, keeping the office clean, etc.

Even many non-employer sole proprietorships will use accounting help at some point. While some small businesses hire bookkeepers or CFOs directly, many successfully outsource these types of services. Keep in mind, though, bookkeepers differ from accountants as they cannot file taxes or perform audits like certified public accountants. Bookkeepers also aren’t required to have an accounting degree.

I’ve created an easy checklist for all the things we talked about today for you, so make sure to check it out. I highly recommend Bookkeeper Launch, which is an amazing long-form course that provides teaching, support, resources, and community. It is my #1 recommendation for bookkeepers ready to invest time and money into their career. If you’re the type of person who wants to learn everything all at once and wants all the support, this is the perfect program. Even if you haven’t started making money yet, it’s important to set up that bank account so it’s separate from your personal finances and ready to go once you do start bringing in the cash. Starting a bookkeeping business requires paying attention to some essential legal and tax matters.