How To Start A Bookkeeping Business

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. That way, it can help guide your decisions about your business as you move forward. The more you can find out about what your future customers are looking for, the better you’ll be able to serve them, and the less time you’ll waste getting your business up to speed. Registering your business and/or business name is an important step.

3) They’re a great way to determine your baseline service level. This will ensure that you only admit the right small businesses into your accounting firm. This will be a complete solution to provide to an accounting firm and small businesses. A bookkeeper’s work is applicable across many different types of industries — after all, every business needs to track and optimize its finances. However, to help market your business and set it apart amongst the competition, you may decide to specialize in a specific industry. There are major differences between the three types of bookkeepers and what each can offer your business. Figure out which works for your business and start tackling the problems, or potential problems, with your books.

Create A Bookkeeping Schedule

These questions will give you more insight into a bookkeeper’s dedication, passion, and work habits. Need more guidance on creating the vision for your bookkeeping business? Peter Cook will teach you how to plot your goals in this video. Loaded with practical, powerful advice you can easily use, this book will help you achieve your dream of building a thriving bookkeeping business. The E-Myth Bookkeeper gives you a complete toolkit for either starting a successful business from scratch, or maximizing an existing business’s performance. Two specific, easy-to-implement systems you can use to get more referrals from your current clients. If you want to get inspired, set a clear direction for growth in your business, and give yourself the confidence to achieve your goals, this seminar is a perfect next step for you.

Visit SBA.gov to find out more about how small businesses can stay legally compliant. This document summarizes your business’s assets, liabilities, and equity at a single period of time. Your total assets should equal the sum of all liabilities and equity accounts. The balance sheet provides a look at the current health of your business and whether it has the ability to expand or needs to reserve cash. Most accounting software will automatically import your bank data so you don’t have to manually enter and organize each transaction. If you’re using spreadsheet software as your GL, you’ll need to enter each transaction by hand. It requires you to record each financial transaction just once in your overall bookkeeping record.

• Meaning, technology cannot be ignored if you want to get bookkeeping clients, or even land your first client.
• I absolutely have loved working with BB&T because it feels like a smaller, local bank but I get the benefit of all the technology that you expect from the biggest banks around.
• In this metaphor, each account is like a chapter of a book, and individual journal entries are kind of like the pages of each chapter.
• Getting the right training and setting up a profitable business from the onset is critical to your success.
• It might also help to differentiate support based on levels of access such as junior bookkeeper support vs. senior bookkeeper support.

It’s not compulsory, but you might want to look into insurance for your bookkeeping business. Common business insurance policies for bookkeepers include things such as professional liability and general liability.

Bonus Tip: Stay Updated With Industry Trends For Bookkeepers

This report will explain each mistake, and teach you how to avoid it in your own business. A proven system for hiring great bookkeepers to help with your clients as your business grows.

Most of your marketing will involve a combination of advertising or networking. Advertising could mean anything from paid Google ad placement to sponsoring your local Little League. Networking could mean physically going to conferences and joining relevant Meetups, or it could mean meeting people through social media. Being the best bookkeeper in the world won’t help you if no one knows who you are or how to find you. A great conference to attend is QuickBooks Connect, which is hosted by Intuit and usually held in San Jose, California, in the fall.

Bookkeeping, in the traditional sense, has been around as long as there has been commerce – since around 2600 B.C. A bookkeeper’s job is to maintain complete records of all money that has come into and gone out of the business. Bookkeepers record daily transactions in a consistent, easy-to-read way. As with most services, the amount of clients for your bookkeeping business depends on your level of skill and experience.

Do Keep Your Business Logo In Mind

This document does tend to be lengthy, but it’s important to do. It’ll help you focus your business and run efficiently out of the gate. Consider your target audience before you invest too much time in social networking.

The cost can range from free to several hundred dollars, depending on your state and the type of business structure you choose. You may also want to budget for a lawyer who can help you decide which business structure is most appropriate for your situation and help you file the appropriate paperwork. Bookkeepers handle sensitive data for their clients, and an error on your part could be costly.

Open a bank account and credit card exclusively for your bookkeeping business, and keep your personal and business finances separated. As a bookkeeper, you know how important that is for keeping accurate records.

Tips To Boost Client Numbers And Take Your Bookkeeping Business To New Heights

Bookkeeping by itself is a part of accounting, and cannot be compared with accounting as a whole. For example, if someone sues you, you could potentially go bankrupt and lose all your assets.

• You don’t have to have a degree or be a Certified Professional Accountant to be a bookkeeper, but an educational background will certainly help.
• You’ve created your set of financial accounts and picked a bookkeeping system—now it’s time to record what’s actually happening with your money.
• To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable.
• If sued by a tenant or guest, the defendant is the LLC, not you.
• In addition to these basic bookkeeping activities, your costs will be impacted by how your accounting systems, policies and procedures, and reporting needs are set up and administered.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Learn More About Starting A Bookkeeping Business In Your State

You will need to devise a strategy to get new customers for your bookkeeping business. As much as word of mouth plays a pivotal role in advertising a business, the need to strategize as competition grows becomes necessary.

Get ready to build a vision for your bookkeeping business, then develop your strategies and implement the steps for achieving that vision. In this powerful consultation, you’ll get one-on-one time with one of our Pure Bookkeeping master business coaches. You’ll review the current status of your bookkeeping operation, get clear on your goals, and develop a 90-day strategy and action plan to achieve your desired results. The longer it takes for you to understand each domain of your business, the more painful growing your business will be. This Pure Bookkeeping System sample document will give you a bird’s eye view on all the systems of your business, so you can manage all of them masterfully. Want to know how to avoid the biggest mistakes and missteps bookkeepers make when they are building their businesses?

The content of Part-Time Money® is for general information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Visitors to ptmoney.com should not act upon the content or information without first seeking appropriate professional advice. Our mission is to help you improve your life by discovering and scaling a part-time hustle or small business idea. Philip Taylor, aka “PT”, is a CPA, blogger, podcaster, husband, and father of three. PT is also the founder and CEO of the personal finance industry conference and trade show, FinCon. Learn more and get started with Bookkeeper Business Launch here. The course layout and navigation are not intuitive so it takes some time to get the hang of it.

Join our Sage City community to speak with business people like you. It’s important to do your research before starting out so you’re clear about the path you want to follow and the goals you’d like to achieve. And by using a cloud accounting solution, you’ll be able to access the numbers on any device, wherever you are. Gauge the financial situation of businesses and further communicate the information to the relevant authorities. Characteristics of becoming a bookkeeper include being accurate in your work and having a good understanding of financial topics. The terms ‘bookkeeper’ and ‘accountant’ are occasionally used interchangeable, but they are in fact two different roles. And for a limited time, this member resource is open to everyone.

You Learn In The Process

However, if you need to purchase a new computer, it will cost a minimum of $1000. Offering professional success and personal enrichment courses that serve everyone in our community, from children and teens to adults and esteemed elders.

• Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually.
• If you’re spending so much time taking care of accounting tasks that you’re not able to work on growing your business or keeping existing customers happy, you’re doing your enterprise a disservice.
• Efficiently run your business with processes and systems that enable you to deliver a consistently professional service.
• This is why starting a business as a bookkeeper for other small business owners can be an excellent business idea.
• This is crucial for taxes as well as personal liability protection.
• Northwest Registered Agent is here to help with all your small business ideas and needs.

When a business succeeds as most hope, pen down the financing of the business and debts. All these are the collection of the important information a bookkeeping business plan must contain. In this section of the business plan, the proposed income and expenditure of a business are analyzed. You should create a thorough plan to balance your projected income and expenses, and explain the plan in detail.

Common Bookkeeping Accounts For Small Businesses

A business credit card isn’t necessary, but it can be very useful. Having one that’s dedicated to business use only will help keep your personal and business finances separate.

However, the limitations and risks of these business structures quickly become more apparent as your business grows. In both of these business types, you are your business, legally speaking. Your company’s legal business name is YOUR name—so you’ll need a DBA to operate under any other name.

But even if an expense is ordinary and necessary, you may still not be able to deduct all of it on your taxes. Just because you do most of your work from your dining room table doesn’t mean that you can deduct your entire monthly rent. Luckily, the IRS has put together a comprehensive guide on business deductions that you can consult if you’re ever unsure about a deduction. Diamonds may be forever, but the ink on your expense receipts is not.

Bookkeepers typically work a regular 40–hour work week although they may need to work extended hours during busy periods such as tax season or at the end of a fiscal year. Although bookkeepers are not responsible for filing a business’s taxes, they do often act as financial interpreters between companies and accountants. Nearly all LLCs and corporations will need to request a federal employer identification number from the IRS. If you file corporate income taxes, have employees, or file certain franchise taxes, you must have an EIN. An EIN is also a common requirement for opening a business bank account. Most businesses can request an EIN by filling out the IRS’s online form.

For LLCs and corporations, keeping separate finances is essential for maintaining liability protection. To open an account, LLCs and corporations typically need to bring to the bank a copy of their articles, their operating agreement or bylaws, and their EIN. Most bookkeeping businesses will accept full-time, part-time, or intermittent work. In addition, you may choose to charge an hourly or flat fee, depending on the situation. Now that you’ve balanced your books, you need to take a closer look at what those books mean. Summarizing the flow of money in each account creates a picture of your company’s financial health.

To start a bookkeeping you’ll need some training, a community of other bookkeepers to help you with questions, a good computer with strong internet, and a few clients. If you’re good at organizing financial information for business owners, you might want to consider starting a bookkeeping business. Bookkeepers build a business’ financial foundation, helping entrepreneurs make decisions about the future success of their business. Many bookkeeping services provide additional manpower, accounting software resources, and expert advice. My husband and I decided that was how much we were going to put towards my virtual bookkeeping business. While that was the initial funding, we also considered how much less our household income would be without me working full-time at a traditional job. Luckily, we were able to provide a safety net for ourselves with a substantial emergency fund.