Are you a student who is struggling with how to learn accounting?  If you are, you most likely know very well that there’s a huge difference between learning from a textbook and actual real-world accounting.  Many beginner bookkeepers struggle with their self-confidence when it comes time to find a job in their field.

This is due to the way most accounting courses are structured.  Typically, the student works their way through a course and only tackles each topic individually, rather than learning in a more linear fashion.  This means starting a set of books from scratch and dealing with every aspect of accounting that typical bookkeepers encounter as they work on a company’s files.  In other words, “doing” versus “learning”.

So what are the benefits to the student when learning accounting this way?

• You get to discover all the “tricks” that most textbooks don’t explain.  For example, what you need to do when you are missing some paperwork.

• You get to see the “big picture”.  Typically, it makes more sense if one can see what they are doing step by step rather than just doing smaller portions of bookkeeping.  For example, you’ll notice any glaring discrepancies on the financial statements much faster if you have actually posted all the transactions yourself.

• You can improve rusty accounting skills.  If you have not done any bookkeeping for a very long time and need to polish your skills in order to gain enough confidence to apply for a bookkeeping job, then being able to practice becomes critical to your success.

• You get to feel like you are doing real-world work rather than just make-believe bookkeeping.  This helps give you the confidence to take on actual bookkeeping work sooner rather than having to struggle at a new job (and potentially embarrassing yourself.)

• You can expand your range of bookkeeping skills.  If you only have experience in certain areas of accounting (Accounts Receivable, for example) you can practice doing a set of books from start to finish to get the experience you need before applying for positions as a full-charge bookkeeper.

• You get to practice on different types of companies.  Since individual businesses have specific accounting requirements, you’ll want to make sure you understand what needs to be done.  For example, corporations require you to post to a Shareholder account while a proprietorship has an Owner’s Drawing account.

Sadly, most accounting programs don’t have sufficient sample companies available which makes it difficult to fully practice your skills in accounting through typical college courses.  So if you truly want to know how to learn accounting, you’ll need to practice using sample companies that you create yourself.

Find out how to learn accounting by practicing on four companies at “BookkeepingSkillsAcademy”.   You’ll learn how to handle a set of books from start to finish using real-world companies.  Developed by a bookkeeper with 20 years of experience, check it out today for only $7.00:

http://bookkeepingskillsacademy.com

What does a bookkeeper do? This is a question I get asked all the time and there’s no simple answer. Bookkeepers have a lot of responsibilities.

For many people there is a lot of confusion between bookkeepers and accountants. On the surface, it seems like the same job because both jobs require dealing with the finances of the company. I often get called an accountant even though I’m a bookkeeper.

A bookkeeper’s duties involve more of the day to day aspect of a company’s books, whereas an accountant generally only looks at the books at year-end to do adjusting entries and the tax return.

So to clarify bookkeeping, here is a list of things a bookkeeper does on a monthly basis:

Bank Reconciliations

Every month the bookkeeper goes through all the deposits and withdrawals that went through the bank and reconciles them to make sure everything balances. This is one of the most important jobs for the bookkeeper because if there’s any fraud happening, the bank account will usually be the first place that it appears.

Payroll

Depending on the size of the company, one of the bookkeeper’s duties will involve doing payroll for its employees. The bookkeeper needs to be familiar with government regulations regarding deductions as well as laws pertaining to employees. Many times an employer is not familiar with these laws so it’s up to the bookkeeper to inform them to avoid potential legal issues.

Accounts Payable

The bookkeeper usually handles keeping track of vendor invoices that come in and pays them before they are due. Depending on the size of the company, sometimes the owner will do this himself and the bookkeeper will just post these paid invoices at month-end while doing the bank reconciliation.

Accounts Receivable

In order for a company to thrive, it must have an income. So a bookkeeper’s duties usually involve posting the accounts receivable in one way or another. Some companies invoice clients and others receive cash that must be tracked and deposited. Many times tracking daily cash sales involve using spreadsheets.

Inventory

If a company’s business involves inventory, it’s up to the bookkeeper to keep track of it in the accounting program. Inventory is affected by purchases the company makes as well as the income the company generates. Periodic inventory counts have to be done to make sure that everything balances so adjustments can be made.

That’s the basic list of things a bookkeeper does. Some companies are so large that they have different people handling various aspect of each bookkeeping job on a fulltime basis. Other companies are so small that these jobs can be easily done in a few hours a month.

NOTE: If you need to sharpen your bookkeeping skills, there’s now a new bookkeeping practice course available where  you can do just that.  Find out more here.

If you really want to successfully run your home base bookkeeping business, there are some keys you should keep in mind.

Key #1:  Don’t Wait Until the Economy Improves

Even though the economy is bad all over, people are still starting businesses.  A home based bookkeeping business is known as an evergreen business and that’s because people will always need your services, even if their business is doing badly. Read about the Hidden Costs Of Waiting To Start Your Bookkeeping Business here.

Key #2:  Clients Are Everywhere

As long as you haven access to the internet (and I’m assuming you do if you’re reading this), you can literally find bookkeeping clients from all over the world.  Virtual bookkeeping is here and you need to take advantage of technology.  To find out how to make your bookkeeping business virtual, read Mastering Virtual Online Bookkeeping here.

Key #3: Don’t Be Afraid to Establish Boundaries

Once you have a few clients, you’ll find that you’ll have to establish some boundaries to ensure that your clients don’t take over your day off.  If you don’t set office hours and set some ground rules, your clients will start calling you whenever they want and you’ll find yourself getting burned out before long.  Learn about Setting Boundaries For Your Bookkeeping Business here.

Key #4:  Make Friends with Your Bookkeeper Competition

Just because you have bookkeeping competitors, doesn’t mean they have to be enemies.  By phoning your competitors you not only can find out what they charge per hour, but you can also pick up some clients from them when they’re too busy to take care of them.  Find out more in Can Contacting Your Competition Help Jump Start Your Bookkeeping Business?

Key #5:  Learn How To Quickly Do Your Client’s Books

You’ve heard it over and over again… time is money.  So you don’t want to waste time struggling to do each client’s set of books, when you can setup a smooth system and make it go faster.  In How to Do Monthly Bookkeeping for Your Clients you’ll learn the tried and tested way of doing this.

Key #6:  Add Other Services To Your Business To Really Skyrocket Your Profits

Once you have bookkeeping clients, you need to do all you can to not only assist them with their business, but to make as much money as you can from each of them.  There are many services you can offer in hour home based bookkeeping business, but here are Five Additional Services for Your Bookkeeping Business.

Key #7:  Make Sure Your Bookkeeping Rates are Setup Correctly

All bookkeeping rate systems are not created equal.  Sure you should charge by the hour, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stuck tracking your hours forever.  Find out the secret way to do this in The 5 Minute Guide to Bookkeeping Rates.

The important thing to remember is this:  the key to running a home based bookkeeping business is knowledge.  Make sure you learn all you can and success will be your reward.

Do you set office hours for your bookkeeping business or do you allow your bookkeeping clients to contact you whenever they feel like it?  If you’re not setting boundaries, you’re going to find yourself getting burned out really quickly.

Many bookkeeping clients will automatically assume that because you’re working at home that they can call you whenever they want….evenings, weekends or late at night.  They’ll call with a “sorry to bother you but I have a quick question” or “can you look this up for me”.  Before you know it, you’re working on your time off.

This can get very irritating because you still have your own life and your family’s needs to attend to.  You work hard and deserve a break from your business during your off hours.   It’s so easy to fall into this trap when you’re self-employed.

If you don’t train your clients to only call you during your office hours, they will call you all the time, guaranteed.  So the first step is to inform your clients of when you’ll be in the office to take calls.

This is a double-edged sword though, because sometimes when you’re working in the office, you don’t want to be disturbed if you’re in the middle of doing some intense number crunching.  That’s when voicemail is such a blessing.  Try to call your client back as soon as you’re able to take a break from your task.

The next step in training your clients is to absolutely not answer your phone during non-business hours unless it’s an emergency (and it never is).  If you start answering your client’s phone calls during your non-working hours even once, you open the door for them to do it again.  Don’t risk it.  Let them leave a message and call them back during your office hours.

This goes for answering emails and faxes from clients during your non-business hours as well.  If they’re sending you work (such as payroll) and they get it to you after office hours, you’ll have to make a tough call on whether you’ll put it off until your next work day or not.

I’ve personally made sure all my clients know that I absolutely don’t work weekends.  So if they don’t get me their payroll on time, it has to wait until Monday.  They are all very understanding about my policy and this has eliminated much of the problem.

If you don’t train your clients, they will train you… to be at their beck and call.  So set your boundaries in your bookkeeping business from the start.  You deserve it.

Are you a bookkeeper who is wondering what services you can offer your clients in addition to bookkeeping outsourcing?

Bookkeeping itself is a valuable skill, but some professional bookkeepers like to diversify and offer other services to their clients as well.

They do this not only to keep things more interesting for themselves but also to provide their clients more services and increase their revenue potential per client.

So here are five potential revenue-generating services for your bookkeeping business:

1.  Word Processing / Secretarial Services

Some clients are looking for more than bookkeeping outsourcing and instead would like to contract out secretarial work as well.  They might be looking for letters to be typed, need forms created for their business; require audio data transcribed or want manuscripts and reports done.  If you like typing, this is a great add-on to your bookkeeping business.

2.  Data Entry

This is similar to the word processing category above but tends to be extremely repetitive work.  Clients need mailing lists created and databases kept up to date.  This can be steady work if you can handle it, but can also tend to be mind-numbing.

3.  Tax Returns

Many bookkeepers are familiar with income taxes so this is a good fit for a bookkeeping business.  This is a valuable skill that can keep you busy for several months of the year if you have the time for it.

4.  Desktop Publishing

Businesses are always looking for beautifully created documents to help them look professional.  If you’re able to create brochures, flyers and newsletters then you can make some extra revenue providing this service to clients.

5.  Collections

A natural extension to handling your client’s accounts receivables is offering a Collections Service.  This is another skill in itself and should be billed out accordingly.

Collection reminder letters are readily available on the internet or in books.  Set up a three letter system with the final letter threatening collection action.  Generally this is all it takes before most outstanding balances are paid.  If you have strong nerves for this type of service,  you can also offer collection phone calls but make sure that you bill this on a percentage of each outstanding invoice that you collect on.

Bookkeeping outsourcing itself is a great service to start with but by adding additional services you can maximize the amount you earn from each client and reduce the number of clients that you need in order to succeed.

Choosing a professional bookkeeping business name will be one of the most important decisions you make.  You want to choose a name that projects the ideal image of how you want your business to be perceived.  Easier said than done, right?

To show you how important this process is, let me share a story that happened to me:

A few years ago I made the mistake of choosing a really bad name for my first bookkeeping business.  I called it “Esquire Business Services” which I thought was a great name because I thought the word “Esquire” gave the business a legal sounding name.

I thought that this name would project the image of someone who was smart and knew what they were doing.  Boy was I wrong!

I found out later that people who called and got my answering machine were confused by my message and thought that they had reached an escort service!  I finally realized I had a bad business name when a lawyer actually phoned my answering machine and he laughed so hard he couldn’t stop!  Even a professional lawyer didn’t understand my “clever” name!

Hopefully I haven’t put you off, but I just wanted to demonstrate that do you have to be very careful when coming up with a bookkeeping business name.   The cost and the headache of having to change it or starting all over can totally set your business back.

It’ll take some serious consideration but once you come across some names that you like, put the whole thing aside for about a week.  Let the names percolate in your brain during this time.

When you come back to your list after the week is over and one of the names “grabs” you, then that’s the one you should choose.  Please note, however, that you may have to submit three names to your local government authority as you may not get the first name you choose.  So pick your first, second and third choices wisely to make sure that you’re equally enamored with them all.

Remember you’ll have to live with your bookkeeping business name for years to come so make sure you’re happy with it.

Did you know that most freelance bookkeepers are making between $20 to $50 per hour?  What….you’re not earning that much yet?  Keep reading and I’ll tell you how you can.

There’s a huge demand for top-notch freelance bookkeepers right now.  A few short years ago many thrifty-minded employers were making the mistake of hiring anyone claiming to have a working knowledge of accounting software and paying them very low wages; with disastrous results.

They soon found, to their horror, that their books were an absolute disaster at year end and they had to pay an accountant a small fortune to clean up the mess these incompetent bookkeepers left behind.  So much for saving them money.

These days, high-quality bookkeepers with years of hands on experience are commanding, and getting, superior wages.  Those that are fed up with having a boss, are venturing out on their own and making a great living out of the comfort of their own home.

Bookkeeping is one of the easiest businesses to start out of your home.  By just taking on one or two clients and doing some extra work on weekends or evenings, you can quickly start making the transition to self-employment.

The next step, if your job allows, is to start reducing your work days from five to four days a week.  Just think about how much more you can be making by taking Fridays off and working on bookkeeping at home for eight hours at $30 an hour.

So if you’re a seasoned bookkeeper who is ready to go out on your own, now is a great time to get started.  You have nothing to lose except for your low-paying job.

Do you find yourself wondering how difficult it would be to setup a virtual bookkeeping business to really expand your client pool?

Let’s face it, some areas are more financially depressed than others and being able to do bookkeeping virtually is a great solution to help you really build your business.

Your first step will obviously be to setup a website for your bookkeeping business.  You’ll need to have a page that lists your services, one that describes your experience and an optional page that lists your rates.  Personally, I prefer to state my hourly rates up front because I think it helps to deter “tire kickers” and discourage them from wasting my time if they’re not prepared to pay my rates.

If you’re not very website savvy, an easy alternative is to setup a Wordpress blog.  You can use their “pages” feature instead of their “posting” feature so your site will be very much like a typical website.  WordPress has thousands of templates that you can choose from to make your website unique.  It also has many plug-ins such as site maps to make your website more functional and search engine friendly.

You’ll also need web hosting for your website.  I recommend using Hostgator as they are very reliable and inexpensive to use.  I’ve hosted my own websites on them for a couple of years now and have never had any downtime that I’m aware of.

Once you have your website setup, you’ll have to get some traffic so potential clients can find you.  There are many ways you can do that.  Here’s a list of a few:

• Write articles and submit them to article directories and a link back to you website
• Join forums in markets that you’d like to do bookkeeping in (such as internet marketers, home businesses, work at home moms, etc.)
• Post ads on Craigslist.org describing your bookkeeping services

You can also join virtual assistant forums to learn more ways that you can market your virtual online bookkeeping business.

Virtual bookkeeping can be done a few different ways.  Some bookkeepers login to their client’s computers directly from their own and access the client’s accounting software that way.  Other bookkeepers prefer to do the bookkeeping on their own computer and store the data there.

Either way, your client will have to send you the actual paperwork so that you can process and enter it in the accounting system.  Clients can email, fax, courier or mail this information to you.

Speaking of faxes, you will need a fax machine.  However, I highly recommend using an online faxing service over putting in a separate phone line for your fax.  An online fax service such as eFax is only about $15 per month compared to 4 – 5 times that amount for a separate phone line (note they have a 30 day free trial for even more savings).

Even though many times you won’t be meeting your clients in person, you will still need to speak to them on the phone when necessary.  For that reason many virtual bookkeepers find that online communication services such as Skype are invaluable in being able to talk to their clients worldwide without incurring huge phone bills.

So if you’re looking for ways to expand your current bookkeeping business, I highly recommend you look into virtual bookkeeping as a great way to cast a wider net in potential bookkeeping clients.

One of the biggest problems bookkeepers face when starting their business is actually getting the business off the ground.

There are so many things that need to be done such as:  set up your office, establish your pricing, create a system to keep track of your clients and most importantly, landing some clients.

This may come as a surprise to you, but contacting your bookkeeping competitors can help you out with some of these tasks.  I know it sounds crazy at first glance, but bear with me for a moment.

In order to set up your pricing, you’ll need to call around to your local bookkeeping competitors to find out what the going rate is.  This will also help you decide how you want to bill out your clients (per transaction, per hour or on a set monthly rate).

Ultimately, you’ll have to use your discretion and base your own rates on your experience level.  Obviously, if you’re fairly new to bookkeeping, you shouldn’t command as high a rate as a more experienced bookkeeper.

Then there’s the major challenge of landing clients so you can actually start billing out.  This is another area where your bookkeeping competitors can help you out.

Many established solo bookkeepers find they reach a point where they can’t take on any more work because they’re booked solid.

If you’ve managed to contact these bookkeepers ahead of time and let them know you’re available for any overflow work, you’ll be in a great position to benefit from these referrals when they come in.

Just a note of caution, however.  Some bookkeepers only like to refer the real ugly jobs (in other words,  major accounting messes) and keep the good jobs for themselves.

Of course you always have the option of turning down any job that you don’t want to take on, but it’s hard to do when you’re just starting out and are hungry for business.

As you can see, if you’ve never run a bookkeeping business before, there are many new systems you’ll have to learn, so make sure you keep your competition in mind as a valuable resource.

There is some debate among bookkeepers about the best way to start a bookkeeping business.  Should you start part time and work your way to full time?  At what point should you quit your job?  Here’s what I’ve done to personally go from being employed to self-employed in less than 12 months.

As you’re probably aware, self-employed bookkeepers make much more per hour than employed bookkeepers.  That means if you start a bookkeeping business you can be making from $10 to $20 more per hour than you make working for someone else.  That’s huge!

So, for me, it simply made more sense to take advantage of this fact.  So first I found a couple of bookkeeping clients and took care of their books during my evenings and weekends.  I found them just by talking to everyone I came in contact with from casual acquaintances to accountants I met on the job.

Then, I cut back on my full time bookkeeping job to four days a week.  It was a little scary, but with the extra money I was making on the side I was able to afford it.  I now had time to find and service more bookkeeping clients, so I actively searched for more clients during my “day off”.

I sent out sales letters to new businesses by searching for new business license applicants.  I placed classified ads in the newspaper advertising my bookkeeping services.  I called other bookkeepers asking for referrals.  I also called around to accountants and spoke to them about my bookkeeping services.

Before long, I had more bookkeeping clients than I had time, so I took another day off of my job.  Now, I was fortunate in this regard.  I realize that not everybody can do this.  I had to convince my boss that I could still get the work done by working harder and more efficiently during the remaining three days a week I had at my job.

So how would this work in your situation?  You might have to convince your boss to hire someone else part time and job share with them.  This will actually make it easier for you to transition out of your job as your co-worker will be fully trained by the time you leave.

However, I really lucked out few months later as my boss then decided to shut down the office and let me do the bookkeeping from home.  It was, a dream come true for me.

However, this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, so let me tell you what I would have done had he not offered me this golden opportunity.

I would have found more bookkeeping work and took care of those clients during the two week days I had.   I would have accomplished this by working evenings and weekends to get the work done.  Once I had enough clients to substitute my income from my job, I would have quit my job and ran my bookkeeping business from home full time.

So, if you’re looking for a way that you can transition from employment to self-employment and start your own bookkeeping business, now you know how.