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Online Bookkeeping Jobs From Home

March 30, 2021
Bill Kimball

bookkeeping business from home

Also, you need to summarize the financial situation of your practice. As a professional bookkeeper, you are a part of external management for your clients; however, as a business owner, you need to have external management as mentioned above. To be successful, independent bookkeepers need to be thorough, dependable and accurate as well as skilled in using accounting and sometime spreadsheet software. You must enjoy paying attention to details, and honesty and integrity are crucial.

Now that you know the criteria from which to judge bookkeeping and peripheral applications, let’s talk about the work-horse application which I love. There is one bookkeeping app that I am IN LOVE WITH. More on it in just a moment.

bookkeeping business from home

Many virtual bookkeepers start with zero experience and continue to earn up to $80/hr and more. Even when you offer great virtual bookkeeping services, it might never be known if it’s not promoted.

What Skills Should A Bookkeeper Have?

If you love working with numbers and spreadsheets are your idea of fun, you can use your skills to earn money from home. Becoming a bookkeeper is a flexible way to make money while having the freedom to create your own schedule. I would love to get in, gain experience, build myself up through certifications, and make a true career out of this. But is it possible for me to actually gain the experience from home? But it’s not possible for me to drive to work everyday to gain experience. I thought about customer service rep, but I have to stop and tend to a newborn.

bookkeeping business from home

Accountants use the information collected by bookkeepers to analyze a business’s overall finances. They arrange the pieces that bookkeepers organize to put together the larger picture of a business’s spending habits and earning potential. Back in the day, bookkeeping involved a lot of filing, organizing, and calculating by hand. While you still need to have organizational and mathematical skills, there is no longer a need to handle hard files. Most of the information that bookkeepers deal with is stored in a central database.

How Do I Become A Virtual Bookkeeper?

If you have experience as a bookkeeper or a related field, you can brush up on the basics and get started. For the most part, standard bookkeeping and accounting practices stay the same over time.

FlexJobs is an online job board focused on remote and flexible jobs in several different areas, including bookkeeping. The FlexJobs team screens all the job listings and are verified to be legitimate. The company also handles revenue recognition, bill payments, income, depreciation and balance of all receipts and income. Bookkeeping services include accounts payable and receivable, transaction entry and bank reconciliation. Bookkeepers work in partnership with a company’s CPA, CFO, controller and accountant.

One of the best features that BIDaWIZ offers is its business development plan. Their team will work with you to help you maintain a loyal client base while keeping new clients coming. If you’re still confused, this three-part video series on getting started as a bookkeeper is a great place to start. Whether you are looking to learn more about bookkeeping, apply for freelance positions, or seek employment with a bookkeeping company, here are some sites that can help you meet your goal. The beauty of the internet is that there are resources for everyone, including aspiring bookkeepers. With bookkeeping, like most professions, you will need to get your foot in the door. The best way to do this is to get an internship as a bookkeeper.

This can be a good option for earning money on the side or scaling to a full-time business. If you already have bookkeeping experience, you can translate your skills to the online world and find business owners who need your expertise. As she got the hang of doing the books for the landscaping company, she branched out into other businesses.

  • The course layout and navigation are not intuitive so it takes some time to get the hang of it.
  • Lots of companies may promote bookkeepers to accounting positions even if they don’t have the required education.
  • This certification is ideal if you do not have any formal education in the bookkeeping and accounting field.
  • They carefully track and record purchases, sales, inventory, and more.
  • According to ZipRecruiter, work-from-home bookkeeper jobs pay, on average, $28 per hour, although the pay can range from $7 to $62 per hour.

At the beginning of your book keeping business you might work for at least 20-30hours a week due to taking a book keeping course, networking, marketing, and setting up your website. Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. CPA Site Solutions will focus on designing a website that increases revenue, improves client loyalty, and drives brand awareness all while ranking on among the first few Google search results. They even offer a free 60 day trial so you can see if it works for your business.

You need to comfortable with technology so you can access a client’s computer, if necessary. This means that most Canadian businesses are small in size. Crystalynn Shelton is an Adjunct Instructor at UCLA Extension where—for eight years—she has taught hundreds of small business owners how to set up and manage their books. Crystalynn is also a CPA, and Intuit ProAdvisor where Crystalynn specializes in QuickBooks consulting and training.

However, if you plan to use a home office, you will need to obtain a business mailing address because you do not want to use your home address. Another benefit to keeping personal and business funds separate is it supports the limited liability status. To assist you with this decision, I recommend that you get up to speed on the four common business structures by reading our Best Small Business Structure guide. Second, I recommend that you get in touch with a lawyer who can assess your particular situation and help you make the right decision. Use a term with an established brand – For example, you could use the name of the city where you are located, like Stacey Giulianti did for his business Lauderdale Comics . Fit Small Business content and reviews are editorially independent. Bookkeepers who are also certified public accountants can command a higher salary.

Some bookkeepers also prepare financial statements and do tax work as well. From the above, you can relate to how important a book keeper is to the accounting process, which translate to how important a book keeper is to every business venture. When I had my bookkeeping business, one of the areas that I truly failed at was marketing.

Practice Management Software

Bookkeepers fall under the accounting umbrella in most companies but have a different set of responsibilities. They are focused on day-to-day operations such as bill payment, inventory and tracking income and expenses.

Outsourced bookkeepers like yourself can offer flexibility to adapt, see things from an outside perspective, and be more cost-effective for the company. Your client doesn’t have to pay for your time-off, health insurance, 401k, and share of payroll taxes. When people talk about virtual bookkeeping, they are usually referring to online bookkeeping services. Or an outsourced contractor that helps with monitoring individual accounts, filing taxes, and preparing financial statements, and more. In this guide, we’ll be covering everything you need to know about starting an online bookkeeping services company and more.

So you set the number of clients, hours, and the amount of time you want to work each week. And it is, but you may still be asking yourself, “Well, what’s it like to run a virtual bookkeeping business? A virtual bookkeeper helps companies stay on financial track, understand their bigger financial picture, and decide where to spend money. If you’re interested in getting your bookkeeping business off the ground, Bookkeeping’s series can set you up with great foundational knowledge and the courage to get started. Established in 2008, BIDaWIZ is an online platform that gives you the best of both worlds when it comes to working as an employed or freelance bookkeeper. While they only accept accredited tax and accounting professionals, they allow you to work on your own schedule and help you develop a business. Bookkeepers is a company that knows that you want to work for you, not some random faceless company.

WordPress is pretty easy to learn, and comes with tons of clean, free layouts that you can tweak to work for your business. You might have prior professional experience that can serve as a springboard to gaining new clients and serving them well. It’s important to do your business correctly from the beginning, especially when you’re handling someone else’s money. You must register your business with your state, either as a DBA (“Doing Business As”) or a business entity type such as a Limited Liability Company. While you absolutely could handle your bookkeeping business as a sole proprietorship, protecting yourself by becoming an LLC can keep you from being personally liable should your business be sued. Account executives, customer relationship management, and other personnel are not licensed service providers. These staff members cannot provide personalized accounting, legal, business structure, or other tax advice.

Prior to her time at Fit Small Business, Crystalynn was a Senior Learning Specialist at Intuit for three years and ran her own small QuickBooks consulting business. The membership fee starts at $39 for one year and includes a subscription to a monthly newsletter, free accounting, payroll and QuickBooks help on a member answer line and other benefits. You should be a member of at least one professional bookkeeper associations. As we mentioned previously, the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers and the National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers are the top two associations for bookkeepers. No one knows better than I do how tough it is to leave the office for a few days to attend a conference. While you may not think that you have the time, you’ve really got to just make the time. If you just can’t make a home office work, look into virtual office space.

In all, you will get a chance to dip your toe into a role as a bookkeeper. Unlike accounting, bookkeeping doesn’t require any formal education or expensive degrees.

To work from home as a bookkeeper, you don’t necessarily need a degree in accounting. But you do need a passion for tackling real-world problems and a commitment to being accurate and thorough.

Probably about half the people I told said that they needed or they knew someone who needed a bookkeeper, so I was already handing out my business cards. That first client was all I needed to gain the confidence to get my next client, which came a few weeks later. When you promote testimonials, you show potential clients your services can make an impact on their company too. It helps you close the deal faster because they can see the positive results you’ve produced for other businesses. If you want to start a virtual bookkeeping business, one of the areas you’ll want to learn is marketing.

By submitting your email address, you consent to us keeping you informed about updates to our website and about other products and services that we think might interest you. Bookkeeping keeps track of the day-to-day commercial activity of a business. They carefully track and record purchases, sales, inventory, and more.

Become A Certified Bookkeeper

This step is an important one because it establishes your business as a legitimate one. Whether you are doing this part-time or full-time, you don’t want to skip this step. I have had my own freelance bookkeeping business for over 25 years.