Bookkeeping How to Get Started as a Bookkeeper
Bookkeeping: How to Get Started
If you like getting things organized and keeping track of records, bookkeeping can be a good career for you. The market is huge and many businesses don’t have the time to get this aspect of their business working. You can be the best fit for the role. A bookkeeper’s role is always high in demand, especially with increasing online businesses. Someone has to keep the records. The good part is anybody with a high school diploma can do this with a measure of training and the motivation to build a career path in this line.
How Do You Get Started with Bookkeeping?
Start with learning.
Everything in life starts with learning. This also applies to bookkeeping. Though becoming a professional bookkeeper doesn’t have any rigorous training, it takes learning from the experts to be proficient enough for real-world practice. Since bookkeeping entails entering transactions, all you need is a few math skills on your side. It is not going to be any serious calculation either; you’ll basically be entering transactions into bookkeeping systems.
Getting started in this career path shouldn’t cost you that much. Look for continuing education classes in bookkeeping at your nearest community college, or try out online courses.
If you’re making a career change and have worked in departments that deal with figures and data, that’s great! Although bookkeeping is a company you can start without any experience, it certainly helps to have worked in a money-related job before. The experience can go a long way in attracting customers to your business.
Certification
Many employers don’t require a professional degree or certification for the bookkeeping role. However, having a certification is a plus on your side to place you above any competition. In the American region, these are the two major certifications:
- American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers
- National Association of Certified Bookkeepers
Training is everything you need to be a bookkeeper. Next up is getting into the real world of work.
Working as a Bookkeeper
There are two options to getting employed as a bookkeeper. The first is working for a company. The second option which is most preferred by people is to start up a bookkeeping company of your own and work as an independent contractor.
Apply for Jobs
To gain experience and boost your confidence in the field, working for a reputable organization is often the best way to start. It helps to learn the ropes and understand how bookkeeping works in the real world. Going for an internship may not be necessary with bookkeeping because the role is not that technical. Check on indeed.com and other job listing platforms.
Running Your Own Bookkeeping Business
If you have the confidence and the expertise, starting your own bookkeeping company is a better option. You have everything under your control and can determine how much you earn. It gives you a measure of flexibility and allows you to take work with more than one business at a time. Never underrate how much you can make with bookkeeping for small businesses.
To get started with a bookkeeping business of your own, here are the key steps:
Step 1: Register your business
Get things right from the start with your bookkeeping business by getting the necessary documents in place. Register your business and get licensed to run. Proper registration gives you protection and shows that you’re truly serious about what you do. Another reason is that if your business is sued, shielding yourself by being an LLC will prevent you from being personally responsible.
Step 2: Get Insured
As you work as a bookkeeper with someone else’s private and confidential details, you should also get insurance to cover yourself. In the event that any mishap happens, the insurance organization should be responsible instead. Having an adequate insurance policy in place helps you run a better practice knowing that you have protection no matter what. You may want to obtain coverage of company liability, coverage of professional liability, coverage of documentation and records, coverage of data breaches, and so on.
Step 3: Choose who you want to render your services to
Specialize in a niche market, don’t be a generalist. Serving companies you like and are drawn to is also important. Specialization is more profitable than trying to do everything that comes your way.
Go for the global market. Serving customers anywhere in the world is a better option. You have to set up your organization in a very particular way that shows you’re open to international business. This particularly applies when the virtual bookkeeping option is the desire. State clearly on your website that you offer services to the global community.
Step 4: Host a professional website
A website shows yourself to the world. Get one hosted. To do this, you don’t need to be all that tech-savvy or invest a lot of money either! To make nice-looking websites easily, use a service such as WordPress self-hosting package. Your website should tell a story about your services, your expertise, and leave a contact number and email for people to reach you. If you’d rather have a professional do it, reach out to Brown Surfing.
Step 6: Market Yourself
Marketing is at the heart of getting what you want. The same applies to getting a good bookkeeping offer. Even if you don’t go door to door for customers, it can help to have your company’s business card available whenever you go. It can also be a huge help to have brochures printed to leave with local companies.
In addition, you can employ targeted advertising to great effect. Facebook has extremely accurate Advertisement services that allow you to effectively target specific audiences. Don’t leave out any company size in your target.
Step 7: Never stop learning
Continue your learning and consider providing more services as you build a customer base and get more comfortable with your bookkeeping business. And every time you add a service, it’s a perfect opportunity to re-evaluate your pricing strategy and market these new packages to your customers.