Online Bookkeeping Jobs: Turn Your Love For
Money Into Money
Are you good with numbers? Do you like
getting immersed in all kinds of details? Are you into things like solving
puzzles and untangling knots? If you answered yes to any of these questions,
you might be interested in being an at-home bookkeeper.
I’ve already shared that bookkeeping is a
great career to have because the skills are considered entry-level and it’s the
kind of work that easily adapts to working from home. These days, more and more
businesses are hiring at-home bookkeepers. And while there’s definitely a solid
niche for starting your own bookkeeping business, freelancing is certainly not
the only way to do it. You can also find remote work as a bookkeeper for a
company in a more traditional employment model.
What do Bookkeepers Do?
While bookkeeping is part of the accounting
process, it’s much more about staying on top of the clerical tasks as opposed
to analyzing reports, preparing taxes and setting budgets. A bookkeeper is
often the person inputting the receipts and invoices, counting inventory,
classifying expenses and income.
Because your scope is somewhat limited as a
bookkeeper, you often don’t need an accounting degree. That being said, there
are a few skills and personality traits that are absolutely imperative:
- You need to be organized
- You must have strong attention
to detail. If you don’t like double-checking, or triple-checking, your work,
this might not be the job for you.
- You need to be a hard worker.
- You need to be able to handle
multiple projects at once. You will probably have more than one client.
- You must be compassionate and
personable. To be a successful online bookkeeper, you need to be able to make a
connection with your clients. They need to be able to trust you with their
finances.
How Much do Online Bookkeepers Make?
As with most freelance opportunities, it
depends. If you are working for a large company or accounting firm, they will
likely dictate your earnings.
If you decide to start your own bookkeeping
business, you can probably earn a lot more as you are taking on more of the
responsibilities. According to Bookkeeper Launch, many of their graduates are
earning upwards of $60 per hour working from home.
What Types of Work Do Bookkeepers Do?
Bookkeeping is a back-office position
required in almost every industry, so there’s the built-in advantage of being
able to work in virtually any field. Once you’re trained in bookkeeping, you
can work within many different industries and find work that interests you,
whether it’s working with small business owners, bloggers, or even non-profits
— every industry needs bookkeepers.
Common tasks often include:
- Entering and managing accounts
payable
- Entering and managing accounts
receivable
- Maintaining the general ledger
- Managing inventory counts
- Overseeing payroll
- Monitoring project budgets
- Filing accounting reports
- Paying suppliers and following
up on purchase orders
- Monitoring petty cash
STARTING A BOOKKEEPING BUSINESS FROM HOME
If you love work from home or working
remotely, then work from home bookkeeping will help you to earn money online
and compete with the highest paying work from home jobs and home businesses.
To give you more precise guidelines on
bookkeeping as a work from home job, here are the effective points you can
follow step-by-step:
1. Get Certified
The fastest and easiest way to get clients
is to become certified. A certified bookkeeper is always preferred by the
clients. Therefore, before expecting clients, get the certification to impress
your potential customers and then catch the project by convincing them with
your conversational skills.
2. Make a Business Plan
When I Googled ‘how to make a business
plan’ a few years ago I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of information
they convinced me to put into it. To start with, create a basic business plan,
but be sure to re-visit it every quarter and flesh it out as your self-employed
bookkeeping business scales and grows. It will invariably be of benefit to
strategize your business.
3. Select a Business Name and Structure
Just as you cannot imagine your identity
without your name, your business also requires a name to be identified as a
brand. Choose an appropriate name related to your job – you can create
something with your city name to help target your local area, or if you’re more
of a freelancer a name that’s more objective related. It’s totally up to you.
In terms of business structure, there are
various types of business structure including Personal or Sole Proprietorship,
Partnership, Limited Liability Company and Corporation.
All these types have different requirement
and terms. Make sure that you are choosing the right option according to your
business.
In addition, to assist you further in this
matter, we suggest you consult with a lawyer and/or an accountant, who will
guide you on the right track.
4. Set up a Business Bank Account
Keep business and personal separate! Until
that joyful time comes when you pay yourself. I love payday.
Before taking projects from clients, open a
business account. Don’t be like the divorced relationship councillor or the
overweight personal trainer. As a bookkeeper set a good example and sort this
stuff out from day dot.
5. Bookkeeping Software
In starting your work from home bookkeeping
online business no doubt you will have decided to invest in some bookkeeping
software. There are stacks of options to choose from; however, opting for a
top-class one will be the best investment for your job. Start your research by
asking Google and filter the search results wisely to get the appropriate one.
6. Get Your Business E-mail ID
A business email address is essential in
order to be seen as professional to prospective clients, so it’s important to
get your domain name from the beginning. And for postal inquiry (if that still
exists), you have to put the address of your office. It might be your home or
be any rented place. The above is a list of some of the technical requirements
needed to get things up and running. From there it’s time to start thinking
about marketing and listing your services, attracting clients and delivering
your world class bookkeeping service so you can enjoy bookkeeping from the
comfort of your home!
Benefits of a Virtual Bookkeeping Job
PRO TIP
A good computer and high-speed internet
should be your first investments. Also crucial to a being a virtual bookkeeper
is accounting software, such as Quickbooks Online, which keeps startup costs
low.
And then there’s that $60-per-hour pay rate.
The average full-time bookkeeper earns
nearly $40,000 per year (almost $19/hour), according to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics reports. But pointed out that as a freelancer or contractor,
you can actually earn a higher hourly rate while working fewer hours.You must
know how to provide true value to clients — that real-world problem-solving we
talked about — to command this kind of income.
Can anyone who knows how to use a calculator
make money as a work-from-home bookkeeper?
Using a calculator is such a small part of
bookkeeping. It’s more like a giant puzzle and figuring out where each piece
goes. The catch is that you have to know where to put each piece; it isn’t as
simple as some would have you believe. There are nuances that you don’t know
you don’t know… does that make sense? Basically, you need help along the way to
ensure you are ready to take on a client and not mess up their books!
Love that concept! When you decided to
start learning to become a bookkeeper, what was going through your mind?
Well try to learn it on my own and failed
miserably. I should mention here that I am usually the type of person that can
teach myself anything… guitar, violin, bass, piano, crochet, knitting, oil
painting, languages, etc. But for some reason, this just wasn’t clicking.
Did you know everything going in? If not,
were you able to grow and add skills you didn’t know?
Haha, I knew NOTHING going in. I had tried
to do my own bookkeeping as a VA, but it was just a mess because I had no idea
what I was doing. On the business side of things, I knew the basics of having a
business, but not a successful one. I had no clue how to find clients or market
at all.
The course taught me everything I needed to
know. From Day 1 I was learning new skills all the way through the end of the
course. And to be honest, the learning hasn’t stopped!