The Shoeboxed Blog

How to Get Bookkeeping Clients: An Easy Step-By-Step Guide

Whether you’re a newly minted entreprenåeur diving into the world of freelance bookkeeping or a seasoned bookkeeper looking to grow your business, finding clients can be a tough job. This is especially true following the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove a majority of businesses online and left many bookkeepers scrambling to develop their online presence.

But don’t be discouraged! Building up your client base may seem like an impossible task at first, but with the right tools under your belt, you’ll be attracting new clientele in no time. Today we’ll take you through the best strategies to get new bookkeeping clients.

Five easy steps to get bookkeeping clients

Step one: Identify your audience

Before you can start your search, you’ll need to know what kind of client you’re looking for. Identifying your target market will not only help you find your most ideal clientele, but also help them find you in the long-run!

To do this, you’ll need to decide whether you are looking to specialize in a specific industry or provide services to a more general client base. There are benefits to both – sticking to a specific niche service (i.e. payroll) or industry (i.e. retail stores, restaurants) helps potential clients determine whether you are the right fit for them, while remaining in the generalist pool widens your scope of prospective business.

Step two: Develop your online presence

There are a plethora of social media platforms available to help craft your online presence, so how do you choose which one is right for your freelance bookkeeping business?

Facebook

We recommend you start with Facebook. Facebook offers a number of great tools to support freelance business owners. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to take a moment to check out Facebook Business Pages. You can use your page to promote your service offerings, share useful bookkeeping tips and relevant posts, and grow your following.

If you already have existing clients, it’s a good idea to encourage them to visit your page and leave a review – it will help generate positive feedback about your services and attract new business. Make sure you also include links to any other social media platforms or external websites where new and existing clients can find you in the “About” page.

Another great resource is LinkedIn, otherwise known as the world’s leading business social networking site. With over 722 million users, there are many reasons why LinkedIn is the go-to site for professionals looking to build their network. Help clients find you by interacting on posts and in relevant groups, or take the first step and reach out to potential clients to introduce yourself. If you’re having trouble getting started, Hootsuite has a great guide to help you create an attractive page.

You may also want to look into creating a Twitter, blog, podcast or YouTube channel where you can share helpful bookkeeping knowledge and tips, showcase your skills and establish your reputation as an expert. And don’t forget to re-share your content on your other social media pages!

Step three: Get certified with an accounting software

In the world of freelance bookkeeping, it’s difficult to stand out amongst the thousands of other qualified professionals out there. Set yourself apart by getting certified by your accounting software of choice. Most people will be familiar with QuickBooks, so we recommend joining the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program. This is a completely free way to let your clients know that you’re an expert user of QuickBooks’ products. Being added to QuickBooks’ Find-A-ProAdvisor Directory will also help generate a few leads every month.

Step four: Network with professionals

The struggle to find clients isn’t unique to bookkeeping – all professionals in the service industry will go through this at some stage in their career. This also means that all professionals will likely understand the value of a referral. By building relationships with local professionals in similar or complementary industries, you will open yourself up to an even wider avenue of opportunity.

Once you’ve made the connection, what comes next is totally up to you:

Offer to trade referrals – Perhaps your new professional connection knows someone looking for a freelance bookkeeper. You can repay the favour next time – working together to grow your business is a win-win strategy!

Offer subcontracting – If you’re starting out and looking to gain some experience, reach out to some well-known local bookkeepers and offer to take on some of their workload. This is a great way to get your name out there and potentially find your first client.

Offer referral incentives – You may want to reach out to professionals and offer complementary services in order to give them a taste of your offerings. Satisfied clients are likely to want to spread the word of your great work within their own networks – especially if you offer discounts or additional services in return.

Step five: Attend public speaking events

A great way to establish your credibility and build your reputation as a reliable bookkeeper is to share your expertise at business-related events such as conferences, seminars, business training sessions, trade shows, and webinars. Public speaking may feel intimidating at first – but fear not. If you start by volunteering for smaller guest-speaking opportunities, you can gradually grow your presentation skills until you feel ready to attend larger-scale conferences.

If you enjoy public speaking, we also suggest starting your own webinar. You’ll want to speak on relevant topics that you have experience in. For example, you may want to educate your audience about receipt management – a task that can easily get out of hand without the right tools. This is the perfect chance to introduce and walk your clients through any useful, bookkeeping-related software applications, such as Shoeboxed — a receipt management application that turns your receipts and business documents into digital format. This will not only help your clients manage their own businesses easier, but also streamline your bookkeeping process in the future!

Once you’ve chosen a topic, make sure you do your research, include numerous interactive opportunities and create engaging visuals so your audience will want to attend your future events. To garner an audience, reach out to your existing client network and promote your event on your social media pages. This is a great (and free!) opportunity for current and future clients to tap into your expertise.

Get started – Start searching for new bookkeeping clients!

Phew – you made it to the end of our guide! With all of these strategies in hand, you’re almost ready to take on the task of getting new clients for your freelance bookkeeping business. Before you embark on your journey to success, we want to remind you that you do not need to use every method we’ve suggested – especially not all at once! You also don’t need to do steps 2 to 5 in order.

Give this article another read, think about which methods will work best for your business goals and then, when you feel ready, get the ball rolling. You can do this!

About Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed is a receipt management application that turns your receipts and business documents into a digital format in just one click by taking a picture straight from your smartphone or scanning a pdf. It automatically extracts, categorizes, and human-verifies important data from your receipts so that you can go over and check your records anytime with ease.

Shoeboxed ensures you always have your receipts securely stored and ready for tax purposes. More importantly, Shoeboxed helps you track mileage using your phone’s built-in GPS for unmatched ease and accuracy. Access your Shoeboxed account from your web browser or smartphone app. Stay audit-ready with Shoeboxed for FREE now!

How to Use Quickbooks Online Accountant: Learning Steps, Tips, and Resources

If you are a QuickBooks user, you would probably have heard of QuickBooks Online Accountant, the new feature that allows users to access and enjoy your ProAdvisor benefits, manage and handle QuickBooks Online clients, and cooperate with other company members.

In this article, we will introduce this feature in detail, from what it is to how it can benefit your business and how to use Quickbooks online accountant. We’ll also share some helpful bonus tips and learning resources to make the most out of this feature.

What is QuickBooks Online Accountant?

QuickBooks Online Accountant is a cloud-based accounting management software. It helps bookkeepers and accountants compile client transactions, review their books, and make adjustments. This program is free for accounting professionals, and when you sign up, you’re eligible to join in the QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor program. QuickBooks Online Accountant features bookkeeping for your company built around QuickBooks Online Advanced and client tools, making it a one-stop software to meet all your bookkeeping needs.

How using QuickBooks Online Accountant benefits your business

QuickBooks Online Accountant provides users with a comprehensive range of benefits, from enjoying ProAdvisor benefits, managing and handling QuickBooks Online clients, and cooperating with other teammates from anywhere. Whether you need to work with clients in the cloud or look for accounting courses and certification, the feature can meet all your business requirements.

How to use QuickBooks Online Accountant

To help you better visualize how to use QuickBooks Online Accountant, we’ve listed some helpful tutorial videos below:

Introduction to QuickBooks Online Accountant

QuickBooks Online Complete Tutorial

You can also have a look at the QuickBooks Online Accountant guideline that explains each task thoroughly and provides detailed illustrations for each process.

QuickBooks Online Accountant tips and tricks

Use ProAdvisor

The QuickBooks Intuit Package comes with the ProAdvisor feature, which connects you with a local accountant (depending on your location) to help you get up and run the software if needed. You can also consult them on issues like tax requirements, offset expenses, and business structure.

Reconcile on QuickBooks

One of the essential QuickBooks tips that simplify your work is constant reconciliation. By reconciling your accounts regularly, you always have a broad view of your financial situation. You can simply check that a statement or payment remittance matches your QuickBooks whenever you receive one. This includes all statements, including those for bank accounts, credit cards, and loans.

Secure your data with QuickBooks

Securing your data is as integral as running your business. And QuickBooks can help you with that! With QuickBooks Online, you can set up an automatic schedule to back up your data on the cloud system or have it backed up automatically. Otherwise, you can integrate QuickBooks with your backup solution for extra security.

Customize your QuickBooks layout

The latest version of QuickBooks offers users a customizable interface. If you are more familiar with the previous layout or simply want to create an interface that suits you best, all you need to do is go to Edit>Preferences>Desktop View.

Set up memorized transactions

A simple practice that can make your work much simpler and faster is to set up memorized transactions on QuickBooks. You can utilize these to pay monthly bills or send off monthly invoices to your clients, which can help you save a lot of time and effort and avoid making mistakes. To enable that feature, click on Lists>Memorized Transaction List>Memorized Transaction>New Group and set up the transactions you want to memorize.

QuickBooks Online Accountant learning resources and certification

Besides providing users with a helpful accounting tool, QuickBooks Online Accountant offers professional training for future accountants and bookkeepers. Users can choose to learn from videos, webinars, virtual conferences, and in-person events to improve their knowledge and skills and gain confidence from first-hand experience.

QuickBooks Accountant University

QuickBooks Accountant University is a step-by-step program that offers users flexible courses and concrete results in bookkeeping and accounting. This program provides free access to actionable, live training lessons taught by Advanced Certified ProAdvisors and all the study materials you need in your learning.

Moreover, you can pick your favorite learning method, from webinars to virtual conferences to in-person events, and earn CPE (Continuing Professional Education) credits.

You can check upcoming events and on-demand training here.

QuickBooks Certification

QuickBooks Online Accountant offers accounting professionals free training, exams, and certification. Through exams, you can gain valuable skills to provide better services for your clients and earn credentials that keep your practice growing as well.

You can find exams and get your certifications here.

The bottom line

QuickBooks Accountant gives accountants and bookkeepers an amazing opportunity to improve their performance. The feature helps users collaborate with other teammates and clients better, keep the information up to date, and maintain a seamless process for bookkeepers and accountants. It can increase productivity, reduce errors and fraud, and maximize companies’ resources in the long run.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Shoeboxed blog for more helpful accounting information, tools, learning resources, and best practices for accountants and small businesses!

About Shoeboxed

Access your Shoebox ed account from your web browser or smartphone app. Stay audit-ready with Shoeboxed for FREE now!

What Does Single-Entry Bookkeeping Look Like: Explanation and Examples

You may have heard about the double-entry accounting method to keep track of a business’s finances.

But do you know there’s another method called single-entry bookkeeping that has been commonly used since the 1400s?

In this article, we’ll tell you in more detail about this ancient bookkeeping method with some easy-to-follow examples so that you can understand it.

What is single-entry bookkeeping?

Single-entry bookkeeping is a very simple way to record financial transactions. The bookkeeper literally just needs to enter each transaction as a single entry in a journal. You don’t need to classify the nature of transactions as an expense or an income. Everything is recorded the same way with one entry to the log.

With the single-entry bookkeeping system, you mostly record incoming and outgoing money to the cash book and you track assets and liabilities separately.

Due to its simplicity, this method is great for new small businesses. According to an IRS report, many individuals and small enterprises opt to use single-entry bookkeeping to keep track of their finances. However, the IRS doesn’t allow businesses with annual gross sales of more than $5 million to use this method.

Examples of single-entry bookkeeping

At its most basic form, a typical single-entry journal will have the following information:

Transaction date: the day the transaction is made
Transaction description: detailed information about what the transaction is about
Transaction value: the amount of the transaction

Below are a few examples of how the single-entry bookkeeping system is used in real situations.

Example 1

Suppose you are a bookshop owner. Your main financial transactions are to buy and sell books, so this is what your cash book would look like with the single-entry bookkeeping method:

Pretty straightforward, isn’t it ?

The journal is just like a cash diary where you jot down each transaction in a single line, and there’s no requirement for professional knowledge—everyone and anyone can do it!

Now, let’s check another example where the bookkeeping system gets a bit more complicated.

Example 2

The following cash book shows more details than Example 1.

It still contains the basic information like the date the transaction occurred, a short description, etc., but on top of that, it also displays whether the money is coming in or out (income or expense) and the bank balance, which changes with each new transaction.

We’re going to use the same bookstore scenario so you can see the differences more clearly:

Normally, after finalizing the closing balance on the cash book, businesses usually compare and cross-check the cash book with the bank statement to ensure every entry was correctly recorded.

In this case, the bookstore will find out that there’s a $500 check that hasn’t yet been cleared and $150 cash that hasn’t been deposited yet.

So in such a case, the business would create a bank reconciliation sheet as follows:

Example 3

You may also include a reference column to keep track of invoice numbers and a reconciliation column on the far right to mark if you’ve reconciled (matched) the entry to your bank statement.

Also, you can break down each column into smaller categories. For example, with expenses, you can split it into different kinds such as cost of goods sold (COGS), advertising costs, and delivery fees.

The image below will show you what a super detailed single-entry bookkeeping system looks like:

Image. Beginner-Bookkeeping

What are the pros and cons of the single-entry bookkeeping system?

If you are wondering whether a single-entry bookkeeping system is suitable for your business, check out some of the pros and cons of this method below!

Pros: Why should you choose the single-entry bookkeeping system?

Easy to implement: even individuals who have little to no experience with accounting can easily get used to and master this recording system.
Cost-saving: you don’t need to buy accounting software to perform complicated tasks or hire a bookkeeping professional.

Cons: Why should you avoid the single-entry bookkeeping system?

Insufficient data: as the data you record with single-entry bookkeeping is very basic (only cash in and cash out), you won’t have enough data to prepare proper financial statements or strategize timely policies.
Tax issues: due to the fragmentary nature of the data recorded with the single-entry system, many types of companies using this method aren’t acceptable to tax authorities.
Bookkeeping mistakes: unlike double-entry bookkeeping, where you always need to maintain the balance between debits and credits, the single-entry system doesn’t need to self-balance. This means errors can arise and be carried forward without anyone noticing, which may lead to severe consequences in the future.

Final thoughts

If you have a very simple sole proprietorship—one that doesn’t have any inventory, doesn’t have any debts, and not many accounts to keep track of—single-entry bookkeeping could be a good choice for you. However, if your business is any more complicated than that, consider using a double-entry bookkeeping system to have more complete and accurate financial data.

About Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed is a receipt management application that digitizes your receipts and business documents in just one click by taking a picture straight from your smartphone or scanning a pdf. It automatically extracts, categorizes, and human-verifies important data from your receipts so that you can go over and check your records anytime with ease. Shoeboxed ensures you will always have your receipts securely stored and ready for tax purposes. More importantly, Shoeboxed helps you track mileage using your phone’s built-in GPS for unmatched ease and accuracy.

Access your Shoeboxed account from your web browser or smartphone app. Stay audit-ready with Shoeboxed for FREE now!