How To Start A Bookkeeping Business

Melinda writes: I’ve been bookkeeping for my husband but have been a financial analyst for 14 years and now looking at branching into a bookkeeping business.

It doesn’t mean that she’s ready to go and become a freelance bookkeeper

We recently asked a bookkeeper to do some subcontracting for us. We’ve had the client for a while, and all the bookkeeper was required to do was basic data entry so that we could complete the BAS.

“I’ve worked in an accounting office for fifteen years,” she told us.

If a person is doing bookkeeping, they are a bookkeeper. If they are doing accounting, they are an accountant. Bookkeeping is the process of systematically recording the financial transactions of a business, so as to show how the transactions relate to each other

The accounting process is much less mechanical and more subjective. The accountant presents the financial statements to the business management in such a way that decisions can be made.

Her accounting experience was certainly reflected in her bookkeeping. She ignored the cheque numbers, and simply followed the automated numbering system in the software package

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, I’ll reconcile from the amounts in the expense account!”, was her response.

The fact that Melinda has been a financial analyst for 14 years and has bookkeeping for her husband doesn’t mean that she’s ready to go and become a freelance bookkeeper!

We’ve come in behind too many wanna-be bookkeepers who’ve messed up their client’s accounts, because they thought they knew how to do bookkeeping

Before starting out on your own as a freelance contract bookkeeper, you need to get some experience working under the direction of established bookkeepers.

Like it or not, being a freelance bookkeeper is a different game out in the real world, compared to doing your husband’s books – ask any professional freelance bookeeper.