Great question!

If you have zero real-world experience in bookkeeping, you are not really ready to start your own freelance bookkeeping business. I say that because what you learn in the “perfect” academic world is a far cry from the incomplete and convoluted information many clients will provide you. Also, you will have a certificate in bookkeeping, but do you have any experience with QuickBooks software? That is far and away the #1 small business software program and you would need to have a thorough knowledge on how the program works to use it properly for clients. So if you haven’t already, you should take a course to learn QuickBooks as well.

My best suggestion would be to either get a part-time bookkeeping job so you can get comfortable with some real life bookkeeping work, or you could also try to subcontract bookkeeping work from an established accounting firm. In that way, you would not be totally on your own. If you try to take on clients fresh out of school without any experience, you will likely get in over your head very quickly and do more harm than good for your clients and your reputation.

Hope that helps!

Gabrielle

Thank you for your website I find it very informative. I’m working on getting my bookkeeping certificate now and I wanted to know from your opinion my ultimate goal is that I would like to be a freelance bookkeeper but right now I don’t have any bookkeeping experience when I’m done with the course I will just have the training and certificate. Do you think I have to get a job as a bookkeeper first and gain experience then eventually get my own clients or can I work my normal job and get my own clients now part time.

Thank you,

Denny

Sounds like you are moving full steam ahead on setting up your freelance business! Congratulations. Although it sounds like you have a good grasp on basic bookkeeping, you may want to attend the free webinar I’m doing next week that shows how basic bookkeeping principles apply in QuickBooks, so you can start to get a general flavor for that software. The live, online class will be held at 7PM Eastern / NY time on Tuesday, June 3rd. You can register at: http://www.bookkeepingdirect.com/essentials

It’s good that you have Peachtree experience, since that can become a sort of niche specialty for you as well.

Great job at being proactive AND I hope everyone notices how you got a good reaction in approaching a local CPA because you already had a relationship with him, so you immediately bypassed the typical resistance. You go girl! From a referral standpoint, it’s also great that you have the backing of your current employer; that helps to set the word-of-mouth wheels in motion.

You are doing great! Keep up the good work. And just so you (and everyone else) know, I will soon be interviewing a CPA to get inside advice on the best ways to break through the typical resistance and build even better bookkeeper-CPA relationships. So stay tuned for that!

Gabrielle

I loved reading your recommendation about contacting local CPA’s as I had contacted the one I work with at my current job immediately when I made the decision to go forward and he is excited about using me and referring to me as well (my current boss is behind me 100% in my business endeavors). Also picked up a small construction business almost immediately.

I will be watching this blog carefully. Thank you for taking the time to help all of us newbies get started!