How To Improve Your Bookkeeping Business

Starting a bookkeeping business can be a fantastic way to become your own boss and set your own hours. But if you really want to make this a career, you’ll need to focus on optimizing how you run your business and find new clients.

That’s why we’ve put together this article. It covers six tips you can apply to immediately take your bookkeeping business up a notch. Keep reading to learn more.

Define Your Audience and Niche

You can’t expect your business to appeal to everyone in every scenario. Instead, you’ll want to focus on carving out a niche for your company in a specific category of bookkeeping service or for a specific type of client.

For example, maybe you want to specialize in small businesses in the automotive industry. Or perhaps you’re ready to work with medium-sized companies in the IT industry.

Once you have an audience and a niche that you’re targeting, it becomes easier to market your business more effectively. It helps you appeal to people who are looking for something specific, which your competitors may not be advertising for.

Track and Categorize Your Expenses

Most bookkeeping businesses will spend money on many different things, including software, marketing services, and employee costs. Some of those costs are unavoidable, but you may be spending more than you need to.

That’s why it’s also a good idea to begin tracking and categorizing your expenses. Doing this will give you better insight into what you’re spending money on and how much value you’re getting back from it.

If you do this consistently, you’ll be able to immediately identify when your expenses go up in a month and can take action to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Find the Right Accounting Software

Software can also help you improve your bookkeeping business in numerous ways. 

For example, you can find accounting practice management software that will automate your delegation of tasks and send out alerts so that nothing falls through the cracks. This can be a great tool for getting more out of your workforce.

There are also many different types of marketing software out there which could help you grow your business. These include:

• Customer relationship management software (CRMs)
• Website visitor tracking software
• HR software
• Remote working software
• And others

You’ll have to decide which software is best for your bookkeeping business based on the work that you do and the nature of your team. But there’s a very high chance that there’s software out there that can help you achieve your goals more effectively regardless of what your business looks like.

Get Active on Freelancing Sites

If your goal is to start finding new clients, then you should consider getting more active on popular freelancing websites like Upwork and Fiverr. 

Upwork alone has nearly 150,000 core clients who spend at least $5,000 on freelancers every year. That’s a big pool of money that you could be staking a claim to.

The other cool thing about these websites is that you build a reputation over time. So if you deliver excellent bookkeeping services to clients consistently, then your profile will become more and more compelling for future clients, making it easier and easier for you to find more work.

Give Things Away for Free

This may sound counterintuitive, but one of the most effective things you can do to find more bookkeeping clients is to start giving things away for free. That’s because free things are one of the best ways to market your company.

You might offer your services pro-bono to businesses in your local community. That can help you get your name out there and may help you find new clients in the future.

Similarly, you can create valuable online resources, such as webinars and in-depth blog posts, and give those away for free. This can help you develop an online reputation, which could lead to more business for you in the near future.

Finally, you can offer free incentives for referrals. This will help to turn your existing clients into a new marketing channel to advertise your brand. Referrals can be really valuable since 83% of people trust the recommendations of friends and family.

Prioritize Networking

It’s also a good idea to get into the habit of networking – both online and in-person. Networking, as the name suggests, helps you expand your network. This is valuable because the more relationships you have in your industry, the more opportunities you have to earn recommendations and find new business.

It can be especially helpful to partner with an accounting firm that you recommend clients to in exchange for them doing the same for your business. These types of relationships with non-competing companies that are still in your industry can be one of the most effective ways to find new clients.