Have you ever wanted to be mentored by someone who owns their own accounting firm?
That would have been a dream of mine 5 years ago!
One thing I always stress to people, is the importance of mentors. I attribute a lot of my success to the wonderful mentors I have had throughout the years. They were not accountants, but they were wonderful individuals that gave me the confidence to go out on my own.
A lot of my mentors were also business owners who posted their content on YouTube and inspired me to move further with my career. With the age of the internet, we are so lucky to have access to people who we would not have even known about a decade ago.
To all of you wanting to start your own accounting practice, I want to give you a glimpse into my daily life.
For those new to my blog, I run a full service accounting firm. We provide outsourced Controller level accounting services including monthly financials, payroll, AP and tax. We are a fully virtual firm with most of our clients residing in the San Francisco area.
This is ME time. During this time I like to work-out, plan my day, and do whatever I need to do to get my personal life in order. With two kids and a husband it’s nice to get some alone time!
The early morning is when I get all my high priority items out of the way. This is usually communicating with my team members on what to do for the day or answering client emails. For communication, I use Skype or Google Hangouts. Both are free and have mobile apps making communicating virtually very easy. I also use good old email!
This is also my time to catch up on any work I am behind on and get it over to the client before the day starts.
I have two kids that go to different schools. This is the time that I get myself presentable for the day and then feed the kids, help them get dressed and get them over to their schools!
I give so much credit to my kids for pushing me to start my own practice. It was because of them I knew I had to think outside the box. You must find your WHY.
I knew I did not was them in every before and after school program as I worked my 8-5. I didn’t want to worry about the constant school holidays and who would be with them during that time! Because of my kids, I took that initial step and left my stable public accounting firm to go work for a small virtual accounting firm.
I like to schedule all my client calls early. I always schedule them for after drop off so I can get them out of the way and have the rest of the day to work on my to-dos and accounting work.
My current client calls make up about ½ of this time. The other ½ are new client calls and marketing efforts. This is the time I might scout Upwork to see if I feel like any clients are a good fit. Or I might work on writing the copy for my next Facebook Advertising campaign.
This is my core time to work on accounting work. I have an employee that prepares the financials, so this consists of final reviews and getting the statements over to the clients. Quickbooks is by far my favorite financial software.
This is also when I run payroll (Gusto is my go to) and finalize AP runs for some of the clients. During this time I also work on special projects like budgeting or Board reports.
One thing I love about working from home is that it’s AMAZING how much stuff you can get done in 4 hours when you have no distractions. Absolutely amazing!
I pick up my son at 3 pm from school. We usually end up hanging out at school for 15 minutes and then going home. As I mentioned before, I LOVE that my son is not in any before or after school program. After 6 hours of schooling, he can just relax at home.
I will let you in on a little secret… I usually don’t work anymore once I come back home from picking up my son.
I usually use this time to relax and get ahead on household duties. Now don’t get me wrong, if there is work to do I work (usually the first 10 days of the month for the month end close), but other than that I am usually done for the day.
I still remember working at the firm “dreaming” about leaving at 4:30pm so I can be home by 5:30pm. I love that my work fits around my life, and not the other way around.
I leave at this time to get my daughter from school and then we go about our evening.
This is my life as an accounting entrepreneur!
I never dreamed of so much flexibility when I graduated with my accounting degree, but here I am, living the dream!
If running an accounting firm or freelancing sounds like something you would be interested in but you don’t know where you start, go ahead and download my FREE Firm Quick Start Guide below.
Also make sure you check out my Inclusive Firm Course.
In this course I teach the exact steps I took to start my own business, all the best technology and sales techniques out there, and much much more! You will be able to go out and start signing clients comfortably after going through my course.
If you prefer one on one consulting, we offer that as well! Click here to schedule a strategy session.
Do you have any other questions on what it is like to be a freelance accountant? Leave a comment below and I will get back to you!
