When asked if my “Master Plan” was to start my own accounting business, or if I always knew I would have an accounting business, my answer is always NO!
My dream job was a cushy state job with great benefits and PTO. As you can see, I did complete 180 from what my original dream job was, and now run an accounting business from home earning six figures.
What skills must you have before you can be successful on your own?
You must know accounting. I know that sounds like an obvious thing, but I have met so many accountants that know some areas of accounting but don’t know the full cycle or can’t figure out issues as they arise.
Look, having your own business is much much different than being one Accounting Clerk or one Senior Accountant in a Company. When you are part of a team you are always able to ask questions to someone above you. Being the CEO/Founder/Owner means you are it! You must be able to fully provide the service you say you offer.
Now that doesn’t mean you must know everything. You must know enough to provide your service on a typical day and have a network you can ask for guidance on topics you don’t know.
This also doesn’t mean you need to have all the education and decades of experience to go out on your own.
I was a CPA, but I was only 4 years out of college when started my business and got my first client! At that point I had my Bachelors degree, my CPA license, exactly 3 years in audit, and 1 year doing Controller level work for small businesses.
This part is extremely critical. As a new business owner, you are going to get smaller clients. You must know them inside and out.
It’s great that you worked at the Big 4 and audited or worked on the tax return of Wal-Mart. But knowing how to do that will not tell you all you need to know on small businesses. You might have just worked on AR during your Wal-Mart audit. However when you are doing the bookkeeping or accounting on clients with $2 million in revenue, you must know how to close and take care of every area on the balance sheet and income statement.
After 3 years in public accounting, I knew that having a 4 month busy season wasn’t for me. I stumbled upon an accounting firm that provided Controller level accounting services to small businesses. This was where I learned, Quickbooks, Quickbooks Online and Xero. There I also learned the best technology to use for small businesses. This time at the accounting firm was crucial, as small business accounting is different than auditing large companies.
If you don’t have any small business experience, I would recommend taking my route – going to a small business accounting firm. There are so many virtual ones out there now! And probably local ones.
If that isn’t an option, go ahead and sign up for a free trial of Quickbooks Online and Xero and work on figuring the system out. Don’t forget that these systems aid us accountants that know accounting. They are fairly easy to figure out. I self-taught myself every program including Netsuite!
I repeat this over and OVER to the people I mentor, if I wanted to make $50 an hour I would not go into owning my own practice. It just isn’t worth it! The goal of your own practice should be to make more money and have a better life than you would working for someone else.
How do you do this? Automate, automate, automate!
If you have a client with 400 transactions a month and you hand type every transaction in, do you know how long that will take? But what if you have the transactions automatically download from the bank to QuickBooks? And when they come through, all you need to do is code them?
This FREE feature of QuickBooks alone will save you 80% of time in data entry.
What about if you offer a bill pay service? Do you know how long it would take to write out the checks, file the invoices, and mail the checks out? Well Bill.com does all that for you! You can have a weekly batch of AP processed in under 60 minutes!
Technology is evolving. Every year there is an update coming out to a current software I use, or a now software emerging that I love. Using technology is key to building that six figure business and working less!
Ahhh this is the reason most accountants aren’t going out on their own. How will I find clients? After all I am an accountants and not a sales person. Those two are very opposite of each other.
Well let me tell you this. You will not get a sustainable amount of clients by handing out your business cards, or creating a site and waiting for someone to contact you. That will not bring in a good amount of clients.
Successful sales is when you go out and get clients.
Social media marketing is BIG. We spend most of our time on social media these days. Why are you not advertising there and driving clients to you through FaceBook or Instagram?
There are SO many freelancer sites like Upwork.com out there right now. Business owners come to these sites looking for accountants. They are looking to hire someone.
I have used both of these methods and many more to obtain quality clients which have allowed me to build a six figure accounting firm.
The thought of leaving a cushy accounting job is beyond scary. We accountants are compensated well and there is usually a clear promotion path. Who would leave all that? Maybe it was my young age and the hunger for independence and more money, but I truly believe one of the most life changing decisions in my life happened at 26 when I signed my first accounting client.
If 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 getting 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!
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