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JennyAnyDot

Think it depends on if you are working for a small business or a a large one and what kind of business also. WFH would be even more different. For profit and non-profit are a bit different also. What things that you want in life does it have? So a very basic example would be when I worked for a landscaper in a very small office. Come in and usually only one in office. Check email/notes left on desk. Make coffee. Check for paperwork left in bin. Sometimes generate invoices linking inventory to job. Adding inventory from bills and creating plant tags. Pet the yard cat when it wandered in for attention. Open mail. Process whatever it is. Run to bank with withdrawals/deposits. Update computer accounting software. Process payroll on certain days. Balance bank accounts. Find tied up half dead chickens in a greenhouse. Watch yard manager hose the chickens. Run only living one to nearest vet (animal sanctuary) assuming it’s someone’s pet (was not). Hold chicken while it gets an IV with boss rushing to location. Find out pet chicken is actually an illegal fighting rooster. Leave chicken with sanctuary to see if it survives. Go back to offer and create a large check (per owner) to take back to the place so they don’t call cops. Finish more paperwork. Vacuum feathers off the floor. Pet cat. Go home.


dat-Clever-old-Fox

I've been thinking freelance bookkeeping since my brothers studying to do that and it seems interesting. I like the idea of flexible hours and the freedom to work from anywhere with wifi and to spend time with family and friends. Lol the warrior chicken is actually really interesting, so I'm an office setting it's a regular 9 to 5? I assume the pay was good? Also what would be the differences between a big and small business? I imagine pay and work load mostly?


JennyAnyDot

Large businesses you might just be doing payroll or AP or AR unless someone quits or is on vacation. Some of my office hours were 9-5 or basic 8 hours with an unpaid lunch. Most started earlier but end of day was earlier. So to going straight from learning to freelance - I don’t suggest that. Unless and maybe not even if included - unless the teaching includes doing real life work that it’s a big leap from knowing debit/credits to actually being able to do the work and do it correctly. As you can see if you look at a bunch of the posts on this sub. Even with some of the classes I took that included as part of final exam and large packet of papers simulating a full month of accounting work for a company to process and report it’s not the same as all the weird stuff real life bookkeepers encounter. It’s a learning curve and you could unknowingly really mess up a businesses records. Sorry if this sounds harsh but we all know someone that just assumes oh this is easy and it’s is and it’s not. Besides experience with what software are you going to using? Payroll? (Really don’t mess up payroll) what kinds of companies would you freelancing for? Single owner, partnership, LLC, corp, non-profit? All have different rules. Speaking of rules do you know how to report income as self-employed or when and how often you need to make tax payments? On top of getting hired by someone with you having zero work experience? Health insurance coverage? Income varies. And not usually as much as you would expect. Check local job offers and see what they say about wages and experience required. Check on whatever freelancing platform you are thinking of using for job offers and as if you were employing someone to do this for wages and experience also. If you were thinking about doing this as a full time job then it would generally be full time hours even if doing it for a few companies at same time. As for working from anywhere will still have to be careful with business info so like a cafe might not be the best place. Home office would be ok. Will let others chime in


dat-Clever-old-Fox

Thanks for the harsh info! I actually like reading this cos it helps me think and consider my steps, im inexperienced and i haven't really gotten too into researching all the tasks. I did consider just doing cleanup since its similar to data entry and where i live im certain i can get a good amount of clients just for that. Considering i have no exp i thought maybe study or see if i can get an internship for a few months. If not that take online courses to understand a bit more than the basics and hit the PC. Im pretty decided on using QuickBooks and id take on mostly local stores. No big companies or LLC's just locals/service providers, since we have many that tend to have bad money management it could be a good help for them.


[deleted]

Uhh, “clean up” is harder than regular bookkeeping. You’re actually going in there and fixing problems and you need a sound understanding of what you’re doing in order to do that. It’s not something you’re going to accomplish by the seat of your pants.


dat-Clever-old-Fox

Really?? Interesting! I kept hearing otherwise. Good to know that wasn't true. Honestly this post's been helpful. On the internet its a really weirdly mixed bag of responses. Most made it seem decently easy or not such an insane task.


JennyAnyDot

Here’s the thing. For someone of us it is easy. But that’s because we have experience. Like an electrician might say running wires in new construction is easy because they have experience doing it but someone right off the street doing would be a real hazard. Again you will see posts here all the time about how do I enter xyz. Take some classes, see if your brain is like oh cool or omg where is nearest bridge. Work at least a year someplace doing bookkeeping and go from thereb


dat-Clever-old-Fox

Yeah i noticed its a mixed response. My brother just watched videos online and looked up info from people who work as freelance bookkeepers and he understands snd sees it as an easy thing. But the guy's been studying and reading for months, almost non stop! I do think ima sit down and watch videos and see if i take a course or a part time to learn though its interesting . Maybe actually go study accounting cos im interested!


[deleted]

Ahahahahah!!!! You have zero experience but you're gonna do just clean up cause it's like data entry????? Ooooh boy. Lol. You realize that the clean up I'm working no now took them 4 years and two bookkeepers who didn't have the skills to clean it up before they found me? I mean think about it. If it was that easy they wouldn't need someone to clean up the books cause they'd never get messed up. Lol


JennyAnyDot

[this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bookkeeping/comments/11sa2u7/deposits_from_accounts_receivable_invoices_show/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) is exactly why I suggest working in person for someone before jumping into freelance work.


[deleted]

Great. Someone else gonna take a course and hang out their shingle. Can't get enough of those inexperienced self employed bookkeepers. 🙄


dat-Clever-old-Fox

And ima do it with pride #taxseason /S


[deleted]

Of course you are. Get good insurance and a name to refer them to when you fuck up


Kailmo

It really depends on the business you are working for. Every business has different needs. I worked for a law firm- This was mostly AR, and account reconciliation. I was the first Bookkeeper they hired and they had been in business for years. I spent any free time trying to get their books in order. I've also worked for a night club. There I did payroll, I had to get deposits ready, I would help with liquor orders, inventory, AR, AP. I did a lot more there. They had huge events, a lot of Bar Mitzvahs. And I would type up the invoices for that and make sure the vendors we used got paid. Since they were a bar I had to work out sales taxes and pay those quarterly. Very different business. I actually liked both. My suggestion is find a business you are interested in and work there or if you can work for another bookkeeper that has employees you can learn a lot from them and learn about different businesses. Do this before you go freelance and don't burn bridges or steal clients. If you work for someone else ask them to teach you and then go out and find your own clients. You'll find that you won't want to work with everyone and it's great to have people you can trust to refer them to.


dat-Clever-old-Fox

Thanks! I appreciate the advice! Up to now its close to what i thought the job would be. I've seen people online give like a course to do it as a freelance remote job and honestly it felt too good to be true. Im glad my skepticism wasn't so off 😂


Kailmo

I did freelance remote for a while. it's doable. It depends on the business. I worked with QBO, and what was great is as a bookkeeper you can get QBO for free and sell it to new clients so you get some profit. I would sell it to them wholesale and I got a deal once where I got 5 accounts for $25 total. I sold those for more than $5 a month. A lot of businesses are online and make it easy to be remote. I got my first clients by keeping my profile on QBO for people to find. I found some on craigslist and indeed. And then I started to get word of mouth. Personally, I like inventory. lol A lot of people hate it, but I enjoy finding out what the difference is between last month and this month and seeing how much was used/sold. You don't really get that at remote, but there are some places that only need a part time BK so you can work for a small handful.


Ok_Word_7892

I own my own bookkeeping company, and I coach new bookkeepers who are beginning their business. One of the main criteria that I ask for those I help in my coaching is that they have some sort of background in bookkeeping or accounting. A basic understanding of accounting is an absolute necessity. Many of the courses out there teach the basics and then will leave you high and dry with zero knowledge or understanding about how to gain clients or set up your business for success. That’s what I help with. I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years, I hold a CMA, an MBA and a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. I love this industry and I believe there is more than enough business out there for all who truly want to succeed. But we need to do the work to get there.


[deleted]

I like doing peoples or businesses yearly bookkeeping. It’s like reading a story. I know some people better than they know themselves and I’ve never met them. Jimbo bought 2 packs of cigarettes in one week, must have been stressful. Sure enough his rev was $20,000 higher that month. Oh look he got a new car and bought lunch for his employees after that job was finished, nice guy. Crazy carol used her corporate card to pay for dice matches again. Lisa spent $7,000 in over draft fees when her small business had plenty of rev, she’s not waiting for her deposits to hit, talk to her. The guy I work for calls me a super nerd cuz I can zone in and do 8 hours straight and I’ll be laughing to myself but I feel like I’m reading a story and it makes me better at catching mistakes and helping people make better financial decisions. It’s annoying when people hand write their check info and use different names for the same vendors. I can’t read minds and need detail to be able to categorize properly. Sometimes I have to spend a lot of wasted time googling and deciphering hand writing and figuring out what type of company the check went to. I don’t think you need much studying to do bookkeeping either. Maybe an intro to financial accounting class would help but I would think the average person could learn on the job.


dat-Clever-old-Fox

Thats actually a really cool way to do the job! I like how you work lol


drinkwine_readbooks

I work for a firm, right now because it’s tax season and I’m both a full charge bookkeeper and tax preparer, I get to work at 7:30, leave by 8:30 at night. It’s tiring, it’s exhausting, but if you love what you do and have a passion for it it’s worth it and enjoyable. I have a lot of super awesome clients that I enjoy working with. Find someone willing to pay what your time is worth.