Looking to connect with experienced bookkeepers for future work
Hey everyone, figured I’d put this out there and start some conversations with anyone who might be interested.
A little background on me. I currently work in consulting and a big part of my job is discovery, understanding what a client actually needs, scoping the work, estimating the effort, and then making sure the right people are brought in to actually deliver it. I’ve also spent a lot of time around payroll, payroll tax, year end, W-2s, 941s, implementations, etc.
I’m currently going through the Intuit bookkeeping program because I want to get much stronger on the actual bookkeeping/accounting side myself. I’m definitely not coming on here pretending that I’m already some senior bookkeeper or CPA lol. I’m learning, and I want to keep learning.
What I am good at is the client side of the business. Sales, discovery, scoping, consulting, managing relationships, setting expectations, organizing projects, things like that.
So what I’m looking to eventually build is pretty simple. I handle finding the clients, qualifying them, scoping the work, pricing it (in accordance with the work), onboarding them, and managing the relationship. Then I work with experienced bookkeepers who are stronger than me on the actual delivery side.
It'd be cool to find maybe 1 or 2 people who have some bandwidth and would be interested in this kind of setup long term.
I also want to be upfront about the money side because I know there are a lot of posts out there looking for cheap bookkeeping labor but that isn’t what I’m trying to do
My plan would be to scope every client and engagement first, work with you to understand what the work actually requires, understand what you would fairly charge to do it, and then price the client accordingly. I would add my margin on top for bringing in the business, managing the client, handling the sales/operations side, etc.
I’m not trying to make my margin by cutting someone else’s rate. If the client can’t support paying the person doing the work fairly, I probably shouldn’t be taking that client in the first place.
I’d also really like to work with people who don’t mind me being involved and learning along the way. Not micromanaging or looking over your shoulder, but actually understanding how you approach the books, why you’re making certain decisions, how you close the month, what you’re looking for. I want to become genuinely competent at this myself while building the business.
I don’t have a bunch of clients ready to hand out tomorrow, so I don’t want to misrepresent that either. Right now I’m really just trying to get general thoughts on this approach BUT more importantly meet some good people, understand what kind of work you like doing, your experience, rates, availability, and see if there might be a fit as I start putting this together.
If that sounds interesting let's talk, if you've seen this kind of approach fail miserably that'd be cool to know too haha
Just looking to start some conversations and see where it goes. Thanks everybody!