Im in my twenties and I'd love to learn this seriously, I've taught myself a bunch of languages and I'm learning bookkeeping but I know it's very practical and I can make sense of things in real time much faster. It's like reading about maths in English.
If anyone needs another set of eyes, ears, for anything entry level, they just need to show me once. I'll handle it. I'm seriously looking to learn.
Thanks.
I run a small bookkeeping business. I am not a CPA and do not handle anything taxes or payroll. My engagement letter states as much.
What I am wondering is if I should include in my engagement letter what happens during an IRS audit. I am thinking that if a client gets audited, I will be asked to assist with various requests and producing documents or reports. As a client, I would expect that from my bookkeeper. However, it is not part of the engagement letter/scope of work, and I would expect it to be time consuming and urgent with certain deadlines for submitting documents. So potentially a big interruption of my general weekly workflow.
Do you wait until it happens and then tell the client an hourly rate for the help? Or is it implied included as your responsibility? Or do you have it outlined up front in your engagement letter?
Hello, I might be landing my first client but I am not sure how to, or if I should, close the deal. I had a discovery call with them last year but they ghosted me, so I sent follow-up emails monthly about just letting them know I am still available but my main work (not bookkeeping) picked up and I didn't focus on my business. Well this potential client called me back out of the blue this month and said they needed me to do their books so their CPA can file their 2025 taxes. I did get them to send me bank statements so I was able to get a good idea of the number of transactions, but they haven't added me as an accountant to QBO so I can't give them a quote for services. They want clean up of 2025 (all 12 months) so they can file their taxes and then clean up for 2026 to get current and then month-to-month. I won't give a quote until I get into QBO as I want to see what they may have already done and look at the COA etc... I have followed up with them several times. (I am honestly surprised I was able to get the bank statements at this point).
I am afraid to take them as a client at this point because even if they sign up with me, they will expect me to do the clean up and get the 2025 books to the CPA by 9/1 and their communication already has been spotty. I know I will need additional info to classify the transactions once I am contracted. Should I push them? I do want to get my first client, but I also don't want this to end in disaster as I am seeing the red flags already. Any Advice? (for data, it looks like about 70 transactions a month on average, so not a ton, and I know I could do the work if they communicate timely with me.)
I’ve been working with both Xero and QuickBooks Online (QBO) for the past 14 years as a certified accountant, so I’ve had the opportunity to use both systems extensively in real-world bookkeeping and accounting work.
Personally, I prefer Xero over QBO, particularly in terms of the overall workflow and day-to-day usability. I’ve also worked on a number of Xero setups and migrations over the years, including helping businesses move from QBO, Wave, and other systems.
If anyone is considering moving to Xero or is unsure about the differences between Xero and QBO, I’m happy to share my experience or help answer any questions.
I'm in the process of starting my own bookkeeping/tax business in small town Kansas (pop. 1,000) and was hoping for some guidance.
I have a ton of questions as I start this journey, such as:
- I'm taking Quickbooks certification courses through ProAdvisor to help teach me before I accept my first client. I'm currently taking Intuit QuickBooks Certification Level 1, but I didn't know if it's worth taking any more than that after?
- Since I've soft launched my business, I've had a ton of people reach out to me regarding taxes. My plan was to eventually start tax services, but now I'm wondering if I should fast track that and try to get certified before tax season begins. What do you think? I've looked at courses through places like Surgent to help me study.
- Additionally, I've thought about just "White-Labeling" tax services from another firm. I'm not sure if you've ever looked into doing this and/or what your thoughts on it are?
Do you make more money through tax season or bookkeeping?
- How many bookkeeping clients could a single operator theoretically handle?
Overall, I think my biggest fear is that I get a new customer, and I'm not able to handle the services I promise them. I’m only able to do this PT for the time being, but I could probably hire help if needed.
(I also don't have any pricing cheatsheet, so if you have anything you could share, please let me know.)
I have a bookkeeping firm that currently runs exclusively on QuickBooks Online. Although most of my clients are happy with the services and the app itself, it has become increasingly unaffordable. For a subset of my clients, I would like to move them to Xero but can only find documents and articles on "migrating" Of course learning the Xero ecosystem is priority #1, however I would be interested in companies that have done this at length (moving firms and their clients to Xero).
I would think this would be a value-add service if not doing the move themselves, at least offer training guides ($).
I know I'm not the only one looking for help in this area and know it would be a wise investment, because many of my colleagues with firms are asking the same thing. Some ask me because of my background with systems and supporting QBO for years, but I have since left those techy days behind.
Hi everyone me and my business partner run a software company and wanted to share our frustrating experience with Uplinq.com in case it helps other business owners considering their bookkeeping or tax strategy services.
We signed up for their platform plus the Tax Strategist package (which includes quarterly strategy sessions) and paid a separate 2024 Catch-Up fee ($580) for prior period work.
What actually happened:
• 2024 Catch-Up Fee: We paid specifically for them to catch up our books. Despite multiple emails, virtually no work was completed. The team spent weeks citing technical issues with their system. In the end, nothing meaningful was delivered for that fee.
• Tax Strategy Services: We had one initial call with a strategist named Aman in December. He said he would schedule a follow-up to build out a plan. Shortly after, he left the company. We then went months with no assigned strategist and no strategy work performed. We sent over 10 emails to multiple team members asking for updates on the service we were paying for. Responses were either nonexistent, confused, or came very late. No quarterly strategy sessions took place and no real value or deliverables were provided.
We tried to resolve this directly and requested refunds for the undelivered services. Their final “resolution” was to refund only the $580 Catch-Up fee, cancel the account going forward, keep all other payments, and require us to agree in writing not to pursue chargebacks or any further claims. We declined because it didn’t address the Tax Strategy services where we received essentially nothing.
Since rejecting their offer, they have gone completely silent and provided no further resolution.
On top of the delivery failures, their support is horrible, you often have to wait weeks just to speak to someone. They appear to outsource a lot of the work (including tax prep), their “AI” barely works (it’s offline or failing to categorize transactions properly ~90% of the time), and overall the service feels significantly overpriced for the headache it caused.
Their marketing heavily emphasizes AI-powered automation + expert human oversight and proactive quarterly tax strategy. In our case, none of that held up.
If you’re a business owner evaluating Uplinq for bookkeeping, catch-up work, or tax strategy/optimization, I strongly recommend looking elsewhere. It’s simply not worth the frustration and lack of delivery.
Happy to answer reasonable questions in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
I work at a tax firm, but will be independently doing a client’s bookkeeping (I got approval to do this by my firm since we don’t do bookkeeping services for small to mid size clients). The client knows next to nothing about accounting a wanted me to do it simply because he knows that I know how to organize the books to make it simple for tax time. I asked my manager what I should charge. I am pretty confident I will do a good job. He said I should charge around $40-$60 per hour for the time I spend “catching-up” the 2025 books (Jan 1st-Now) and then $250-$350 per month for the upkeep. I’m leaning to doing $50/hour for the cleanup and $250 per month for the upkeep since I know his books won’t be anything too crazy ($15k revenue per month). What do y’all think?