This Is Why Your Bookkeeping Business Isn’t Growing

If I could go back to 2020 and start my bookkeeping business all over again, I would do a lot differently.

In this video, I break down the biggest lessons I’ve learned after building a bookkeeping business to over $500,000 in revenue as a solo operator. These are the exact mistakes, decisions, and strategies that shaped my journey and what I would change if I had to start from scratch today.

Whether you’re thinking about starting a bookkeeping business, already have clients, or want to scale faster, this video will save you time, money, and frustration.

Here’s what I cover:
• Why I would quit my job sooner
• The truth about college and online courses for bookkeeping
• The tools and setup that actually matter
• Why I stopped offering payroll services
• Mistakes working with tax accountants
• Why QuickBooks Online is a must
• The importance of niching down (real estate investors)
• Why I don’t hire employees
• Pricing mistakes to avoid (hourly vs value-based)
• Why you need to follow up more than you think
• Firing bad clients sooner
• Why I stopped doing in-person meetings
• How content creation changed everything
• Why I would start private money lending sooner

These lessons come from real experience, real clients, and real growth. No fluff.

If you want to start or grow your bookkeeping business the right way, this is the roadmap I wish I had.

*Learn more about my investment fund targeting 8% to 12% fixed returns*
https://www.zipcapitalfund.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What I would have done differently if I could go back in time and start my bookkeeping business all over again in 2020. My name is Zach Pascarello. I make these videos because I love talking about my business and I like helping you. Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes and fast track to success. I built my bookkeeping business up to 80 bookkeeping clients at the end of 2024. I was making$40,000 per month, monthly recurring revenue. And since then I have scaled back to focus on other things, but I'm still making these videos and still sharing all of the lessons that I've learned. So let's talk about it. What I would have done differently if I could go back in time and start all over again. Let's jump right into it. First, I would probably quit my job sooner. I kept my full-time job for about five or six months before I quit and went all in on my bookkeeping business. Of course, I took a long time. I wanted to go slowly because I was scared. I was nervous. I didn't know what would happen. But knowing what I know now, how much money I made in my bookkeeping business, I would have had the confidence and the trust to quit my full-time job sooner and go all in on your bookkeeping business. Think about it. You can't work 40 hours a week and try to grow a bookkeeping business full time. It just doesn't work like that. So what I did is I kept my job and I made sacrifices. Woke up early, stayed up late, worked during my lunch break, worked on the weekends. Maybe I wasn't watching March Madness all weekend or watching football or going to bowling on Wednesday night or going out with friends to trivia on Tuesday night. Instead of doing those things, I made sacrifices and I grew my business. It was truly a side hustle for the first three months. Really stressful, really hard to grow a bookkeeping business. If you are stuck right now, if you feel like you're at a plateau, it's probably because you haven't taken the leap of faith. You haven't taken the chance, you haven't gone all in on your bookkeeping business. If you've plateaued, you're probably keeping your job, keeping your safety net because you're scared to go all in on your bookkeeping business. Listen, I get it. I felt the exact same way. But now, knowing what I know now, if I could go back in time, absolutely, because I made so much more money. I would quit my full-time job in a heartbeat and go all in on your bookkeeping business. You're going to grow like you never thought possible once you quit your job and go all in. College classes. So I took one college class for probably I think four years. Four years, I took one college class every semester and it wasn't necessary. However, I will say it did give me confidence. So everything that I'm talking about, this is a tough video to make because everything that I did got me to where I am today. So I don't really want to change anything that I did. I don't have any regrets because everything that I did was a stepping stone to get me to where I am today. So realistically, honestly, I don't really want to change anything. But if I could have the same outcome that I do now by tweaking some things in the past, I would probably would not have taken as many college classes. So I took intro to accounting first. In that class, absolutely. If you have no accounting background, if you don't know bookkeeping fundamentals, if you don't have any experience, definitely recommend Intro to Accounting, Accounting 101. It's going to teach you basic accounting concepts like debits and credits and balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, assets, liabilities, equity, income expenses, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and how all of those things work together by debits and credits. So definitely recommend take intro to accounting, even some higher level like cost accounting and financial accounting. They might have given me some tools, but realistically, everything after intro to accounting didn't really give me any real-world practical help or skills or knowledge or tools that I actually needed to do bookkeeping for my small business owners in QuickBooks Online. Seriously, it didn't really help, but it gave me the confidence. It made me feel like more of a legit accountant. So I took 10 college level accounting classes. I didn't end up getting a degree in accounting, but 10 college level classes, that's pretty much as good nowadays as getting a college degree. So it did give me the confidence, but it didn't really give me a ton of practical real-world knowledge and skills. Online course. So I did take an online course very similar to the college classes, wasn't super helpful. I spent 700 bucks on this online course. Honestly, didn't really help that much. It was a pretty outdated course, didn't have a ton of great advice, but it gave me the confidence that I needed to get started. So would I take it back knowing what I know now? Maybe. Was it necessary? Absolutely not. From a from a knowledge perspective, absolutely not. But from a confidence perspective, I do think maybe it was worth it. Okay, let's talk practically in my home office, my setup. So this is something that I it took me way too long. It sounds crazy to say this. I was just operating off of a laptop whenever I first got started. Now I won't even do work on my laptop. It seems it feels impossible to try to do bookkeeping with a laptop now. So I still have a laptop, but if you could see in front of me right here at my control station, I've got one monitor on my left, one monitor on my right, I've got a keyboard, a full keyboard, and a mouse. So I was just using the keyboard on my laptop. I was using the directional pad on my laptop, and I was only using my tiny little screen, one tiny screen on my laptop, which looking back crazy, looking back insane that I was operating like that because now I can't even function without my setup. Without my two screens, without my keyboard, without my mouse, it's gonna help you operate so much more efficiently to have two screens because oftentimes we are just doing data entry. So if you could have QuickBooks up on one screen and the bank statement or the credit card statement up on the other screen or the Excel spreadsheet, it's just gonna help you navigate so much more efficiently back and forth between tabs and between screens. And then just the keyboard having having the numbers, having the numbers right there, so much better than having the numbers up top and having a mouse, infinitely better, infinitely better than a directional pad on a laptop. All in all, probably 300 at most. We're talking 400 at most for all of the the gadgets, probably more like 300. 300 to 400, infinitely worth it, infinitely worth it. That should be one of the first things you get. Laptop, 600 bucks, everything else 300 bucks, all in less than a thousand bucks, and you have an elite setup. Get an office sooner. So I've been I've been through a lot of transitional periods. As you know, now I'm in my home office, but that is only because in 2024 we bought a new house, a bigger house, and I have my own room. I literally have like an actual home office where I have a door, I can lock the door, I can have some privacy, have some peace and quiet in my home office before we moved. I had a smaller house. It was less than 2,000 square feet, 1800 square feet, which is a is a is a good sized house, but we had three kids, I think, at the time. So three kids working from home is challenging, especially three young kids working from home. I didn't have a designated office in my 1800 square foot split level home in central Pennsylvania. So not that there's anything wrong with that size of a house. I'm sure there's millions of people who have that size of a house, but with young kids trying to have a home office in that size of a house, really difficult. So I wish I would have got an office sooner. Mentally, psychologically, practically, physically, all better. All better having the home office. Here's some tips for finding a home office very close to home. My home office was one mile away from home. If I had to, I could literally walk to my home office. Convenience, speed, efficient. That's what you want your office to be. Close and easy to access. I don't want to drive 20 minutes to get to my office. That's crazy. That's a waste of time. Also, it's called an executive suite. So I did not have a 1,000 square foot office that cost me$1,500 per month. That would be excessive. That would be too much, not needed, too expensive, over the top. You don't need that. So what I got was really cool, and I'm sure you have something similar in your town executive suite. So I had it was literally 10 by 10, a 10 foot by 10 foot room with a shared common area. And this was really cool because there was a conference room that I could use if I wanted to meet with clients. There was a conference room, and then there was also a kitchenette. We had microwave, sink, and refrigerator, freezer. Really nice, really convenient to have that kitchenette. And there was Wi-Fi internet was included, which is nice. And then there was an industrial printer copier scanner, which was so nice to have like a big, legit, one of the best scanner copier printers I've ever seen. So that was really, really convenient, especially for scanning bank statements, scanning documents you get in the mail, printing, whatever, whenever, really fast, really high quality, really great, all included$600 per month. So was it necessary? No. Did it help? Absolutely. It helped physically. I had my own space where my kids weren't messing with my. And when I say all this, keep in mind, like I had a young kid. So if you live alone, you don't need an office, obviously. If you live alone in a 1,500 square foot townhouse, that is more than enough space. But for me, 1800 square foot split-level home, central Pennsylvania, three young kids, I needed my own space. So physically, this gave me a place where I could walk out of the house, go to my own space, and have all of my stuff not be messed with by all of my young kids. Love my kids, God bless my kids, but they come into my office, and you know how kids can be sometimes, whenever they're not supposed to touch things. So, with that being said, physically, very helpful, but also mentally, very helpful because whenever you walk into your office, now it's time to work. I know some people, myself included, struggle sometimes to stay focused in your home office. You've got laundry, you've got dishes, you've got TV, you've got the grass that needs to be mowed, you've got everything going on in your home. It's distracting. So it's nice to just go to an office where you can focus and concentrate. Get an office sooner. Okay, we've got a lot more to talk about. Stick around. I hope this is helpful. Let me know down below in the comments if these tips, if this advice is helpful. Okay, QuickBooks Online rules. Let me talk really specifically. I'll be honest, I was a hater. I was a QBO rules hater for the first two years. And then I don't know, something clicked. I decided to try it and I'm never going back. QuickBooks Online rules are amazing. I love them so much. Very specifically, bank text rules. So, for example, if you've got a client who shops at Amazon, I'm going to use the QBO rules, bank text, and I'm going to type in Amazon. So anytime a bank transaction or a credit card transaction comes through with the word Amazon in the bank detail, QBO will automatically record this transaction. It'll automatically record it as pay Amazon category job supplies, category office supplies, whatever that might be for your client. This has saved me hours, hours, hours every single week. It saves me so much time. This is how I was able to scale up to 80 bookkeeping clients per month because of QuickBooks rules. This will basically automatically record transactions for you. Of course, you need to double check the work because QuickBooks will make mistakes sometimes, but QBO rules. Okay, so that those are some things I would have done. Let's talk about some things I would not have done. I would not have done payroll. I tried to help a couple of my clients with payroll because I figured, hey, I'm an accountant, I want to become a CPA someday, got to do payroll, right? That's what everybody else is doing. Wrong. You don't have to do payroll. You can outsource the payroll, you can refer them over to somebody else. Refer them out to ADP or Gusto. Become a partner with ADP. You could get paid by ADP to refer your clients over to ADP, or set up a partnership with a local payroll company, or set up a partnership with a local CPA who does payroll. I do not recommend that you do payroll. Federal, not that bad. State, not that bad. Local. Local payroll is where things get complicated. You have the county, you have the township, you have all the employees, all the different file-ins. It gets complicated. So I would not recommend doing payroll, outsource that or refer them over to somebody else. You don't need to do payroll. You people just need bookkeeping. A lot of times people have three separate companies. One person is their tax accountant, one company does their payroll. They just need you to do their bookkeeping. Also, whenever you whenever I refer somebody over to my tax accountant, something that I did in the beginning is I tried to play middleman. So I figured, okay, maybe I'll charge them$500 for taxes, and then my CPA will do it, and then my CPA will charge me$400. That's cool. I'll make$100 and I won't have to do anything. Bad idea because it very quickly just became not worth it.$100, not worth it. Not worth the emails, not worth the coordination, the communication, the questions. And then what if something goes wrong? So as long as it's going good, sure, it might be fine. But the second something goes wrong, now all of a sudden you're on the hook. And it's like, wait a minute, I didn't even do the taxes. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what the problem was. And they're like, Yeah, but I paid you to get the taxes done. And then sure, you outsourced it to your CPA, but still, I'm the one who paid you. So I want a refund. I want my money back. I I have I'm gonna leave you a bad review because something went wrong with the taxes and all for a hundred dollars. Not worth it. So here's what I did instead. Hey, here's my tax accountant. His name's Kyle. Here's his email address. Go ahead, email Kyle directly, pay Kyle, coordinate with Kyle. Let me know if you have questions, but Kyle's gonna help you with your taxes. So I don't play middleman with the tax accountant, don't play middleman with the payroll company. Here you go. Here's their contact information. Reach out to them, they can help you out. Real quick, I do want to mention this video is sponsored by my investment fund, Zip Capital. So if you want to learn more about my investment fund, Zip Capital, you can check out the link down below, zipcapitalfund.com. So I am raising money from accredited investors. And so I am targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. So other people invest into zip capital. I'm targeting 8 to 12% fixed returns. And then I pool their money together, I use their money to lend to Pennsylvania real estate investors. So all of the loans in Zip Capital are secured by a first lien mortgage on Pennsylvania real estate. So if you want to learn more, check out the link down below, zipcapitalfund.com. I would love to talk to you if you're interested in investing. Or if you're a real estate investor and you want to borrow from Zip Capital, let me know. I'd be happy to help. Okay, let's get back to the video. I never had an employee. So how does this relate? Something I would have done differently. So I did try having a few independent contractors. And I probably, if I could go back in time, I probably just would have skipped it. This is so tough. I know there's probably some people watching right now who already have a few employees, already have a few independent contractors. I know a lot of people, a lot of business gurus, a lot of business coaches probably try to encourage you to grow your business, get out of the day-to-day, stop working, stop working in the business and work on the business. That's great, that's a good idea, but I don't know. You don't have to do that. I never did that. I still haven't done that. So so I did hire a few independent contractors, 1099 independent contractors, and it just never ended up sticking, it never ended up lasting, it never ended up going very well. It wasn't terrible, but they ended up leaving. I don't know, maybe I'm a bad manager, maybe I'm hard to work for. I don't know what the problem was, but it just never worked out for me. So for the past six years, I've pretty much been a lone wolf. And here was my logic. Pretty much, let's call it$500,000. I was making$500,000 alone as a bookkeeper. So the question is, do I want to make more money? Or maybe do I want to manage people? Or maybe do I want to step away from the day-to-day tasks? I was basically a very highly paid independent contractor. I I was working for 80 other companies. I was an independent contractor, basically, for 80 small businesses. I was their bookkeeper and I was making$500,000 per year. That's really good. That's more than some surgeons. That's more than most lawyers, most engineers, almost all accountants. That$500,000 a year is amazing. But of course, I was working really hard. I was involved in the day-to-day tasks. It was hard for me to step away. It was hard for me to take vacation. It still is. I don't have anybody to rely on. I don't, I don't have, there's not really much growth potential. It's tough to get beyond$500,000. It's tough to get beyond$1 million of annual income, net income, whenever you're doing all the work yourself. You really you have to leverage something. You have to leverage other people's time, other people's money. You have to leverage something if you want to get past a million dollars, usually. Of course, there's always going to be an exception, but if you want to get past a million dollars of net income, you got to start leveraging other people's time, other people's money somehow. But the question for you is are you happy making$200,000 per year,$300,000,$500,000 per year? Are you happy at that income just doing all the work yourself? I'll tell you some pros, some good things. You don't have to rely on anybody, you don't have to train everybody. There's no office drama, there's no interpersonal relationships that you have to manage, there's no headaches because you're doing all the work yourself. Quality control, perfect. I am checking everything, I'm doing everything. Quality control is 100% outstanding. So I don't know. I never had employees. Maybe I will in the future, but for now, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. There is no right answer for everybody. There is a right answer for you, but only you can make that decision. Don't ever let somebody else tell you what to do. Don't ever let somebody else tell you that you need to do this or you need to do that. Don't even let me tell you you need to do this or you need to do that. That's a good that's a good thing to bring up. Everything I talk about is all just based on my own personal experience. So if you disagree with something I say, that's awesome. You have the freedom and flexibility to do whatever you want. That's the beauty of being an entrepreneur. You can literally do whatever you want. Everything I share is just my own experience. Okay, back to the video. Don't do QuickBooks Desktop. Don't do QuickBooks Desktop. If I could, that's 100% true. So some of these things that I've talked about, maybe, kind of. Do I regret doing it? I don't know, but I definitely regret doing QuickBooks Desktop. If I can go back in time, never touch it, never gonna do it. It's pretty simple. I only work with QuickBooks Online, I only do bookkeeping, I don't do QuickBooks Desktop. Follow up more than feels comfortable. So I I even know for me personally, whenever somebody's trying to reach out to me, trying to get me to buy something, the first time I see it, delete, forget about it, not gonna respond. The second time I see it, okay, let me see what this is. Let me look into this. Nope, not interested. Third, fourth time, as long as you're not being annoying, I am much more likely to look into it. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth time I hear about something, the the seventh time I see something. You gotta follow up more than what you might think. You can't just reach out to somebody one time. You can't just reach out to somebody two times. You can't just make one video and think that everybody's gonna come asking you for your for your services. You gotta reach out to individuals more often than you think you should, and you have to create marketing content. Content more often than you think you should. Don't go in person. I went in person for a couple clients, huge waste of time. And you feel like an employee. I felt like every time they walked past my office, they were checking in on me. I had I couldn't answer my phone. I couldn't take phone calls. I was on their computer. I couldn't check my email. If I wanted to text my wife really quickly, I feel like I had to hide my phone. I had to go to the bathroom and sneak a text message because I felt like I was being watched because I was in their office on their on their time. Don't go in person. You feel like an employee, it doesn't feel good. Work from home. You can do everything remotely. If if they really want to meet in person, maybe they could come to your office. But honestly, at this point, nothing in person. I don't meet with anybody in person. Everything we do can be done virtually. If you want to do a Zoom call, we can meet face to face virtually over the computer. But realistically, everything I do is on QuickBooks Online, on the computer, on my laptop, on the internet, in the cloud. We don't need to meet in person. There's no need. I don't go in person. I don't meet in person. Now, with that being said, if you're a people person and if you love going in person, if you love meeting with people in person, sure, by all means, you can. But if you don't want to, you don't have to. That's the beauty. Fire bad clients sooner. Oh my goodness. I should have this highlighted and in 100 size font. This should be the title of the video. Fire bad clients sooner. Bad clients are bad. Obviously. It's so hard to fire your first client. You feel like you can't. Honestly, you feel like you can't fire your clients because what if they leave you a bad review? Or what if they tell all their friends about how terrible it was? Or what if they slander you on the internet? Guess what? It's never happened. It's never happened to me before. I have fired a dozen bad clients before and they never leave me a bad review because you do it professionally. It's just business. Hey, hey, Mr. Client. Unfortunately, I feel like I am not able to service your business at the level that you require. Unfortunately, I'm going to be terminating our bookkeeping services effective April 30th, 2026. If there's anything that I can do to help in the meantime, feel free to reach out. Thank you so much. It's that simple. You are one email away. You are one email away from firing that bad client. Here's the thought process. Here's the exercise I want you to go through. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You're going to be stressed out. You're going to be working on your clients. That's inevitable. You can't do anything about that. If you're stressed out, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., congratulations, you're an entrepreneur. But here's the test. Here's the stress test, 9 p.m. on Saturday, 10 a.m. on Sunday, bedtime, Monday night, you're laying in bed trying to fall asleep. All of a sudden, that client pops into your mind. If you're thinking about that client in the evening, if that client gives you starts making you sweat, makes your heart pound, gives you anxiety, stresses you out at 10 p.m. on Sunday evening when you're trying to relax with your family, now it's time to fire that client. If the client stresses you out 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., that's inevitable. You can't avoid that. That's going to happen. But when it starts affecting you outside of normal work hours, when it gives you anxiety, when it stresses you out, when it starts interfering with your personal life and your quality of life, that's it. That's it. There is no price tag for increased stress and anxiety on the weekend. It's not worth it. Trust me, fire the client. You will, I have never regretted firing a bad client. Next, don't work hourly. It's the same as going in person. I don't like working hourly. I don't like feeling like I have to justify why something took me four hours instead of three hours. I also don't like rewarding, incentivizing slow work. I want to be incentivized to work more efficiently. We're entrepreneurs. I want to get things done as fast as possible. I don't want to have to work slower to get paid more. Opposite. I want to get paid more if I get the job done faster. Everybody wins. Don't work hourly. Seriously, 100%. Absolutely. Never do it. It's never worth it. Don't work hourly. Fixed rate. Minimum. Minimum$200 per month for my bookkeeping services. Absolutely. No questions asked. Okay, a couple more here, then we're almost done. Start making videos sooner. Short videos on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, long videos on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on YouTube. Start making videos sooner because it's all about trust. It's all about trust. And you can build trust with total strangers all over the world on the internet. It's a beautiful thing. Videos really help you build relationships and build trust with strangers on the internet. Absolutely recommend start making videos sooner. Let me encourage you, your videos are gonna suck. There, I said it. Your videos are going to suck. You know how I know that? Because my videos sucked when I got started five years ago. But you practice, and like anything, you get better. I don't have a complicated setup, I don't have a ton of fancy gadgets. I have one light, I have my iPhone, and I have this nice microphone. And I have a tripod. That's it. Not super expensive. This was the most expensive thing. This was$160. Everything else, less than$20. Light, tripod. Obviously, iPhone is expensive, but you have an iPhone anyway. So microphone, light, tripod, iPhone, that's all you need. Make videos. Trust me, I promise you, it's gonna help you get clients. I promise you, it's gonna help you get clients. Couple more. Have more of an of an industry niche. I love bookkeeping for real estate investors. I feel like I'm able, I feel like I can genuinely solve problems for real estate investors because I understand their business. Bookkeeping, accounting, QuickBooks, it's all pretty much the same for every small business. But at the same time, there are unique nuances for every business. Chart of accounts, ways of operating, liabilities, assets, they are different for every type of industry. So I would recommend get 10 clients first, only do QuickBooks Online, only do bookkeeping, get 10 clients, and then try to come up with a niche, an industry niche. Try to figure out what industry do I love, and then go after those clients. However, you can still take on new clients. I'm still accepting new clients, marketing agency, general contractor, roofer, landscaping company, advertising agency, whatever that might look like. I still take on different industries, but I'm specifically going after real estate investors. I'm specifically trying to get real estate investors as clients. So yeah, I would have more of an industry niche. Okay, last thing. Don't start a trucking company. I tried to start a new business eight months after I started my bookkeeping business because why not? My bookkeeping business was going really well, so why not try something new? Don't fall on that trap. Don't go after the woman in the red dress. Don't go after the shiny object. It's not worth it. Stay focused on one thing. Stay focused on your bookkeeping business. Quit your full-time job. Go all in on your bookkeeping business. And for me, I wish I would have started real estate private lending sooner. I love real estate lending. I love private money lending, hard money lending, real estate investing. I'm going all in on zip capital. So that is the main focus. That's what I'm focused on growing right now. I've got six million dollars of other people's money, and I'm trying to get to$10 million. So if you want to join Zip Capital, check out the link in the description of this video, zipcapitalfund.com. Minimum investment,$25,000. And you need to be an accredited investor, which means you either have$200,000 of annual income or a$1 million net worth. If you just recently sold your house, recently sold your business, recently retiring, selling your rental properties, and you want to slow down, relax, retire, and earn some passive income, Zip Capital might be a great option for you. I'm targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns. Link down below, zipcapitalfund.com. That's it for the video, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. God bless you. See you in the next one.