How To Start & Grow a Bookkeeping Business While Still Working a Full-Time Job

Want to start a bookkeeping business while working a full time job? This is the exact roadmap I would follow if I had to do it all over again.

In this video, I break down how to build a profitable bookkeeping business from scratch no matter your situation. Whether you are young with no bills, working a demanding job with responsibilities, or even retired, this strategy works.

We cover realistic income goals, how many clients you actually need, and how much time it takes to run a successful bookkeeping business. I also walk through a simple 6 month, 1 year, and 2 year plan so you can scale step by step without feeling overwhelmed.

Most importantly, I explain how to get your first 5 clients using social media and online marketing without cold calling, networking events, or in person meetings.

If you are serious about building an online bookkeeping business, generating consistent monthly income, and eventually quitting your job, this video will give you the clarity and direction you need.

Success in bookkeeping is not about secrets. It is about consistent effort, smart time management, and focusing on the right activities every single day.

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

Transcript

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How to start and grow your bookkeeping business while you're working a full-time job. I know this is reality for a lot of people right now trying to start their bookkeeping business. Yeah, what do I do? I have a full-time job. I have a family. I have bills. I have responsibilities. How do I navigate the complexity and the difficulty of keeping my full-time job temporarily and simultaneously trying to grow my bookkeeping business? I went through the exact same thing six years ago when I started my bookkeeping business. And now I just make these videos because honestly, I just love talking about it. So let's jump right into it. Let's talk about it. What is your current situation? Everybody's different. I'm gonna go through a few hypothetical situations, three different situations. First, maybe you're young, maybe you just recently graduated college, maybe you're still in college, maybe you are in your mid-20s. Chances are you probably don't have too many bills. Maybe you pay rent, maybe you have a mortgage. You also probably don't have a ton of experience. Maybe you have a college degree in business or finance or accounting, maybe you have a couple years of experience, or maybe you have no experience at just an entry-level job. But here's the good news you're probably good with technology. And the fact that you don't have any bills, that's really good because you don't have a ton of responsibility. So you don't need to make a ton of money right now, which is a huge advantage. And also you being good with technology, social media, artificial intelligence, that is really good. And these are just hypothetical situations. Call it stereotypes if I can. Middle-aged, maybe you're in your mid-30s, maybe you have a ton of bills and a ton of responsibilities. Maybe you have a mortgage and a car payment and student loans, and you got a couple kids, and you have a spouse, and you have a lot of responsibilities. But the good news is you might have a little bit more experience now than when you did in your 20s. Maybe a management level job, maybe you're a senior analyst or a project manager, and you're probably still pretty good with technology, especially if you climbed the corporate ladder over the past five years. You've probably seen some things, you probably have some good experience, but the problem is you have no free time. You have a ton of responsibilities. You got a couple kids, you got a mortgage, you've got little league tournaments on the weekend, and you got to mow your grass on Sunday afternoon. So you got a lot of experience, but a lot of responsibilities. So it's gonna be tough for you to navigate this transition period. Anytime there's a transition, really, really tough to balance responsibilities and taking risk. Really tough. Okay, third scenario. Once again, just a stereotype, just a hypothetical situation. Maybe you are retired, maybe you are an empty nester, maybe you're in your 50s or 60s, you might not have too many bills, maybe your house is paid off and you're living off of your 401k and your IRA. You're living pretty comfortably right now in retirement. You have a ton of experience, 30, 40 years of experience, a lot of experience, really know what you're doing, probably retired, but might not be up to date with all of the latest technology. Social media, TikTok, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, social media might be a little bit foreign to you. Artificial intelligence might not be the easiest for you to navigate. But the good news is empty nester, probably have some time on your hands, fewer responsibilities than you did in your 30s and 40s, ton of experience. Nobody's gonna question whether or not you know what you're doing. Versus the the kid who's 22 years old, other people might be less likely to trust him, maybe hypothetically, might be less likely to believe that he has the experience necessary to start a bookkeeping business. So these are all three hypothetical situations. You might fall into one of these categories, or you might be totally different. These are all just hypothetical scenarios, and these are all important to keep in mind because as you navigate this transition, as you look to take this risk of starting a business and quitting your full-time job and keeping your full-time job, it really depends on how much experience you have, how much responsibility you have, how much time you have, how good you are with technology and social media. So I just wanted to start the video by talking about those current situations because that's really going to dictate how you navigate these next six months. Okay, so your current situation is gonna be different, but let's talk about your goals. These also could be different. Some people might have different goals. Maybe your goal is to eventually quit your job, or maybe your goal is just to supplement your income. Maybe you love your job, you've been working there for 20 years, you've got no desire to quit, you've got really great health insurance, really great benefits, you're gonna get your pension in five to ten years, you just gotta stick it out, but you want to supplement your income. Or maybe, like I said, you want to quit your job, you hate your job, you want to get out of the corporate race, and you just want to be an entrepreneur. Either way, totally fine. The cool thing about this, you can absolutely do either one. But the thing is, you gotta decide. You can't do both at the same time. So, do you want to go all in and quit your job in six months? Or are you okay with just having this be truly a side hustle? Supplementing your full-time job, supplementing your income, because it's going to affect your goals. Your goals will depend on what you want to do. So maybe you want to supplement your income. Maybe you just want$3,000 per month extra. You can absolutely do that. I would recommend you're probably gonna need to get about 10 clients if you want to make about$3,000 per month. The really cool thing about this bookkeeping business, monthly recurring revenue. I'm sure you've heard about it before. Once you sign on a client, bookkeeping accounting services are pretty sticky. They're probably not going to go anywhere. As long as you do a good job and deliver high quality customer service, your clients, once you land them, unless they go out of business or unless they grow so big to the point where they have to hire a full-time in-house accountant, they're probably not going to go anywhere. At least that's been my experience. So, side hustle, just want to supplement your current income, maybe 10 clients, maybe$3,000 per month. Or maybe you want to grow beyond that. Maybe you want to get to$5,000 per month. Maybe you are retired and you're an empty nester and you think, you know what? I could very comfortably live off of$5,000 per month. My mortgage is paid for. This would just allow me to enjoy life, go out to eat, travel, go on vacation, spoil the grandkids a little bit.$5,000 per month, that sounds pretty good. Maybe 15 clients. And then now you want to the the third scenario, the third goal, you want to quit your full-time job. You want to totally replace your current income. You are middle-aged, you're in your mid-30s, you've got a management level job, you're a senior analyst, you've got two kids, you've got a mortgage, you've got a spouse, you need$10,000 per month to totally replace your current income. That's going to be about 20-ish bookkeeping clients per month. Now, the cool thing is, all three of these goals are super attainable. I know that for a fact because I did it six years ago. I did it six years ago. I grew to$3,000 per month and then$1,000 per month and then$10,000 per month and beyond. So just a side note, I I went from in the first year, 10 clients, second year, 20, third year, 40, fourth year, end of 2024, I had 80 bookkeeping clients. I was making about$40,000 per month, monthly recurring revenue. So definitely possible. I'm not speaking theoretically, I am speaking practically from my own experience. Definitely possible. Okay, so how much time is this going to take? About two hours per month per client. Of course, some are gonna be more, some are gonna be less. On average, I have found about a$500 per month client takes me about two hours per month. Ends up being about 30 hours per week, give or take. During month end close, it's more middle of the month, end of the month, it's a little bit less. On average, just to keep it simple, two hours per month per client if they're paying about$500 per month. So with that in mind, you might have a client who pays$300 per month. Their books are super simple, might only take you 30 minutes. You have a client who pays$1,000 per month, a little bit more complicated. Maybe that takes you four hours per month. So it's just on average give or take. So if you have 10 clients, if you're making$3,000 per month, I would guess, I would estimate about five hours per week. Great side hustle. 15 clients,$5,000 per month, seven, eight, nine hours per week, give or take. 20 clients,$10,000 per month, just managing the workload of your 20 clients, 10 to 12 hours per week. Not too bad.$120,000 a year, just managing your clients, 10 to 12 hours per week, of course. That is just delivering the customer service. That is just doing the bookkeeping. So there are more tasks that need to be done, especially if you're trying to grow your business. You're going to spend more time sales, marketing, networking, administrative tasks for your business, but just doing the bookkeeping work about 10 hours per week, 20 clients, 10,000 bucks per month, not too bad. So more work in the first year. What do I mean by that? You're going to be doing a ton of marketing in the first year, the first six months, the first 12 months. You're going to spend more time than you probably will in the next year because you got to do, you got to learn how to do marketing. You got to get your website up and running. You got to learn how to do SEO and your Google My Business. And you got to learn how to start making YouTube videos and short videos for Facebook and Instagram. And you got to learn how to use artificial intelligence and Claude and ChatGPT to help you with your bookkeeping and your marketing and cleanup projects. In the first year, you're probably going to get a lot of cleanup projects. So what I have found the first year takes a lot of time, a lot of research, a lot of learning, a lot of trial and error. But every year it gets easier and easier, which means less time, which means you get more efficient, which means you can take on more work, which means you can make more money. That's kind of the whole point. That's what's really cool about starting a business with this monthly recurring revenue. As you get faster and more efficient, you can take on more work and it'll take you less time and you can make more money. That's how I got to so I didn't just wake up one day with 80 bookkeeping clients, right? That would be insane. But over four years, slowly built up to 80 bookkeeping clients to the point where I was working 40, 50 hours a week managing 80 bookkeeping clients, making$40,000 a month, not a bad trade-off. Every year it gets easier and easier. So if you're feeling discouraged in the first three months, if you're thinking, oh my goodness, I have one client and I can barely keep up, don't worry, it gets easier. You learn how a business operates, you learn how to do their bookkeeping, you learn their tendencies and their history and how they they transact and how they communicate. Every year it gets easier and easier to do the bookkeeping for a business. To the point now I have about 55 clients. So I stopped taking on new clients after 2024, and I've slowly been getting rid of some old bookkeeping clients. Now I have 55 clients, and it takes me, I don't know, maybe 15 hours per week to actually do the bookkeeping. Maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. But I am transitioning now to zip capital. So I am moving away from Harrisburg bookkeeping, moving away from my bookkeeping business, and I'm going all in on zip capital. This is my investment fund. So I do real estate lending through zip capital. And I learned about real estate lending by doing bookkeeping for other real estate investors. And I saved up$50,000 in 2023, and then I had$600,000 saved up in 2024. I was doing real estate lending, I ran out of money, so I started an investment fund. And now with Zip Capital, I can take on new investors. So other people can invest into Zip Capital and then I lend other people's money to local Pennsylvania real estate investors. So I'm targeting 8 to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. So if you have$25,000 or more sitting in a savings account, money market, bank CD, or checking account, and you want to earn potentially up to 8 to 12% fixed returns. If that sounds attractive to you, appealing to you, there's actually a link down below in the description of this video. You can check out my website, register on my website, and we can have a chat and see if Zip Capital might be a good fit for you. So that's what I'm transitioning to now. Okay, so let's talk about your plan. Six months. What does that look like? I would recommend try to get you're gonna keep your full-time job, of course, for the for the first six months. Try to get five monthly clients and two cleanup projects. I recommend about one to two clients per month. That should be your goal. Get five clients by the end of six months and have two cleanup projects. Here's what happened to me. I started my bookkeeping business in October of 2020 and I quit my full-time job in March of 2021. I was an Amazon warehouse manager. Salary$100,000 per year. I quit my full-time job five months after starting my bookkeeping business. The important thing was I had six months of expenses saved up. So I knew if it failed miserably, I was okay for six months. So I took a huge leap of faith, huge risk, and I quit my full-time job with benefits and salary and secured employment and growth potential, a great company, Amazon. Quit my full-time job March 2021, went all in on my bookkeeping business. And guess what? Spoiler alert, the first year of my bookkeeping business, I actually made less than I would have had I stayed at Amazon at working as a manager,$100,000 salary. I only made$60,000 first year in my bookkeeping business. But then after that, it took off. I made$100,000 in the second year,$300,000 in the third year,$700,000 in the fourth year. Totally worth the risk. But right now you have to decide do you want to make that jump, that leap of faith? Do you want to take on that risk? So let's don't worry about that. I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't worry about the next three years. Just focus on the first six months. Get five clients, one to two clients per month, and try to get two cleanup projects. Save up six months of expenses if you don't already. So right now you're you're making two incomes, right? You're keeping your full-time job and you're making money from your bookkeeping business. Hopefully, you don't need to spend any money. You don't need to spend money on advertising. You don't need to buy an office, you don't need to buy a vehicle or you don't need to buy t-shirts and a bunch of advertising materials. You don't need to buy a billboard, you don't need to buy a TV commercial, don't spend money on advertising. Cut costs, save up money, save six months of expenses, run your built your grow your bookkeeping business, keep working your full-time job. Hopefully, if you do it right, after six months, you get your five clients, you get your two cleanup projects, you have six months of expenses saved up, you have proof of concept. Okay, now I know this can actually work. Now you have the ability to quit your full-time job. Congratulations, you did it in six months. One year plan. I would say try to have 10 monthly clients at the end of one year. Like I said,$60,000 was my income after the first year. And then two years, two years after starting, I had 20 monthly clients and$100,000 of income from my monthly clients and my cleanup projects. So how do you do it? Practically speaking, there is no magic secret. Unfortunately, I wish there was. I wish I could tell you, hey, do these three things, and I guarantee you will succeed. I guarantee you'll have 10 clients at the end of the year, but unfortunately, there's no magic secret. Unfortunately, a ton of businesses fail. Did you know that? A ton of small business owners, a ton of entrepreneurs fail, especially when it's their first business. So I hate to break it to you, but some people watching this video right now, I'm just gonna keep it real with you. Some people watching this video right now are going to fail. And that's the reality because starting a business is incredibly difficult. There is very high ceiling, the upside is enormous. You can make a million dollars as an entrepreneur, but a lot of people fail. You have to be willing to work really hard, keeping your full-time job and running growing your business incredibly hard. It's going to require a lot of sacrifices. I want you to focus on optimizing your outputs. What does that look like? Social media. You can do social media marketing from anywhere, early in the morning, late at night, on your lunch break phone in the car before you walk into the office. You can do social media marketing anywhere, anytime. You gotta do it. You gotta do social media marketing. You gotta get your name out there, you gotta tell people who you are. It's free. Like I said, you don't need to pay for a billboard or a TV commercial, you don't need to pay for Google ads or Facebook ads. You can just do organic social media marketing on LinkedIn and Facebook totally for free. Website. You can get a website, it's gonna cost money, but it's a one-time thing. Get your website set up. You might have a small monthly charge of 20 bucks per month for hosting your domain and your website. I use Squarespace for my website. Super simple. You need to have a website. Your website works for you while you sleep, while you're at your job, while you're working. Your website works for you because people will see your social media marketing content. They'll go to your profile, they'll click on your website, they'll look at your website. Wow, this looks legit. This guy looks professional, looks like he's got a bookkeeping business. And here's how I can contact him. That's the whole point of your website. Look professional, tell people what you do, and tell people how they can contact you. That's the beauty of a website. Google My Business, you gotta show up on Google. You gotta create a Google My Business profile. You can even do it if you have a home office. I have a home office right here, that's where I am with Zip Capital. I have a Google My Business profile. You just have to go through the verification process. You just gotta take a video of your home and your home office and a couple other things, and you can register your Google My Business profile with your home office. You gotta be on the internet, you gotta have a website, social media, Google My Business. You don't need to do cold calling, you don't need to do networking, you don't need to go to in-person meetings. You want to optimize your time. Right now, you're super busy. You have a full-time job, you have kids, you have a house to take care of, you've got tournaments on the weekend. You need to optimize your outputs, optimize your time, be as efficient as possible. Cold calling is fine, but it takes a lot of time. Networking is good, but it's gonna take you two hours on Thursday night. In-person meetings are okay, but you have a full-time job, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You don't have time for in-person meetings. But but the good news is you don't need any of those things in the first six months to grow your business. Your only goal is to get five clients. So only focus on that. Create social media marketing content, connect with people on the internet, send them messages, have conversations, tell people about your bookkeeping business, prove to other people you are a bookkeeping expert, build trust, build relationships with strangers on social media. That's what it's all about. It might sound crazy. I might sound crazy. I'm I'm so accustomed to it because I'm I've been an entrepreneur for six years. It might sound kind of crazy now that I think about it, now that I say it out loud, building trust and relationships with strangers on social media. But look at what we're doing right now. You found my YouTube video, and I probably don't know who you are. We you are a stranger. I am a stranger, but here we are, you're 20 minutes into this video, and you're watching this video about starting a bookkeeping business. So, if anything, let my YouTube videos just be proof of concept that if you show up every day and create content and be consistent and try to do a good job, it's gonna work eventually. So, when do you do this work? This this work that I'm talking about, working hard, getting clients, social media marketing. Like I said, you're going to need to make sacrifices early in the morning, lunch break, late at night. I don't know if you like to wake up early or if you like to stay up late, probably one or the other. Me, I like to wake up early. I don't like to stay up late. So, me, I would wake up at 5 a.m., work for an hour, and then get ready for your day job. Or if you like to stay up late, instead, guess what? You gotta make sacrifices. Instead of playing video games or watching football or watching TV or a movie, maybe instead, after you put the kids to bed, 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., create some social media marketing content. Update your website, set up your Google My Business profile. Or if you have a client, guess what? Now you gotta do the bookkeeping. So 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. 30 minutes on your lunch break, open up your phone. Bring your laptop to work, go out to your car, take your lunch break, go to Starbucks on your lunch break, open up your laptop, do 30 minutes of work. You don't need it, doesn't need to be some grand eight hours a day on Saturday. 30 minutes here, 15 minutes there. Check emails, check social media messages, create a quick post, make a quick video, do a quick update, call a client, call back a clock, call back an interested client. It doesn't have to be earth shattering, groundbreaking, monumental stuff here. We're just talking 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour a day. If you do that every day for six months, it'll compound on itself and you'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish, how much you can accomplish just by working one hour extra per day. But it's not easy. It's going to require sacrifices and hard work, but I know you can do it. Communication, a couple more things here. Communication. So you might be worried, you might be concerned. What if I miss a call while I'm at work? No problem. People miss calls all the time. Even full-time entrepreneurs miss calls all the time. Just call them back, text them back, call them back. If you get off work at 5 p.m. or if you go out on your lunch break at 12 p.m., call them right back. If you call somebody back within 24 hours, no problem. Absolutely no problem if you miss phone calls. Call them back as soon as you can. Emails, you don't need to respond to emails right away. Try to respond as quickly as you can, but you can check your email every night at 8 p.m. and just respond to all the emails, all the Facebook messages, all the LinkedIn DMs that you got throughout the day. You can respond to all of those in the evening or early in the morning next day. Now, now what do you do? Now you got to make the impossible decision. When do you quit your job? It's easier said than done. I know it's hard. I've been there. I've been there once and I'm about to be there again because I'm currently experiencing something similar. Like I said, with Zip Capital and Harrisburg Bookkeeping. Right now, Harrisburg Bookkeeping is kind of like my full-time job, and Zip Capital is kind of like the new business that I'm trying to start. So I'm navigating this problem right now. I'm trying to decide when to quit Harrisburg Bookkeeping to go all in on Zip Capital. I have even experienced it firsthand, the potential reward for taking that risk, and I'm still hesitant to do it again. So it doesn't get easier. It's always going to be a hard decision. Don't be too hard on yourself. It is absolutely okay and totally reasonable that you are worried or stressed out or afraid to take this jump. So give yourself some grace, be patient, wait six months, have the money in the bank, have a plan. Have a plan. That's so important. Have a plan. Plan for success, but also unfortunately, plan for failure. So you work for six months, you get five clients, you have six months of expenses saved up. Okay, great. Now I'm gonna quit my job. Now, what do these next six months look like? How many clients do I need for this to be successful? What it what happens if this doesn't work? Guess what? It might not work. There's a good chance it won't work. So don't be afraid to go back to your full-time job. Guess what? Your full-time job or something similar is probably going to still be there in six months. So take the chance, take the leap, work hard for six months, make sacrifices, and you never know. You might just grow your bookkeeping business to 80 clients and$40,000 per month, just like I did in four years. If you have any questions, let me know down below. If you want me to make another video about something, let me know. And if you haven't already, subscribe to my channel. I'm making new videos every week to help teach you how to start and grow your bookkeeping business. Thank you so much for watching. God bless you. I hope you have a great day.