Freelance Bookkeeping
Choosing Your Clientele

One of the first steps before freelance bookkeeping or starting your own bookkeeping business is to determine what kind of clientele you want to work with.

Whether you plan to cater only to a select clientele or not, here are some details you will need to find out about each of your clients when you first take them on.

What size companies do you want to work with?

Do you want to work with personal accounts, small businesses or large companies? Small businesses might be more likely to outsource bookkeeping services while larger businesses will probably be more likely to have their own accounting department. But don't let that stop you. If your goal is to take on American Express, by all means go for it!

What type of business entity do you want to work with?

Different tax laws and filing dates apply to different types of business. For example a Partnership or Sole Proprietorship who's accounting period is based on the the calendar year might have a different due date for their tax return than a corporation.

You will verify this kind of information with the certified public accountant who supervises the tax filing for your client, but you will want to know the basic laws for the type of business entity you are working with. The way assets, liabilities, equity and other accounts are dealt with is another thing that varies depending on business type.

For more about the various types of business entities, click here.

Do you want to specialize in a business that offers a particular service or product?

You may even consider specializing your services to only work with one business niche, such as lawyers, plumbers, restaurants or non-profit companies. This choice comes down to the decision of whether you are going for quantity or quality.

Pros and Cons of Specializing the Niche of Clientele You Work With

Taking a more general approach to your type of clientele may give you more options to begin with, but specializing your clientele makes you more of an expert in a particular area, giving your more respect and making you more sought-after within that particular business niche.

Some of the benefits are, you can more easily keep yourself up-to-date on all business and tax laws and technology regarding that business niche, and you can charge a higher fee since you have more knowledge in your client's particular business and therefore can be of more benefit to them.

More Details to Consider

Do you want to work with a product or service based business? If product-based, you might want to review the section of this site on cost of goods.

Other things to consider are:

Does your clientele report based on accrual or cash based accounting?

Will you be providing the bookkeeping software for your company or will you use their bookkeeping software of choice.

And finally, what is the extent of freelance bookkeeping service you will be providing? Are you affiliated with a certified public accountant or does the company already have a CPA? Will you be doing payroll or will they outsource these services to a payroll company? Will you be doing their bank reconciliations and year end work or will you be more involved in the day to day transactions?

To prepare for how you will market your freelance bookkeeping business and how you will get to know your clients, you might start by preparing an interview sheet, a list of questions that you will ask your client when you are first starting out.

This will help you be better prepared for your new clients and insure the start of a successful business relationship.

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