Setting up and maintaining a home based bookkeeping business can be challenging as new clients are added to your service. It is important to know how you personally define ‘home based’. If you don’t, you could find yourself moving in a direction you might later regret.

Working At Home

When I started my bookkeeping business, I did it part time while working another job. My first clients only required one to two hours of work per month each. They were just the right size for me to get started working from home. I had control of my working environment and was able keep things organized and efficient.

Working In My Clients’ Offices

After about two years I added two new clients who required my services more than 20 hours per month each. This is when my business model began to change. I was making more money, and my home based bookkeeping business began to be divided between working at home and working in each of these clients’ offices an hour or more per week.

I soon realized that my business model had gone in a direction I had not anticipated. With the larger clients I had more responsibilities and found myself driving much further from home. Scheduling also became an issue as demand was being placed on my time by a growing list of clients

Bookkeeping Business Models

The mix of working at home and in my client’s offices wasn’t bad. It just didn’t work for me. When I think of home based, I think of working in my own office, not in a client’s office. I prefer meeting my clients to collect paperwork and discuss finances and then perform the client bookkeeping from my own home office. I found that if I am away from my office too much, I am not able to respond to my clients in a timely manner when something important comes up.

For you, home based business might mean that your office at home is your home base, but you do work from the offices of your clients on a weekly, perhaps daily basis. This is just another model of freelance bookkeeping.

Stay True to Your Business Model

You may already know which model will work best for you. Maybe you need to just get out there and get started and change your plan as you go. No plan should be set in stone. The important thing is to find which approach to a home based bookkeeping business works best for you and go for it.

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