Bookkeeping and accounting businesses are always in demand, so you might consider starting one if you have the knowledge or resources to do so. However, before you can start a successful bookkeeping or accounting business, you’ll need to put together a comprehensive business plan.
What does that business plan look like, and how should you approach writing it?
Why Start a Bookkeeping or Accounting Business?
There are many perks to starting a business. Creating and being in charge of your own organization means you’ll have the flexibility to choose your own clients, set your own hours, and dictate your course of business growth. On top of that, you’ll have unlimited potential income – and new opportunities to challenge yourself and grow as a person.
Bookkeeping and accounting businesses are attractive for several reasons. For starters, they’re relatively easy to start. While you need at least some specialized knowledge in bookkeeping and accounting, this knowledge isn’t prohibitive or time-consuming to obtain. Resources like this guide from Bookkeepers.com make it easy to get started.
Overall, startup costs for a bookkeeping or accounting business are relatively low. You can start running remotely anywhere in the world. There are countless feasible clients and overhead is minimal. Because bookkeeping and accounting services are so in demand, there’s enormous potential to succeed, even with an impressive roster of competitors to contend with.
The High Level View
So how do you write a business plan for your bookkeeping or accounting business?
These are the steps you’ll need to follow.
Research
The best businesses are ones grounded in objective research. You may have certain intuitions for how to create or run this type of business. Those intuitions may be valuable for brainstorming or speculating, but when it comes to making formal business decisions, you need data to back up your ideas. Market research, competitive research, and other business research will help you collect that information.
Draft
When you’ve gathered the information, you can prepare a draft of the business plan. The drafting process may be iterative, giving you the chance to refine your ideas as you scrap early drafts and polish new ones.
Feedback
It’s possible to write a good business plan in total isolation, but your business plan will be even better if you get feedback from knowledgeable experts. Shop your business plan around with other entrepreneurs and experienced businesspeople to see if you’re missing anything and to get new ideas.
Revise
It’s a good idea to revise your business plan at least once, so you can iron out the imperfections and upgrade your core ideas.
Key Sections of Your Business Plan
There’s no hard rule for what a business plan must contain, but most business plans include the following sections:
Executive Summary
The executive summary is usually the first section of a business plan, and it’s also often the one written last. That’s because it’s supposed to be a concise, tightly focused overall summary of the entire business.
Company Description
In the company description section, you’ll detail the operations of your business with more in-depth specifics. You will explain how the business is going to run.
Market/Competition
You’ll need to describe your target demographics as well as the existing bookkeeping and accounting businesses that could pose a competitive threat to you.
Organization
You’ll need a section detailing how the business is going to be organized and managed. Who’s going to own the business? Who’s going to make decisions for this business? How are profits going to be distributed? What legal issues might stand in your way?
Products/Services
Obviously, your business is going to offer bookkeeping or accounting services. But will you offer both? How are you going to package your services? How are you going to price them? Detail all your product and service ideas here.
Marketing and Sales
Even if you have modest plans for the future of your bookkeeping or accounting business, you’ll need to consider integrating strategies for marketing and sales. How do you plan to attract new clients and grow?
Finances
Finally, you’ll need a section outlining the financial details of your business. How much startup capital will you need? How will you make money? Which expenses are most significant? How will profits grow over time?
Writing a business plan for a bookkeeping or accounting business is arguably the hardest part of the process, since it’s going to force you to confront the biggest obstacles in your way and find strategic paths around them.
Still, it’s something you can manageably accomplish in the span of a few weeks – and it’s going to provide you a runway to crafting a successful financial business.