Bookkeeping: The Business That Buys Your Life Back

Part 1 of 11 of The Secrets to a Simple, Scalable Bookkeeping Business.

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Years ago, I surpassed my corporate tax manager salary working only the hours I used to spend commuting, which was roughly ten hours a week.

That's still close to what my bookkeeping business asks of me (if not less), as a single mom of three, and the business has held through every season life has thrown at it since. And let's just say - life has thrown some things.

I didn't plan any of that. I stumbled into a bookkeeping business accidentally and haphazardly without a guide. I had no idea what was possible until fate led me here, and once I saw it, I couldn't stop thinking about how many people would want this life if they only knew it existed. I wish everyone knew. So I'm here to share it, and to help you find your own version of it. That's what this series is.

Over eleven digestible posts, I'm giving you the information you need in a format you can read in pockets of time.

We'll cover:

• What's actually possible with a bookkeeping business, in real numbers and real life.
• The six secrets a simple, scalable bookkeeping business is made of.
• The three bottlenecks that hold bookkeepers back, including the one almost nobody even knows is there.
• And your next step, whether you found this idea five minutes ago, you've been thinking about it for years, or you already have twelve clients and somewhere along the way realized you built yourself a job instead of a business.

Quick note before we start: during this series you may hear me mention "BABs" or "Libby". Those are nicknames for my two programs for bookkeepers looking to grow and scale their business. Become a Bookkeeper (BABs) teaches the technical skill, while Life By the Books (Libby) teaches how to turn that skill into a business. More on those later.

The main question I get is some variation of: How did you stumble into bookkeeping? How does someone accidentally start a bookkeeping business?

Twelve years ago at the start of my second tax season I wrote myself a letter, literally begging myself to quit my job. I was desperate to travel and bargaining with myself on why I deserved this. The problem was, I thought I had to choose between either time or money. I didn't know I could have both.

Tax season came and went. And ultimately, I didn't quit. I got cold feet, and I stayed. Making what I believed to be the logical choice. The "safe" choice.

I continued on in my full time roles as an employee - head down, mouth shut, checking all the boxes, collecting the 3% raise in the years they gave one at all.

And then, 2 years later, life did for me what I wouldn't do for myself. At the time I was a corporate tax manager, 20 weeks pregnant with my first baby, with a one hour commute each way, and I got in a car accident driving to work. It rattled me to my core. Not because I was badly hurt, but because it made one thing undeniable: these two paths (motherhood and my corporate career) weren't going to work together. They were not parallel lines. In fact, they were two distinct dots on completely different graphs and as I sobbed on the side of the road, that reality had never been more obvious.

Literally the next day, completely unrelated, my company was preparing for a sale and offered a voluntary severance package that I was eligible for. I got to choose to leave my job right before the birth of my son, and get paid to leave.

People often assume my exit out of corporate involved bravery, calculated risks, and a plan. It didn't. It wasn't strategy. It wasn't knowing what was possible. It was seeing the blaring signs and knowing this is obviously what I'm supposed to do, even though it was still very, very scary.

I knew that by taking the package, I was selling my career. I knew that a gap in my resume meant the positions I worked hard to climb my way to would not be waiting for me upon my return. I also knew it was all too obvious a sign to ignore. So, with a parachute attached to my back and a cushy landing pad beneath me, I had to take the leap of faith.

Side note: I recognize these conditions are not offered to most and that my exit out of corporate is wildly unrelatable. Don't make the mistake of assuming that makes this path unattainable.

Fast forward a year and a few clients found me through word of mouth, before I even meant to start a bookkeeping business. I kept my clientele small for years, and when it finally dawned on me that I could grow it on purpose without sacrificing my presence as a mother, the commute hours became the work week and my old salary got passed within months.

Now before you file my exit under "luck", because let's be honest, a huge piece was luck and the rest was a solid accounting background to lean on, meet my student Molly. No car accident. No severance package. She picked accounting in college specifically because she wanted a family someday and figured it would be flexible. We has that in common and both laughed at that one because a traditional accounting career is far from family friendly. After her first baby, she was back at work six weeks later, with a forty minute commute each way, walking in the door at 5:45pm while her baby went to bed around 6:30pm. "I remember crying," she told me.

Then, on maternity leave with her third baby, scrolling TikTok with a sleeping baby on her chest, the lightbulb finally hit: she could build a way out using the skills she already had if she started a bookkeeping business. She bought my course in August, made her business Instagram in October, and signed her first client that January. Three and a half years later, with nearly 20 clients on about 15 hours a week, she walked into her boss's office and quit corporate for good. She had three little girls at home the whole time. Nobody paid Molly to leave. She built her own way out without quitting first, and when I asked her what she'd tell you, the person wondering how to start or succeed, she said, "I should have just let myself believe it sooner." Molly's full story

Sometimes fate steps in. Sometimes you build the door for yourself.

One more thing before we continue, because it's the most expensive number in this whole series and almost nobody counts it. If you've already spent months thinking about this, researching it, listening to podcasts about it, running the what-ifs in the shower, and you haven't earned a dollar from the idea yet, your effective hourly rate on this dream is $0 an hour. Those hours count. They take attention - one of the most valuable things you own. If that's not you, if this idea is brand new and you haven't lost a single hour to the loop yet, even better. You're here in perfect time.

I can't give anyone back the hours already spent at $0 an hour. I couldn't give Molly back the years she spent believing this wasn't possible. But I can save you some of yours. That's what this series is for.

So here's the real question of this series, and it's a better question than "can I make money bookkeeping." We'll answer that one too, with real numbers. The better question is: could this be the business that buys your life back? Your commute, your flexibility, your autonomy, your ability to decide what your actual days look like?

Next, we make it real: what a Tuesday could look like when the business is built right.

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That's next, in What a Tuesday Could Look Like.