Hi, I'm Vanessa — certified bookkeeper, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and mom of 2. In 2020 I went from zero to $1,200/month in 45 days doing online bookkeeping from home. I still have those clients today — 6 years later. Now I make $2,500/month working a few days a month around my kids. One of the best parts of this career is you can make it as big or as small as you want. You control your income by how many clients you want to have. I choose to keep mine low while my kids are young. I built this community because I know how much I needed someone to just show me the real path when I was starting out. That's what this is. Here's exactly where to start: 👉 Head to the Classroom tab and start with "Start Here" — it's a free 5-lesson series that will take you from "I'm curious about this" to "I know exactly what my next step is." Go in order. Don't skip ahead. If you're ready to go deeper — the Start: Your Bookkeeping Business classroom has the full A-Z curriculum covering setup, tools, getting clients, onboarding, running your books, and growing your business. Before you do anything else — introduce yourself below 👇 Tell us: - Your name and where you're from - What brought you here - Where you are right now: A) Just researching B) Learning and getting ready C) Actively looking for my first client D) Already have a client And drop one thing you're stuck on or one question you have. I read every single comment and I will personally respond. You don't have to figure this out alone. That's why this community exists. See you in the classroom — and I'll see you Monday at the live Q&A. 💚 — Vanessa

Bookkeeping isn’t just numbers — it’s software too. QuickBooks, spreadsheets, client communication tools, the whole stack. And I’ve noticed something in this community: Some of you are coming in completely new — never opened QuickBooks, not sure what a “chart of accounts” even is, learning the software and the bookkeeping at the same time. That’s a bigger climb, and it’s okay to be there. Others already know the tech — maybe from a past job, maybe you’ve just poked around QBO on your own — and what you actually need help with is the client side: how to onboard them, what to ask for, how to actually run the relationship. Both are completely valid starting points. But I want to know where you are, so I can make sure this community is actually helping you where you need it: Drop a comment: A) New to bookkeeping AND the software B) Know the software, new to working with clients C) New to both, but comfortable with tech in general D) Somewhere in between — tell me! No wrong answer. I just want to build this out in a way that actually meets you where you’re at. 💚

How comfortable are you with the accounting equation? 🤔 Assets − Liabilities = Equity If reading that just made your stomach drop a little… you’re exactly who this community is for. No judgment here. Here’s the shorthand I learned when I was a new bookkeeper: What you OWN − What you OWE = What’s left OVER That’s it. That’s the whole equation. Three O’s, and suddenly it clicks. 👉 Drop a number in the comments, 1-5: 1 = “I panic when I hear these words’” 5 = “I could explain this to my kids” Wherever you land, here’s something that will help explain it: Monopoly. Yep, the board game. Once you see your properties as assets, your mortgages as liabilities, and your cash pile as equity — it stops being a scary formula and starts being something you already understand. This exact breakdown (Monopoly board and all) is inside Bookkeeper Launch, the training I recommend for anyone who wants to go from “what’s equity again?” to confidently doing this for real clients. It’s the same foundation I built my own bookkeeping business on. If you’re ready to stop guessing and actually get the fundamentals, I’ll drop the link below. 💚 Bookkeeper Launch

Over the last 6 years I've built my business by word of mouth but recently I decided to start posting on LinkedIn and I’ve noticed something and I wanted to share it with you. Almost every message I get isn't from a potential client. It's from other bookkeepers — hoping to network with me, hoping I'll pass along work, hoping to connect. And I get it. I really do. But it made me start paying attention to how people are actually trying to get clients right now, because there seem to be a few very different approaches: 1. Posting content and hoping the right person sees it. This is what most of us default to, myself included. It's the least scary option — no one has to look you in the eye and say no. But it's also the slowest, because nobody's actually required to respond to you. 2. Commenting, engaging, cold DMing. A step closer, but still mostly aimed at other bookkeepers and business coaches, not at actual potential clients. Safe, but a long shot. 3. Reaching out directly to a specific business owner or referral partner. The one that actually works fastest — and the one almost nobody does, because it's the only one where someone has to say yes or no to you personally. Here's the thing I keep coming back to: I used to sell life insurance, and our whole method was researching small businesses, driving there, and walking in to talk to the owner. I did the research part every time. The walking-in part? Some days I'd pull up, panic, and drive away without ever going inside. I wasn't lazy. I was busy the whole time — researching, planning, driving. But none of that could ever turn into a client. Only the conversation could. I think a lot of us are doing the online version of that right now. Posting, commenting, researching, planning — all of it feels like prospecting. But if no specific person has to answer you, it's not quite the same thing. So I'm curious… be honest with me: In the last couple weeks, how have you actually been trying to get clients? And if you're being really honest, how many of those were things where a real person had to say yes or no to you directly?

I see we have some members that are already bookkeepers and some that are here to learn how to become one so I'm just curious where everyone falls in this poll.