The One With The Year End Review
TL;DR
As the year is coming to an end, I wanted to reflect on some of the great things that happened in the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community in 2022. (Note: You should bookmark this edition because it will be a great resource to keep coming back to.)
🚀The Bookkeeping Side Hustle Facebook Group went from 16,500 members to 21,600 members! There were 6,364 posts with 66,436 comments - keep helping each other out! Best darn bookkeeping Facebook group in all the internet!
🌲 And I moved this bi-weekly newsletter to Substack so it can be more of a evergreen resource. I want old editions to be available in a public archive because I write them so that each edition has information you will need at different milestones on your business/career journey. You can read everything I write at any point in time and you don’t even have to subscribe (though I sure hope you do).
🤝 In 2022 I also opened up paid ad slots and am so grateful to the sponsors that supported my efforts to write this publication. Hey readers, give our advertisers some love and click those ads!
🎥 Best year yet for the Bookkeeping Side Hustle YouTube Channel. I’m going to mention some of the meatiest ones here so you can pick the ones that you need.
Meet Xero (aka learn if Xero should be your General Ledger of choice)
Gusto Payroll Certification Study Group (anyone can still get payroll certified!)
How to price Diagnostic Reviews with Veronica Wasek (I won’t engage a client without a paid diagnostic review because of this ONE INTERVIEW…$$$)
How to start charging clients for Accountable Plans with Josh Standley
What I would do if I wanted a Million Dollar Firm
How to run and automate a remote firm webinar series with Financial Cents
QuickBooks Live and TurboTax Live Job Fair (they are still hiring!)
Get Your QBO Certifications with Margie Remmers-Davis (in person! So fun!)
Rapid Content Creation with Jeremy Wells
Vastly improve your Zoom screen shares with this 1 feature
Discover if you should niche in Real Estate Bookkeeping with Gita Faust
Flexible and affordable bachelors and masters degree in accounting
Solo 401k Plans for solo-preneurs (a.k.a. A LOT of the readers of this pub!)
💻 We also started weekly “co-working” hours on Mondays at 11:00 EST. We all do “that thing I don’t want to do”. It has been great to get stuff done with online friends. Anyone is welcome to attend.
Thanks for a great 2022 and I’m looking forward to do growing our businesses and careers together in 2023.
The main thing I want for Christmas is for you to comment on this newsletter below with what you’ve learned this year and what you’d like to see this community do in 2023.
Secondarily, if you want to say “thanks” with your wallet, you can click on this ad and buy me a “coffee”(it is really just cash). I’m the headline sponsor for this edition. 😉
Deals Deals Deals
💰 The Fast & Easy QBO ADVANCED ProAdvisor course* is available for $200 off before the updated course material is released on January 1.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
Be There or Be Square
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅 +January 2: Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community Co-working resumes. Hop on Zoom every Monday at 11am EST and do some work. Zoom link (password: HUSTLE).
📅 +January 5: Is a bookkeeping career accessible: An interview with a blind bookkeeper Taylor Arndt. On The BSH YouTube Channel.
📅 January 6: The Ultimate 1099 Guide: What You Need To Know. I asked around for someone to do free education on 1099s and GetW9 and Scrutinize stepped up!
📅 January 10: 1099 Wizard in QBO with RoyalWise will show you how to use the 1099 Wizard in QBO to send 1099s to contractors. More information HERE.
📅 January 11: Crypto 101 for Accountants and Bookkeepers. Want to learn more about cryptocurrency bookkeeping? Matthew May and Anthony Zepeda from Acuity will discuss crypto bookkeeping. Sign up HERE.
📅 January 18: Intro to Xero. Join Xero for a demo of the platform and learn if you want to start serving clients on Xero. Register HERE.
Featured Posts
🌶️ I first started my (serious) bookkeeping side hustle 5 years ago. Not like I’m a total industry rookie anymore. So I was absolutely flummoxed when I heard some tax preparers correct my assumption that getting your Enrolled Agent Certification from the IRS did not teach you to prepare taxes. So I created a single thread and asked tax pros to chime in so we could get the full scoop on what the EA is and what it is not. I will leave it to you to interpret these comments for yourself. For me, I know that if I ever got the urge to add tax services to my business, I’d still choose studying for and obtaining my EA as my first step.
🌶️ Christa B. asks, Would it be ethical to provide bookkeeping services to small businesses after becoming certified in QBO and just slowly learning more and more as I begin working. If you are truly starting from ground zero in this field, read the feedback she got. She was given many viable strategies!
🌶️ Karen K. came seeking advice about pricing when you submit a clean up proposal but they don’t accept the proposal but want hire you for direction on what to do and to review their work.
Help You Hustle
💪 If you are so new to this field that you don’t have your QuickBooks Online Accountant account yet, then these brand new videos from Kathy Grosskurth are for you. It is so important to make sure you watch CURRENT videos about a software because stuff always changes.
💪 Are you a rock star QuickBooks User? How about you nominate yourself for the Top 100 ProAdvisor award. You never know if you’ll get it if you don’t try! And there is even a special award called “Up-And-Comer”! That’s YOU! I’m personally hoping more MEN nominate themselves. In my mind, this list should be 50/50 men and women (but I digress).
💪 You need to make room in your brain for the word “ChatGPT” or “OpenAi”. It is bubbling up a lot and the ones of us who figure out how to (ethically) embrace this will definitely be ahead of our competition. Here are two intros/primers to the concept. ChatGPT is FREE.
Tech and Automation expert Heather Satterley wrote a blog about it here called “Adventures with ChatGPT”. I like this article because she rounds up additional resources for us.
This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast intros the AI concept and they hosts do a LIVE DEMO starting at min 18:25. FREAKY. These guys technically demo a paid app called JasperAI, but Jasper has ChatGPT built into it.
Jobs
💼 Live in the Chicago area? Ramsey Shehadeh is looking for staff (hybrid office and virtual).
💼 Trey Cathey is looking for a part-time bookkeeper that is experienced with Xero and QBO. There could be opportunity for growth within the company.
💼 I spy 2 jobs on the CPAMoms.com job board.
💼 Small sub-contractor opportunity by Camilla Villaseñor-Leos for folks with QBO and Keeper experience.
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 This past week, I attempted to do some free Q&A sessions for FreshBooks users as a way to build some “Know, Like, and Trust” with potential clients. I did two last week and have one on December 28. I have about 100 people on an email list who have downloaded some FreshBooks resources of mine. Here are the registration results:
1st session: Two attendees and one was a fellow accounting pro.
2nd session: One attendee and it was the same guy who attended the first session.
3rd session: Two registrants and one of the two is again the same guy who attended the first two.
😭😭😭😭 Talk about a swing and a miss. I thought the “end the year strong” messaging would be appealing. Maybe the holidays are a bad time, though? I want to blame in on the holidays, but that might just be an excuse for my poor marketing skills.
🎢 Part of my goal is to always present a realistic picture of how hard entrepreneurship is. So I wanted to share some disappointments related to goals that I did not reach in 2023.
Goal: Upload 52 videos to my biz YouTube Channel (I’m trying to become the “Hector Garcia of FreshBooks”).
Outcome: I ran out of steam by summer time. I only uploaded 32 videos total and 11 of those were since June. Consistency is really, really hard.
Goal: Hit 1,000 subscribers on the biz YouTube Channel.
Outcome: I’m at a measly 404 subs on a topic where there is literally ZERO competition and for a software that has millions of users. This one stings.
Goal: Make more revenue on FreshBooks Clients than my legacy QBO clients.
Outcome: I got close, but did not accomplish that.
Goal: Have 20 paying members of my weekly FreshBooks Office Hours and have the price set at $99/month.
Outcome: I only have 8 and only charge $59/mo. And I have literally been trying to sell it all year. I just cannot convince DIYers to invest in this. The GOOD news is that my office hours time slot is still undoubtedly my favorite hour of the week and the people who are there realize how valuable it it. But how long can I work on low-profit projects just because I like the work?
🎢 I have had some highlights in 2023!
I fully devoted myself to the FreshBooks bookkeeping platform. It feels like my very first year in business where I was struggling to learn QBO. But it is amazing how expert you can become when you just wrestle with something every day. I’ve gotten really good and have truly helped small business owners.
I put my 11 year old son on official payroll and he has done real work for me.
I hired a new subcontractor to work on 2 QBO clients and she is awesome and better than me at bookkeeping & accounting in every way possible, so a total win there.
I was selected to be on the FreshBooks Partner Advisory Council.
I was part of the filming for Gusto’s new Payroll Certification. It was like being an actual movie star with the make up and outfits and people coming up to me and fiddling with my hair.
I was nominated to attend Appy Camp hosted by industry leaders Heather Satterley and Liz Scott. It is for accounting “educators”, which is what I’m trying to be. You should follow those ladies if you want a shot at going next year.
I delivered my first Key Note speech at the BKX conference.
I am blessed beyond belief!
From The Vault
⚡ I’ve shared this same little paragraph in the Facebook community the last 2 years at Christmas time. Seems fitting for this edition’s “From The Vault” section.
I'd like to take a brief moment to get personal and to say that my reason for celebrating Christmas is because of my belief in the amazing, saving work of Jesus Christ found in the Holy Bible. If you'd ever like to ask me about that offline, I'd be open to a kind and respectful discussion about it.
Letters To The Editor
✉️Love this Zoom feature! Thanks for the video... I didn't know about it and can't wait to use it in my Zoom in 10 minutes. :) ~Navigation Bookkeeping Solutions
Regarding the “8.7x your Zoom Meetings” video
Classifieds (clickable)
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Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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Thank you for your hard work, advocacy, transparency, and consistency, Kate! You have been a mentor and example to me as I have started my business over the last two years. I hope you are enjoying some down from work and fun time with your family this holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!