How to Add a New Revenue Stream to Your Bookkeeping Business

Professional bookkeepers work in a highly competitive environment, so tailoring your offerings or adding new services to your repertoire can set you apart. Here are some ways to expand what you do for your clients, deliver more value to them, and generate more income for your business.

1. Provide Accounting Software Training Services

Leverage your knowledge and experience of working with accounting systems by training your clients and their teams on how to enter some of their own financial transactions and run reports in their software. This can not only bring in more revenue for your business, but also it will help make your job as their bookkeeper less cumbersome. When clients have the know-how to input information correctly, you won’t have as many messes to clean up. Common activities to target include creating invoices and enter bills, categorizing expenses and income to the correct account codes, and adding or removing funds from the correct bank and credit accounts.

Obtaining credentials elevates credibility, validates your expertise, and builds trust with prospects and clients. Consider certification such as QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Xero Advisor, Zoho Books Advisor, or Sage Certified Instructor.

2. Prepare Clients’ Income Tax Returns

Another way to add value and convenience for your clients while generating additional income is to offer income tax preparation and filing services. As a bookkeeping professional, you are detail-oriented and proficient at dealing with numbers, so venturing into tax preparation services might be a natural fit for you if you are game for educating yourself on tax codes and keeping up with the latest changes.

The IRS requires all paid tax preparers to:

1. Obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN), which must be renewed annually. Please note a paid preparer with a PTIN but no other credentials
2. has limited representation rights for clients.
3. Apply for an electronic filing identification number (EFIN) if they wish to file federal income tax returns on behalf of clients electronically.
4. Pass a suitability check to become an authorized e-file provider. The process includes a credit check, tax compliance check, criminal background check, and check to confirm you have no prior non-compliance with IRS e-file requirements. The IRS sends an acceptance letter to the applicant with their EFIN after the suitability check is completed and approved.

While the IRS does not require a license to prepare federal income tax returns, some states require tax preparers to have a license for preparing state returns.

Offering tax preparation services enables you to expand your target audience, allowing you to serve not only business clients but also consumers who need help with their individual tax returns.

3. Expand Into Virtual Assistant Services

As many companies lay off administrative staff in efforts to reduce payroll costs, their executives and managers still need support to manage their busy schedules and handle a multitude of office minutiae. Some businesses will likely opt to outsource those tasks to a virtual assistant, which can ultimately cost less than hiring employees because companies don’t have to provide benefits to independent contractors, nor pay half of their Social Security and Medicare taxes, nor pay for unemployment or workers’ compensation insurance. As a bookkeeping professional, you possess many of the qualities and skills that people look for in a virtual assistant. You’re adept at data entry from working with bookkeeping/accounting software. You are organized and attentive to details. In managing your own business, you’re intimately familiar with handling many of the tasks virtual assistants perform.

Examples of in demand services include:

• Email management – Screening, filtering, organizing, prioritizing, archiving, deleting, and responding to email messages for your clients
• Meeting and appointment scheduling – Checking your client’s availability and setting up (or accepting) appointments; might even involve arranging business travel plans (e.g., conference registration, flights, accommodations)
• Proposal writing – Assisting your clients’ sales teams with writing proposals in response to sales opportunities and RFPs
• Research assistance – Potentially covering a broad range of needs, such as researching and documenting competitor’s offerings, market research, industry trends, viability of technology tools, suppliers, costs of materials, and more
• Data entry – Inputting information into software platforms used for accounting, sales, marketing, inventory management, project management, collaboration, and others—e.g., details about prospects, existing customers, and vendors; task assignments and project status updates; product information

What’s attractive about this additional line of revenue is that you can leverage your organizational skills and other personal/professional strengths to tailor your services to your clients’ needs. It also allows you to expand your target market (bigger pool of potential customers) and add an interesting variety of work to your plate.

4. Offer Business Formation and Compliance Services

With the regulatory landscape constantly changing, business owners often need professional support to help them stay current with their compliance requirements and keep their entities in good standing. Bookkeepers are uniquely positioned to build stronger client relationships and generate recurring revenue by integrating business formation and compliance filing services into their offerings portfolio.

Contrary to what a lot of people might believe, a lawyer isn’t required to prepare and file business entity registration and compliance forms—bookkeepers are legally allowed to handle those tasks on behalf of their clients (with their approval, of course). An easy and turnkey way to do that is to join the CorpNet Partner Program, which enables you to add a new revenue stream without venturing into the territory of unauthorized practice of law or losing control of the client experience by handing your customers off to an unfamiliar third party.

The CorpNet Partner Program offers two options. Both are free to join and participate in:

• Referral option – Earn commissions for referring clients to CorpNet
• Reseller option – Get wholesale pricing on our formation and compliance filing services (in all 50 states) and resell them under your brand at whatever price you choose. We serve as your silent fulfillment partner, behind the scenes.

Examples of the business services you offer:

• Incorporation and LLC Registrations
• EIN Applications (Tax ID Form SS-4)
• Business Name Checks and Reservations
• DBAs/Fictitious Business Names
• 501(c)3 Non-Profit Tax Exemption
• State Sales Tax Registrations (Reseller Permits)
• State Payroll Tax Registrations
• Business License Research and Filings
• Foreign Qualification Filings
• Annual Report Compliance Monitoring and Filings
• Amendments and Name Changes
• Entity Conversions, Dissolutions, Withdrawals, and Reinstatements
• S Corporation (Form 2553) and C Corporation (Form 8832) Tax Elections
• Registered Agent Services
• Bylaws, Annual Meeting Minutes, and Resolutions