Hi all,
I'm attending a Quickbooks class in order to offer bookkeeping services to clients. What are some services and rates VAs are offering?

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Laraine Montgomery
Expert Virtual Office Services

Unless you have a really solid background in accounting, I don't recommend offering it as a service. QuickBooks is a good program to work with but you really need to understand what it is doing in the background to troubleshoot any issues and make sure that entries are made correctly. I have made a LOT of money fixing incorrectly set up and entered QuickBooks files.

That being said, if you have an accounting background, go for it!

As far as rates go, it should be dependent on your background and experience. Going rates range from $35-$75/hour in the US.

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

I agree with Lily, I have an accounting background and I no longer offer the service because you need to keep up with changes in practices and the IRS.

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Lee Drozak
My Office Assistant

The thing is, I am working with clients in the beauty/spa industry who have receipts/expenses stuffed in shoe boxes that they need me to go through and organize. I was plannning to use QuickBooks to enter the data and be able to print various reports for them. Would this be a good use of QB?

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Laraine Montgomery
Expert Virtual Office Services

Yes, BUT... again, be sure the QuickBooks account is set up properly to start with and if there is any 'funky' data entry you may wish to have an experienced bookkeeper look at it and recommend the correct entries. My best suggestion at this point is to organize the receipts for quick data entry and subcontract out the setup and initial data entry. Once the data is in, you can simply follow what was done previously or keep subbing out the bookkeeping (depending on how much volume the salon does, you may find that is only a couple of hours/week max to have the bookkeeping done for you).

And keep in mind, that QB can also be used to track their inventory of shampoos, etc. and handle their payroll. It saves a ton of time/money to be able to turn a QB file over to the accountant at the end of the year to have the taxes done.

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

I love this forum! I never would have thought to sub out the setup and initial data entry. Thanks. :0}

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Laraine Montgomery
Expert Virtual Office Services

I agree. You need to be sure that everything is set up correctly or it could be disastrous later on. But, as was mentioned, once everything is set up, the data entry is pretty simple to keep up with.

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Stacy White, Spectrum Office Solutions
www.ask4sos.com