Guides › Freelancers and service businesses
Start a One-Person Bookkeeping Service
A step-by-step guide to setting up, pricing and running monthly bookkeeping for small businesses on your own
You can keep books. A friend who runs a small shop has asked whether you'd do hers every month, and you realize you don't know what to charge, what to put in writing or which parts of the job aren't yours to touch.
This book covers that gap. It walks you through scope, setup, pricing, finding clients, onboarding and a calm monthly routine for a one-person bookkeeping service, with a checklist after every chapter and fill-in templates you can adapt the same day. It assumes you already have bookkeeping skills, or are building them.
By the end you will have
- 13 chapters plus a short "How to use this book", from a skills check and scope boundaries to growing without overloading yourself
- A final chapter with a day-by-day plan for your first 30 days
- A checklist at the end of every chapter
- 10 fill-in templates: services menu, pricing worksheet, engagement letter outline (to have a lawyer review), discovery call question list, proposal outline, onboarding document request list, month-end close checklist, monthly client summary email, client communication agreement and capacity tracker
- A simple fixed-monthly-fee pricing method, shown with labeled example figures
- Plain-language guidance on what a bookkeeper does and what belongs to an accountant or tax preparer
- Data security and confidentiality basics for a one-person service
- 79 pages. PDF for printing, EPUB for phones and e-readers
Who it is for
- People with bookkeeping skills who want to start their own small service
- Office managers or in-house bookkeepers thinking about going solo
- Bookkeeping students planning their first clients
- New solo bookkeepers who want clearer systems and templates
What it is not
- Not legal, tax, insurance or financial advice. Rules on who may offer bookkeeping, registrations, anti-money-laundering supervision and insurance vary by country and state; check with your local regulator, a professional body and a qualified accountant or lawyer.
- Not a guarantee of clients or results
Questions
- What formats do I get?
- A PDF and an EPUB. Open the PDF to print or read on a computer, and the EPUB on a phone or e-reader.
- Can I edit the templates?
- Yes. Copy them into your own documents or spreadsheet and change the wording to suit your service.
- Does it tell me what to charge?
- No. It shows a method for setting a fixed monthly fee from your own time estimates. All amounts are labeled example figures or estimates.
- Does it cover my country's rules?
- It is written to be general, with example figures in US dollars, and it points you to the checks you need to make locally. It does not replace advice from your regulator, professional body, accountant or lawyer.
- Can I share it with a colleague?
- No, please ask them to buy their own copy.
- Will it teach me bookkeeping or tax preparation?
- No. It is not a beginner bookkeeping course or a tax preparation course; it is about setting up and running the service.
- Will you set up my business for me?
- No. It is a book, not a done-for-you service. It gives you the order of work and the templates; you do the work.
Refunds: see the refund policy.