Bookkeeping Business

[just_lily]

Does anyone do bookkeeping as a home business?

I have an undergraduate degree in business (majoring in finance), a background in commercial banking and spent a summer as an accounting student doing a lot of bookkeeping for clients.  If I do pursue this as a home business I plan on getting a certification in payroll in order to offer expertise there as well.

I am thinking that if I can take on a few entrepreneurs and handle their monthly bookkeeping and payroll I could make a successful little home based business.  At this point I wouldn't be comfortable preparing business taxes, but would be able to get year end reporting ready to go over to the accountants.  I could also offer specialized services for companies seeking bank financing as I have experience on the other side of the desk and have seen hundreds of requests for financing. 

I am thinking that start up costs will be fairly minimal, all things considered.  The cost of the payroll courses, an investment in software, and advertising (pretty cheap in our small town newspapers).  My husband is a computer tech so he will set up my desktop computer and will keep it running for me.  I will need some filing cabinets and probably a computer desk. 

Any thoughts or advice from experienced mamas?

[TSomm]

This is an old post, but I think another thing to consider would be security of data.  You'd need to make sure no one could access your client's information via the internet or even through stolen hardware, etc.