Follow 3 Days in My Bookkeeping Business - What Does a Bookkeeper Do?
Interested in seeing the behind the scenes of what the day-to-day looks like for a work-from-home bookkeeper with kids?
Throughout this article, I will show you the bookkeeping tasks I complete each day: reconciling bank accounts, paying bills, sending financial reports, inputting checks, payroll, and more. If you are interested in learning more about bookkeeping, these are some of the essential tasks that you can expect to complete each week for your clients.
Come along with me for 3 days to see how I balance work and life as a bookkeeping business owner.
Day 1 In My Life as a Bookkeeper
Each morning I wake up and start my day with a two-mile walk. When I get home from my walk, my first responsibility is to get my kids ready and off to school. Finally, I settle into my office and start to plan my schedule for the day.
Before I begin working, I create a three-item to-do list. These are the tasks that I will complete before I finish my work for the day. On day one, I focus on cleaning up my client’s chart of accounts, writing checks for a client, and categorizing transactions.
Clean Up Chart of Accounts
My first task is to clean up my client’s chart of accounts. With this client, I used to track their employee wages within QuickBooks Online, however, this client has recently moved to a payroll company. Therefore, we no longer need to track the employee wages in the chart of accounts. Moving forward, we will enter payroll into QuickBooks with a journal entry as one payment each month.
In the past, when searching employee’s information in QuickBooks, both their payroll and income accounts would be found. This created more of a headache for me, so I will be deleting all of the old payroll accounts from the chart of accounts.
Input Client Checks in QuickBooks Online
My next task for the day is to input paper checks in QBO. I receive check stubs from a local client, but you may also obtain check images digitally through a secure portal where you can share information.
Once I receive my client’s check stubs, I input the information into QBO. This way, when the transaction shows up in the bank feed, I know what it is for. When a check comes through on the bank feed, you don’t always have much information. This gives me the details I need to make sure the check is categorized correctly later on.
Another reason I enter check stubs in QBO, is to make the business owner aware of any outstanding checks. This allows the owner to know if they have enough money in their bank account to pay their bills.
RELATED DOCUMENT: How to send and open confidential information through Gmail
Categorize Income and Expense Transactions
The final task I have for day one is to categorize all of my client’s income and expense transactions. This is the bread and butter of what a bookkeeper does, and I enjoy this task the most.
QuickBooks will learn as you go and will know which vendor goes with which category. However, QuickBooks is not always perfect, so that is where I come in. Sometimes there are new vendors or transactions that could go in two different categories.
For example, if your client shopped at Best Buy, he could have bought office furniture or he could have bought gifts for his staff. You need to be able to differentiate these expenses and put them in the right category.
After I categorize all the transactions, I am done working for the day!
Day 2 In My Life as a Bookkeeper
Day two starts off much like day one. I get up, go for a two-mile walk, and get my kids off to school. I then head to my office to write down my three tasks for the day.
On this day I will be processing payroll for a client, talking with an acquaintance on a phone call regarding bookkeeping issues they are experiencing, and finishing my work day with paying bills.
Processing Payroll
I always recommend my clients have an outside payroll company. You may choose to manually process payroll for your client, but this is not a service I provide.
Even though I do not process the payroll for this client, they have requested that I track how much each person has made each month. So on the 20th of every month, I break down the income in QuickBooks to reflect each employee's personal income in our payroll system.
This is a fairly easy task for me. Each employee’s hours have already been approved by a manager, so I sync all the time worked into the payroll system. I double check vacation and sick time requested and the final thing I do is make a journal entry with all the detailed information.
RELATED WEBSITE: Gusto Online Payroll Services
Scheduled Call with my Acquaintance
One thing that you will find as a bookkeeper, is that you have a skill that business owners need. I often have friends, family, and acquaintances reaching out to me for advice on bookkeeping for their business.
It’s up to you if you want to charge for this friendly advice. Usually, if it’s a good friend or family member, I will do it out of the goodness of my heart.
Be aware, these calls can sometimes be stressful. On a couple of occasions, I have found a bigger mess within the books, and the person I was trying to help was completely unaware.
Another issue I have run into is not having the answers to help. This can be difficult because your friend sees you as the knowledgeable expert and you don’t want to let her down.
When helping these friends, realize you won’t know all the ins and outs right away. Have the confidence to let your friend know the takeaways from the conversation and let her know you will schedule a follow up call with all of the answers or to direct her where she can find them.
Paying Bills
My final task for day two is paying my client’s bills. My client emails me his invoices and I use his online bank bill pay system to pay his bills. Once I have this task completed, I can move on to my personal engagements for the day.
RELATED VIDEO: Pay bills in QBO
Day 3 In My Life as a Bookkeeper
I start day three much like day one and two (see a pattern?). Sometimes I will skip my walk if I have a busier morning, but I still must get my kids off to school before my work day begins.
For my final work day, I will have a networking call, I will be sending reports to my accountant, and I will be sending the “Ask My Accountant” folder in QuickBooks Online to a client in order to get some questions answered.
Networking Call with Accountants Law Lab
Every Friday I have a networking call with Linda and Sarah at Accountants Law Lab. Their group is for people who want to be a bookkeeper for lawyers, and I have learned a ton from them.
Sending Reports to My Personal Accountant
My second task for today is sending reports. My husband and I both own businesses, so I need to send our financial reports to our personal accountant.
Over the last year, our income has varied, so I am sending our accountant an updated profit and loss statement. This will allow our accountant to determine if we need to change our quarterly tax payments.
To send these reports, I go into QuickBooks Online, process the report, and send it to our accountant. Once the report is sent, this task is complete.
Send “Ask My Accountant” to My Client
The last thing on my list today is to send the “Ask My Accountant” report to my client.
This folder is found in QuickBooks Online and anytime I have a question regarding a transaction or how something should be categorized, I add it to this folder.
While categorizing bank feeds, I may not know what the client purchased from a retailer or maybe they have a new vendor that I haven’t seen before. Each month, there are typically 3-5 transactions that I need clarification on.
Often with a new client, I utilize this feature even more. Then, hopefully, as time goes on I only have questions quarterly depending on how predictable their transactions are.
Once the report is sent, I am done for the day!
Thank you for following along on three days in my life as a bookkeeper. I hope you have a better understanding of what a bookkeeper does and how you can plan out your daily tasks.
If you are interested in learning how to become a bookkeeper, check out the course Bookkeeper Launch. This program will teach you everything you need to know so you too can start your own bookkeeping business!
