Are you looking for a flexible side hustle that you can start from home? Starting a bookkeeping business may be worth looking into. Bookkeepers help business owners organize their finances, keep their records accurate, and understand where their money is going. Since most businesses need bookkeeping help every month, this can also be a great…
Are you looking for a flexible side hustle that you can start from home?
Starting a bookkeeping business may be worth looking into.
Bookkeepers help business owners organize their finances, keep their records accurate, and understand where their money is going. Since most businesses need bookkeeping help every month, this can also be a great way to build recurring income instead of constantly looking for new one-time jobs.
You can start small with just one client, work around your current job or family schedule, and grow the business at your own pace. You also don’t need to be a CPA or have an accounting degree to get started.
Today, I have a great interview with Jaime Rodriguez about how to start a bookkeeping business and how AI is changing the industry.
Jaime started his bookkeeping business, Paralledger, in 2017 after taking the Bookkeeper Launch course. At the time, he was working as a controller for a law firm and commuting more than an hour each way. He wanted a more flexible way to work and decided to build a business of his own.
Over time, Jaime grew Paralledger to around $105,000 a year in revenue as a solo bookkeeper while working about 15 hours a week. His business later grew into a team that brought in nearly $220,000 a year.
Jaime eventually joined Bookkeepers.com, became CEO, and purchased the company in 2025. Now, he helps other people learn how to become bookkeepers and start their own businesses.
Of course, with AI becoming more common, you may be wondering if bookkeeping is still a good business to start.
Jaime believes it is. AI can help with some of the repetitive work, but businesses still need real people to review the numbers, catch mistakes, ask questions, and explain what everything means.
Not sure whether bookkeeping would be a good fit for you? Jaime has a free three-part Bookkeeper Launch training that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what bookkeepers do, how to find clients, and what the income potential may look like. It is a helpful way to explore the business before deciding whether you want to invest more time or money into it. You can sign up for the free Bookkeeper Launch classes here.
How To Build a Successful Bookkeeping Business Today
In this interview, you will learn:
- What a bookkeeper actually does
- How much a freelance bookkeeper can earn
- How to find your first bookkeeping client
- Whether you need a degree or accounting experience
- How AI is changing bookkeeping
- Which bookkeeping tasks still need a real person
- How to start a bookkeeping business from home
If you are interested in a flexible work-from-home business with the potential for recurring monthly income, you will enjoy this interview.
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This free training will teach you what you need to know to become a virtual bookkeeper and make money from home.
1. Can you introduce yourself and share your personal story, including how you went from being a Bookkeeper Launch student to owning Bookkeepers.com? When you were a bookkeeper, how much did you earn each month and was it a full-time business for you?
I’m Jaime Rodriguez. I own Bookkeepers.com, and I also started a bookkeeping firm called Paralledger. The funny part is that I was a Bookkeeper Launch student long before I ever imagined owning the company.
In 2017, I had an accounting degree and worked as a controller for a law firm. I knew accounting. What I didn’t know was how to build a bookkeeping business of my own. I was working long days and commuting over an hour each way. I wanted a different way to work, but wanting that and knowing how to get there are two different things.
I enrolled in Bookkeeper Launch in March 2017 and started Paralledger that year. I learned how to find clients, price my work, put systems in place, and deal with the questions that come up when you’re responsible for someone else’s books. Having people to ask when I got stuck mattered as much as the lessons did. I got my first client within a few months.
Eventually, while I was the only bookkeeper and had no staff, Paralledger brought in as much as about $105,000 a year, or roughly $8,750 a month in revenue. At that stage I worked around 15 hours a week on the business. I don’t want someone to read that and think it happened the month after I enrolled. It took time to learn the work, earn trust, and build a client base.
Later, I joined the Bookkeepers.com team in 2019, became CEO in 2024, and purchased the company in 2025. Paralledger grew into a team business while I worked full-time at Bookkeepers.com. At its peak, the firm brought in just under $220,000 a year in revenue, and about $150,000 was my take-home pay. I spent around 20 hours a month on Paralledger then because my staff did the other client work. Those are two very different stages of the business, and I think it’s important to be clear about that.
Now I get to teach the program that helped me start. I remember what it feels like to look at a blank page and wonder, “Okay, but how do I actually get someone to hire me?”
2. For someone who is completely new to this, what does a bookkeeper actually do?
A bookkeeper helps a business owner know where the money went, what the business earned, what it owes, and whether the numbers can be trusted.
Say a small business owner opens QuickBooks and sees hundreds of bank transactions. Some are customer payments. Some are supplies, payroll, or transfers between accounts. A bookkeeper makes sure they’re recorded in the right places, checks that the records agree with the bank and credit card statements, and investigates anything that doesn’t make sense. Then we help the owner understand the reports. Did the business make money this month? Are customers paying? Is there enough cash for the bills coming up?
The software can import a transaction, but it doesn’t always know the story behind it. A $2,000 withdrawal could be an equipment purchase, a loan payment, an owner distribution, or something else. Getting that wrong can give the owner a misleading picture of the business.
If you like organizing information, solving little mysteries, and helping people feel less lost with their finances, you may enjoy bookkeeping. You don’t need to be a human calculator. You do need to care about accuracy and be willing to ask questions when something looks off.
3. Is starting a bookkeeping business still a good side hustle for beginners?
Yes, for the right person. One appealing part is that many clients need help every month. If you do good work and build a relationship, you can have recurring work rather than starting from zero each month. You can begin with one client while keeping your job and decide how much you want to grow.
But I want to be straight with people: starting a business takes work. You need to learn the skill, practice it, talk to potential clients, and follow through. The flexibility comes from building a business and good systems. It doesn’t mean there are never deadlines or a client question on an inconvenient day.
If what you need right now is money this weekend, I wouldn’t tell you to start a bookkeeping business and expect an instant paycheck. If you’re willing to learn a useful skill and build something over time, it can be a strong side business that fits around a job or family responsibilities.
4. Do you think AI will replace bookkeepers? Why or why not?
I think AI will replace a lot of tasks bookkeepers used to spend time on. I don’t think a business owner can safely hand over the books to an AI tool and stop paying attention.
We already have software that suggests categories and matches transactions. AI makes those suggestions faster and can help with more complicated workflows. That’s useful. It also means a bookkeeper who only offers to enter data will have a harder time explaining their value.
Here’s an example from my firm. Our staff used to pull a payroll summary, find the right totals, and manually create the payroll journal entry in QuickBooks. We built an automation that takes the report, extracts the figures, and posts the entry. Now the bookkeeper reviews whether the entry was entered correctly. That review isn’t ceremonial. The bookkeeper needs to understand the accounts, catch something unusual, and make sure the result matches what actually happened.
To me, the role is shifting from doing every piece of data entry to supervising the tools and taking responsibility for the books. That makes bookkeeping fundamentals more valuable, because you cannot review work you don’t understand. I wouldn’t tell a beginner to ignore AI. I’d tell them to learn bookkeeping first so they can use AI well.
5. What bookkeeping tasks still need a real person, even when AI tools are being used?
The big one is judgment. A bank feed shows what moved through the bank. It doesn’t tell you why. If a business owner bought something on a personal card, paid a loan in several installments, or accidentally deposited the same customer payment twice, the bookkeeper has to figure out what happened and ask the right questions.
Reconciliations still need attention. A tool might propose matches, but someone needs to determine why the books and statement don’t agree and whether the difference is a missing transaction, a duplicate, a timing issue, or an error from months ago. Cleanups are especially good examples because the information is often incomplete or inconsistent.
There’s also the human side. A client may say, “We were busy all month, so why is cash tight?” That question requires a conversation and a look at the business, not just a nicely formatted report. A good bookkeeper can explain what the numbers show, what still needs checking, and when to involve the client’s CPA or another specialist.
AI can help prepare work. The bookkeeper is responsible for checking it and communicating with the person who relies on it.
6. What does “AI bookkeeping” mean, and how are bookkeepers currently using AI in their businesses?
People use that phrase for a few different things. Sometimes they mean features already inside accounting software, like suggesting a transaction category. Sometimes they mean using an AI tool to read a document or draft a client message. And sometimes they mean connecting several tools so a repetitive process runs with less manual work.
The payroll example is the kind of practical automation I care about. The staff uploads a payroll report, the workflow identifies the figures needed for the journal entry and creates it in QuickBooks, and a bookkeeper checks the result. You can apply a similar idea to pulling information from bills or organizing payment processor reports. The point is to save time on repeated steps while keeping a person who understands the books in charge.
I also think there’s a difference between using AI to help you think and allowing it to act. Drafting a checklist is one thing. Posting an entry into a client’s books is another. The more an automation can change, the more important it is to have clear review steps. If I’m teaching someone new, I want them comfortable with the bookkeeping basics before they rely on a tool’s answer.
7. How should bookkeepers talk about their value when potential clients think AI can do everything for them?
I wouldn’t argue with a client about whether AI is powerful. It is. I’d ask what they actually need solved.
If they say, “QuickBooks already categorizes my transactions,” I might ask, “Great. Who checks those categories? When was the last time all your accounts were reconciled? Can you explain why your profit went up but your bank balance went down?” Those questions move the conversation toward the outcome the owner cares about: numbers they can trust and understand.
I’d say something like, “I use technology to get the routine work done efficiently. You’re hiring me to make sure your books are accurate, spot what needs attention, and explain what your numbers mean.” That’s a much better conversation than selling the number of transactions you can enter.
And be honest about your scope. A new bookkeeper doesn’t need to claim to be a tax expert or a CFO. Doing reliable monthly bookkeeping, communicating clearly, and knowing when to ask for help is already valuable.
8. Do you need a degree, accounting experience, or special certification to become a bookkeeper?
No. I had an accounting degree before I started Paralledger, but you don’t need to follow my path. Plenty of good bookkeepers came from completely different careers. What you do need is training, practice, and the ability to recognize when something in a client’s books doesn’t look right.
You also don’t need to be a CPA to offer bookkeeping services. A CPA license and the training to run a bookkeeping business are different things.
I understand why someone without an accounting background would want more than a course completion badge before taking on a client. That’s why Bookkeeper Launch helps students work toward the Associate Digital Bookkeeper Certificate. Students learn the fundamentals, practice applying them, and take both knowledge and practical final exams to earn it. It gives you a way to demonstrate what you’ve learned as you build the confidence to do the work.
And if you’re thinking, “I’ve never been good at math,” bookkeeping is more about understanding what happened in a business and paying attention to detail than doing calculations in your head. The software does the arithmetic. Your job is to understand and check the result.
9. What are the basic steps to starting a bookkeeping business from home?
First, learn what the work actually involves. Don’t buy software and start advertising because you like the idea of working from home. Learn how transactions flow through the books, how to reconcile an account, and what an income statement and balance sheet are telling you.
Second, practice on examples where you can make mistakes and correct them. Try categorizing transactions, reconciling a bank account, and finding an error. You want to understand why an answer is right, not memorize where to click in QuickBooks.
Third, decide what you will offer. Monthly bookkeeping for a small business is a sensible place to start. Spell out what you’ll do, what the client must provide, when you’ll deliver reports, and what work costs extra. Set up the business, client agreement, secure way to receive documents, and a repeatable process for onboarding and monthly work.
Fourth, start having conversations. Think about business owners you know, people who serve them, and a type of business you would enjoy helping. Ask what is frustrating them about their books. Your first goal is to understand the problem and see whether you can solve it, not to pitch everyone you meet.
Finally, take good care of the first client. Communicate, ask when you’re unsure, and keep improving your process. A business grows one trustworthy relationship at a time. And if a client needs a cleanup or work beyond your current ability, get support before you promise a result.
10. How much can a freelance bookkeeper realistically earn, and how many hours might they work?
There isn’t one reliable income number because clients differ in size and complexity, and the first months of building a business look nothing like an established practice. But I can give you an example of how the math could work.
A straightforward small monthly client might pay around $300 to $400 and take about five to eight hours a month or less once the process is running smoothly. Three such clients at $350 each would bring in $1,050 in monthly revenue. At that workload estimate, the recurring client work might take about 15 to 24 hours a month. That’s before prospecting, admin, software, taxes, and the extra work of bringing those clients aboard. It’s an illustration, not a promise or an estimate of take-home pay.
Onboarding may add about 10 hours for a new client in the first month. A cleanup is different work altogether. Depending on how far behind the client is, it can take around 10 hours a week while the cleanup is underway, and a multi-month or multi-year project might be priced anywhere from about $2,000 to $10,000 based on size and complexity. You should assess the books and define the scope before quoting that kind of job. Cleanup fees are project revenue, not recurring monthly income.
My own numbers show what can happen after a business has clients and systems. I reached about $105,000 a year in revenue as a solo bookkeeper working around 15 hours a week. The later $220,000 revenue year involved a staff doing most of the client work. Neither figure is what a new bookkeeper should expect to earn right away. Start with what one client would mean for your life, then build from there. What could one client paying you an extra $350 a month do for you?
11. How can a new bookkeeper find their first client if they do not have experience or testimonials yet?
You don’t have to pretend you’ve run a bookkeeping firm for 10 years. You do have to be ready to do the work, explain what you can help with, and be honest about what you’re still learning.
Start with people who already know and trust you, including business owners and the people who work with them. Tell them clearly what you do. “I help small business owners keep their books current and understand their monthly numbers” is more useful than “I started a company, please refer me.” Ask about the frustration they’re dealing with. Are they behind? Do they dread opening QuickBooks? Does their tax preparer keep asking for things they can’t find?
Then offer a specific next step, such as a conversation about their current process. Listen before you quote a price. If the books are behind, figure out the cleanup separately from the monthly work. And don’t wait until your website, logo, and social accounts are perfect to speak with a real person.
Your first client might come from a friend, a local business connection, or a referral from a CPA who doesn’t want to take on monthly bookkeeping. It may take more conversations than you hoped. Keep learning, keep reaching out, and make it easy for someone to see that you’re careful, responsive, and willing to solve a real problem.
12. Can you share an example of someone who started a bookkeeping business and what their experience has been?
Kandi Johnson’s story is a good one because it shows both the opportunity and the work behind it. She joined Bookkeeper Launch in 2020 while she was an executive director at a chamber of commerce. She had years of banking and customer service experience, but she wasn’t already running a bookkeeping firm. She thought bookkeeping could become a side business and went through the training during the shutdown.
When she finished, she posted on Facebook about her training and her Associated Digital Bookkeeper certification. A friend with an event management business was doing her books on paper. Kandi offered to help at a low introductory rate and used that first relationship to learn what her invoicing, engagement letter, and document process should look like. Another friend became a virtual client. She talks openly about second-guessing herself and redoing reconciliations while she learned. She had only two clients in her first year, and that was enough for her at the time.
Later, a CPA she knew through the chamber asked whether she could subcontract for him as he moved away from bookkeeping. She worked with roughly 15 of his clients for a year, and 14 moved to her business when he stopped offering the service. Those relationships led to more referrals. Today, Kandi has a team and serves roughly 60 to 70 clients.
That isn’t a typical first-year result or a reason to expect 70 clients. What I like about her story is that she started small, asked people she knew, learned from mistakes, and built relationships that led to the next opportunity. She also talks about working too much before hiring, so there’s a lesson about building a business you can actually sustain.
13. What advice would you give someone who is interested in bookkeeping but worried that AI has made it too late to begin?
I’d tell them to spend less time trying to predict the entire future of AI and more time seeing whether they like the actual work.
AI changes the tools. Business owners still need accurate records, answers to their questions, and someone who notices when the numbers don’t make sense. A beginner today should learn the fundamentals and become comfortable with technology. Those things work together. If you know how bookkeeping works, you can check an AI suggestion, fix a bad entry, and improve a process. If you skip the fundamentals, you may just make mistakes faster.
I also wouldn’t tell you to quit your job tomorrow. Take a look at the work. Try some practice bookkeeping. See whether you enjoy bringing order to a messy situation and explaining it to another person. If you do, take the next step and build your skills. If you don’t, it’s better to learn that early.
The question I’d ask isn’t “Will AI exist?” Of course it will. It’s “Do I want to become the person a business owner trusts to use these tools well and take care of their books?”
14. Can you tell us about the Bookkeeper Launch class and what readers will learn? How is Bookkeeper Launch different from your AI Bookkeeping program, and who is each program designed for?
Bookkeeper Launch is for someone who wants to learn bookkeeping and build a business around it. We teach the bookkeeping fundamentals, give students practice, and cover the parts I needed help with when I started: finding clients, pricing, onboarding, building systems, and delivering the work. There’s a community and support when you hit a roadblock, whether the question is about a client’s books or growing your business. That support is a big reason I joined as a student in the first place.
AI Bookkeeping is a separate program for people who already understand the work and want to use AI and automation to improve how they do it. That’s where we get into practical systems that can reduce repetitive tasks, like extracting information from bills or processing payroll data. It isn’t the starting point for someone who has never reconciled an account. You need to know what good bookkeeping looks like before you can supervise a tool that helps produce it.
If you’re reading this and wondering whether bookkeeping is even a good fit for you, start with our three free classes. They show you what the work involves, how people get started, and what the income opportunity looks like. You can decide whether you want to go further before paying for a program. I would rather have you watch them and decide this isn’t for you than buy a course because someone made the business sound effortless. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t for everyone. But if the work clicks for you and you’re ready to put in the effort, Bookkeeper Launch gives you a path and people to turn to while you build.
Want to see if bookkeeping is a good fit for you? You can sign up for the three free Bookkeeper Launch classes here. You’ll learn more about what bookkeepers do, how the business works, and how beginners can get started.
Are you interested in starting a bookkeeping business? What would be your biggest concern about getting started?
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This free training will teach you what you need to know to become a virtual bookkeeper and make money from home.
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