How to find clients for your bookkeeping firm

Six ways to find bookkeeping clients

1. 1

   Work with CPAs who don't want small clients

   Plenty of CPA firms make their money on tax returns and advisory work. They'd rather not do monthly books for a small business, but their clients ask them anyway. If they have a good name to pass on, they look helpful and keep the tax work.

   So be that name. Then make the referral pay off for them: send the books back clean and on time at year-end. A CPA who gets tidy files from you in February will remember you in June.

   This week: Call a short list of local CPA firms and ask one question. Who do you send small clients to when they need monthly bookkeeping? If the answer is nobody, offer to be that person.

2. 2

   Pick a niche

   A restaurant owner wants a bookkeeper who already understands tip reporting, food costs and delivery app payouts. A contractor wants someone who gets job costing and retainage. A dental practice owner wants someone who has seen their practice software before. Owners trust a person who already speaks their language.

   Niching down feels like turning work away. It isn't. You can still take other clients. But your website, your referrals and your outreach all start saying one clear thing, and that makes every other idea on this list work better.

   This week: Look at your client list. Pick the industry where you already have a few happy clients, and rewrite your homepage headline for them.

3. 3

   Get listed in the software directories

   Small business owners often look for help inside the software they already use. If you work in QuickBooks, become a QuickBooks ProAdvisor and fill in your directory listing properly. If you work in Xero, do the same in the Xero advisor directory.

   Write the listing for your niche and your city. "Bookkeeping for restaurants in Columbus" tells an owner more than "full-service accounting solutions." Add a real photo and say what a first month with you looks like. A complete, specific listing stands out next to a generic one.

4. 4

   Use tax season and year-end

   Timing matters more in bookkeeping than in most trades. In the run-up to tax season, owners find out their books are a mess and their CPA can't file until they're fixed. Around year-end, owners promise themselves they'll finally get organized.

   Be ready before those windows open, not halfway through them. Remind your CPA contacts in January that you take catch-up work. Have a clear, fixed-price offer written down so you can say yes quickly when the calls come.

5. 5

   Lead with cleanup and catch-up work

   A business that's months behind doesn't want to talk about a monthly bookkeeping relationship. It wants the mess gone. A fixed-price cleanup or catch-up project is an easy yes, and by the end you know their books better than anyone.

   Do the cleanup well and quickly. When you hand it back, ask whether they want help keeping it that way. Plenty of owners would rather not end up in the same hole next year.

   This week: Write a one-paragraph cleanup offer with a fixed price range and a turnaround time. Send it to your CPA contacts.

6. 6

   Show up where local owners meet

   Local business associations, your chamber of commerce, and trade groups in your niche, like a state restaurant association or a local builders' association. Don't go to hand out cards. Go often enough that people know your face.

   Better still, offer to give a short talk on something owners actually worry about: what to have ready before you meet your CPA, or how to read your own profit and loss statement. The person who explained it clearly is the person they call.

Outbound, done properly

Cold email has a bad name because most of it is bad. Done with care, it's a fair way to reach owners who would never come across you otherwise. Here's the careful version.

1. Start with your best three clients. Write down what they have in common: industry, size, location, the software they use. That's who you're looking for.
2. Find businesses that match. Local business listings, member lists from your niche's trade association, new business filings in your county.
3. Find the actual decision-maker. In a small business that's usually the owner. Sometimes it's an office manager who does the books today and would love to stop.
4. Check the email address works before you send anything. Bounced emails hurt your sender reputation, and they tell you the list was stale.
5. Write about one real, specific thing at that business. A new location, a new hire, a busy season coming. Keep it short and keep your services out of the first line.
6. Send a small number. Few enough that you read every one before it goes.
7. Follow up twice, a few days apart. Then stop. No reply is an answer.

Here's what a first email can look like. The business is made up.

It's plain on purpose. It shows you noticed something real, says what you do in one sentence, and asks a question that's easy to answer.

What to avoid

• Buying big generic lists. They're cheap for a reason: old addresses, wrong people, businesses that have closed.
• Templated blasts. Owners can tell when the same email went to everyone in town.
• Pitching in the first line. Nobody cares about your services until you've shown you noticed them.
• Paying per meeting without checking who the meetings are with. A calendar full of businesses that can't afford you is worse than an empty one.
• Competing on price. Clients who came for the cheapest rate will leave for a cheaper one.
• Chasing five niches at once. Pick one, give it a few months, then decide.

Related guides

• How to find clients for your marketing agency
• How to find clients for an IT or managed services firm

If you'd rather not do the outbound part yourself, we do it for small firms: we find companies that fit, check the contact and write the first email, and you approve every one.