Niche and virtual bookkeeping businesses

What does a niche bookkeeper do?

A niche bookkeeper usually focuses on a certain industry. Becoming an expert in a sector can let you stand out from the crowd. You can develop services that address their specific needs. Each industry has its own financial challenges to focus on.

Five reasons to find a niche

A niche provider can focus their energy on perfecting a few key services. As a result, they simultaneously get better and faster at doing what they do. Put another way, their value goes up while their costs come down. 

Here are five ways that a narrower focus can make you stronger.

Specialising by industry, service, or technology

Your bookkeeping practice could specialise by:

• industry – becoming the go-to bookkeeper for farmers, lawyers, or restaurateurs 

• service – making the most of your particular strengths

• technology – developing expertise on certain types of software

These things are often intertwined. If you like a certain industry, you’ll probably develop the skills they value most, and you’ll learn the technologies that work best for them.

Go national (or global) as a virtual bookkeeper

As momentum builds, you can push outside your local market as a virtual bookkeeper. 

Virtual bookkeepers work remotely for their clients using online accounting software to provide services and video calls for meetings. 

You get to serve more clients than you’d normally find in your town, while clients generally get great value because your costs of doing business are lower. For example, a virtual bookkeeper:

• has fewer overheads (no high-street office space rent to pay)

• spends less time commuting to meetings 

• develops efficient workflows through frequent repetition of niche services