Accountant & bookkeeper guides > Starting a bookkeeping business > Niche and virtual bookkeeping businesses
Designing your bookkeeping business around the needs of a specific type of client – or your particular strengths – can be a very successful way to go. Here’s how niche can work for you.
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.
Capturing a niche isn’t all about offering the right bookkeeping services. It might be about relating to where they are in their business journey and striking the right tone.
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
Chapter 5: Creating your business plan
You’ve decided to start a bookkeeping business. What next? Learn why a business plan is important and what to include in one.
Read next chapterAll chapters:
2. Bookkeeping from home is an option
3. What services will you offer?
4. Niche and virtual bookkeeping services
