I am posting here hoping to get clarification. I’ve been following several bookkeepers on YouTube, who are freelance online bookkeepers. I’ve asked them, but they don’t typically answer my questions – they go in a round-a-bout way and end up not answering the questions I ask.

There are many who are independent freelance bookkeepers who do their business solely online. I would like to do this myself. Most say they only do the Chart of Accounts, reconcile accounts, and produce a P&L for their clients. From there, their clients have their CPA or accountant do taxes.

They also say they don’t do AR, AP, Inventory, Payroll, or Taxes. They don’t mention anything about Adjusting Entries – Accruals, Deferrals, and Depreciation. Yet, to have accurate financial statements, all of these account balances need to be in the Financial Reports.

If they don’t do them, who does; or how do they obtain the information themselves to put it on the reports? Are these figures entered into QB by others and therefore the totals are found there?

I am very interested in starting my own bookkeeping business online, but I need to know what the responsibilities are; especially if they only do the P&L and how they get an accurate report.

I am aware that bookkeepers can specialize in each of these areas separately, so does that mean a client would hire a bookkeeper for each area they need bookkeeping for? In producing the financial reports then, is it a collaborative effort between all the bookkeepers and CPA to produce accurate financial reports? This seems like a lot of redundancy and too much effort and stress for the client. Not likely they would do this.

Thanks