Bookkeeping on Your Home-based PC

The growth of small businesses in the 1990s is good news for the self-employed bookkeepers. A growing number of business owners are cutting their budgets by contracting out bookkeeping tasks rather than hiring full-time employees to keep their financial records straight. The need for dependable, home-based bookkeepers has never been greater, and neither has the money-making potential of the emerging work-at-home phenomenon. "Bookkeeping on Your Home-Based PC", by personal finance columnist Linda Stern, is a complete guidebook that will launch the careers of newcomers and provide valuable tips for established bookkeepers. Stern leads readers through each step in the process of starting and running a home-based bookkeeping service, with emphasis on the technology needed to make it work. After setting an encouraging mood with an overview of the attractive prospects and rhythms of the business, the book focuses on how to equip the venture with computer, fax, modem, and telephone systems that fit the specific needs of home-based bookkeepers. Among the other questions Stern helps the reader to answer are: is home-based bookkeeping right for me?; what skills do I need? how do I learn them?
; how do I find out where my market is?; what legal issues should I be aware of?; how (and how much) should I bill clients?; and how and where do I find clients?