By: vish ks
Submitted: 2010-02-25 00:27:33 | Word Count: 536
If you are a start-up bookkeeper, besides having to overcome the name and recognition other accountants in your area enjoy, you will also have to tackle the competition related to pricing. There would also be clients who make default on payments, clients who want to extract the value over and above what was originally agreed, and clients switching to carry on their work using cheap or free soft wares. Being a newcomer in this field, as you open your doors, you would be staying with having nil yellow page ads to your credit. At the outset, you may not have taken the membership of the Rotary club or the Kiwanis, and you surely would not be interviewed by the local media. Otherwise it could be the newspaper or radio station that had been approached for promoting you and your services.
You will find a few competitors you know about along with some you have never heard of that have been listed in the Directory. You are sure to find that all the civic organizations will already have some or other person in the bookkeeping field as a member. If you are interested in taking the membership, you may need to figure out another classification. Of course the newspaper and radio will set you back by some amount of your hard-earned savings before they can let you get your address in print. And even then, it is very much likely to be ignored since it is just an advertisement. In addition to that, their news and editorial department will be already having a list of local bookkeepers they are very close to, whom they refer to whenever they are faced with some technical questions or when they need an authoritative voice.
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Finally, as you get hold of a client, it might be someone who has not had his or her accounting works done, or had filed the tax returns. And, they will want you to do all the groundwork for free. In all possibility, they are going to pay you only one-third of the original price you had quoted. Then, once the work gets over, they would be left penny-less and will not pay for another six months. As you go to their place and try to collect the amount, they will surely have some complaints about your work and might tell you that they intend to do it themselves.
In today’s world, a bookkeeping professional is jammed on all sides, thanks to globalization, deregulation and cutting edge technology. The local bookkeepers will have to compete with his immediate neighbour down the street. In addition to the stiff local competition, bookkeepers may find competent services offered by professional practitioners belonging in completely different fields. A professional accountant might be offering incorporation services, while a well established attorney could be offering tax advice by running a consultancy. And, with the onset of technological advances and introduction of personal computer, bookkeeping and financial soft wares have become sort of essential tools or commodities.
