As business expands, many financial professionals like CPAs, accountants, and bookkeepers turn to online avenues to find new clients. There is a significant need for these services that extend well beyond a person’s local reach.

For bookkeeping services, this means turning to practical and effective digital marketing strategies. Online client acquisition channels can offer powerful ways to meet new clients and continue to grow a client roster over time.

In this post, we’ll shed light on how you can take the next steps in acquiring prospective clients. With a few proven strategies, bookkeepers can use the digital marketplace to keep up with significant client demand.

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What is online bookkeeping?

An online bookkeeping business is similar to a traditional or in-person business, with the exception that most services are offered digitally. This means that a professional bookkeeper can provide financial assistance to customers, even when they’re not able to meet in person or locally.

A virtual bookkeeper is likely to use online accounting software and other cloud-based platforms for their current and future clients.

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Tasks of an online bookkeeper

Bookkeepers are most often responsible for maintaining another company’s general ledger and accounts. For many businesses, this includes tasks such as:

• Maintaining and checking bank statements
• Reconciling debit and credit transactions
• Managing accounts receivable (AR)
• Managing accounts payable (AP)
• Overseeing cash flow
• Helping to prepare tax documents
• Managing payroll and some HR-related finances
• Providing future projections

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Find clients: Online acquisition vs. traditional methods

Online acquisition of potential clients looks quite different from in-person methods. Previously, traditional techniques for finding a bookkeeping client base might have included:

• Word of mouth referrals
• Corporate referral partners
• Online research leading to in-person meetings
• Cold calling
• Physical mailers
• Print advertisements (in magazines, newspapers, etc.)
• Community bulletin boards
• In-person networking or professional groups

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As accounting services have gone digital (and as more bookkeepers manage their own virtual businesses), the need for online marketing is crucial. Staying competitive in an online environment means paying attention to tools such as:

Without a thorough grasp on these things, it’s easy to experiment with acquisition methods without seeing tangible results. Although there are numerous ways to find new clients online, we’ve rounded up our favorite techniques in the list below.