Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business ---Ideal for Bookkeeping or Bookkeepers, Accounting or Accountants, or Consultants [Paperback]

Michelle L. Long (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2007

This book will help you start earning money in your OWN business with the wealth of information it provides. It includes steps to start your own business (and estimated start up costs); how to define your services and set billing rates (includes average billing rates); how to improve your knowledge and experience; obtain new clients and effective marketing ideas; details about websites, client engagements, market opportunities, growing the business, and MUCH more. The book includes results of a national survey of QuickBooks ProAdvisors about their annual income, use of engagement letters, over 300 comments and advice on things they wish they had known sooner or done differently, their KEYS to SUCCESS and more! Bookkeepers, accountants, tax preparers, and consultants will all find beneficial information in the book. With your own business, you can decide what hours you want to work, services to provide, and work from home if you choose! This book will help you SUCCEED!

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

* Thinking about starting your own consulting business?
* Need ideas to help grow your business?
* Not sure how to get clients or what rates to charge?
* Want advice from other top consultants?

If so, then Successful QuickBooks Consulting is for you! After owning my own traditional accounting practice for about five years, I realized I did not really enjoy the work I was performing. I went back to school and earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship. Now, I am the owner of M. Long Consulting, LLC. Speaking, training, consulting, and writing are now my focus, and I could not be happier!!! I have been able to be my own boss, set my own work hours, and select the clients and type of services I want to provide. Most importantly, I have been home with my children while they are growing up! It is my hope that I can help share my knowledge to help others achieve the same in their lives! I truly enjoy helping others start and grow their own business as well as helping small and growing businesses to utilize QuickBooks to manage their business with good financial information.

Alison Ball, Sr. Manager, Accountant Training Network, Intuit, Inc.

"Michelle Long has created a very comprehensive guide for anyone considering starting a QuickBooks Consulting business. Her use of real-life examples and the fact that she has used her own experiences along with those of other leading QuickBooks Consultants is very compelling."

Cheri Streeter, MBA and Small Business Development Center Director, Overland Park, KS

"Sharing best practices is what Michelle Long does best -- whether it's teaching QuickBooks in the classroom or sharing her tips in this book. The best part is: Michelle actually practices what she preaches -- in her own consulting business. Michelle's guide is full of practical how-to's and is the perfect first step for anyone contemplating starting a QuickBooks consulting business."

About the Author

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA is a member of the Certified Trainer Network for Intuit and will be teaching on the 2008 Accountant Update Tour in October, 2007. She is an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a Certified FastTrac Facilitator for the Kauffman Foundation, and owner of M. Long Consulting, LLC. She was named Financial Services Champion of the Year for 2007 by the U.S. Small Business Administration in recognition of her training and consulting work with Small Business Development Center clients. She has taught QuickBooks seminars as well as college courses in Accounting Information Systems, Strategic Management, Entrepreneurial Marketing, and FastTrac Business Planning as an adjunct professor at University of Missouri Kansas City and Johnson County Community College. Prior to starting her own business, she worked for the public accounting firms of Price Waterhouse and Baird, Kurtz and Dobson as well as for Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (October 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1434810690
• ISBN-13: 978-1434810694
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michelle L. Long, CPA is the owner of Long for Success, LLC specializing in QuickBooks consulting & training, coaching small business owners, speaking and writing. She was named one of '10 Women who Inspire a Profession' by Accounting Today and a Financial Services Champion of the Year by the SBA. She has been mentioned in the New York Times, Inc.com, Business Week, Investor's Business Daily, WebCPA, Accounting Today, PCMag.com and more. Michelle is the author of "Successful QuickBooks Consulting" and "How to Start a Home Based Bookkeeping Business".

Michelle is an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and has a unique relationship with Intuit as one of the few national trainers in Intuit's Trainer/Writer Network. Michelle is a consultant for Intuit product development and author for Intuit Academy.

Since 2000, she has taught hundreds of seminars to thousands of people about QuickBooks, filmed QuickBooks training courses and been a guest speaker for Office Depot's Web Cafe multiple times.

You can learn more at her website and blog www.LongforSuccess.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

114 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will save you much research time if you plan to add QB consulting services to your financial services firm's offerings, January 4, 2008

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business ---Ideal for Bookkeeping or Bookkeepers, Accounting or Accountants, or Consultants (Paperback)

Great book! I liked it a lot. I think it is a wonderful book that will help someone with an accounting background either take the plunge into self-employment as a QuickBooks consultant, or give someone who already has their own bookkeeping or accounting firm the know-how to expand into another service offering. This book is not about Quickbooks per se. It is about how to become a Quickbooks consultant in a professonal capacity.

The author has ties to Intuit and the Kauffman Foundation. And sometimes the book comes across as an advertisement for these two organizations. She is also a QuickBooks consultant herself, so this book comes across as a marketing piece for her private practice, too. But the book is a short quick read that certainly opened my eyes to what a person can do to prepare for and become a self-employed QuickBooks consultant.

I am a SCORE volunteer who regularly counsels wanta-be entrepreneurs and small business owners on how to prepare business plans and how to get their new businesses up and running. I'm also a CPA and attorney. I am not one to advise my SCORE clients to spend much on consultants to help them start their own businesses. And the way I usually advise my clients regarding bookkeeping and accounting is to get a PC and a copy of QuickBooks Pro. I tell them to install the software on their computer and struggle with the program for a week. Try to set up their accounting system and then save the data file to a CD. Then find a QuickBooks consultant to examine it and tweek it so it will work well for the business and the data can be easily merged into Turbo Tax at year end. Now that I have read this book I know a little more about what credentials a QuickBooks consultant should have and how my clients can easily find them.

I think some of the material could have been grouped a little differently. If it had, then I would have liked the book better. For example, it seemed like marketing topics were found in a few places. And information about Web sites was found in a few places. I would have liked to see these topics dealt with just once each and more fully.

I would have liked a chapter each on how to write the following plans: business, marketing, public relations, and networking. And I didn't see much value in appendices C, D or E. Instead, I would have liked to have seen a nice 30-page sample business plan that the reader could use as a templete for their consulting practice.

My biggest gripe with the book was Chapter 7 regarding defining one's services and billing rates. I thought the rates were low. Way low! I advise my SCORE clients not to start a business unless their effective billable hour is no lower than $125 an hour. I don't care what the business is. This is one of the reasons EVERYONE needs to write a business plan. By writing it they can figure out what services will generate the appropriate revenues. And what services won't. Don't offer any services that won't provide a reasonable amount of compensation.

Doing data entry is not a valuable service. So don't offer that. Examining a startup's attempt at setting up QuickBooks for $750 for 3 or 4 hours work is a valuable service. So do that. Also, fees should not depend on whether you work in a rural or a highly populated area. QuickBooks consulting can be done online and should be done online. Thus where you live is irrelevant. Charge what you are worth - not a fee based on where you live.

At page 13 the book includes a table or exhibit that lists the type of work typical QuickBooks consultants perform. After looking at the list I can see why they don't make much money. What I expected to see on the list was services related to coaching and helping people prepare great business plans. That is the most logical complementary service a QuickBooks consultant can provide. Of course, helping clients systematize their business' operations is another. And what about payroll consulting?

I would have liked included in the Appendix a list of books the author thought could further help someone who wants to be a successful QuickBooks consultant. This is particularly true with regard to business plans, Web sites, and marketing. None was provided. I am going to post a comment to this book review that will include the list of books I wanted to see. In any event, this is a unique and worthwhile book. I think the author has done us a favor by providing it to us. 5 stars!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book!!! Great resource, lots of info, well written and informative!, December 5, 2007

By 

Tammy (Crocker, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business ---Ideal for Bookkeeping or Bookkeepers, Accounting or Accountants, or Consultants (Paperback)

I want to start my own business offering bookkeeping services and QuickBooks consulting, but I had a ton of questions and I didn't know where or how to start. This book answered all my questons and many more questions that I hadn't even thought about yet! I can't imagine how much time I would have spent looking for all this information! Plus it will help save me money on the things I need and by not spending money on marketing methods that aren't effective!

Successful QuickBooks Consulting provides the steps I need to take to start my business. It also has a lot of resources along with the relevant website for more info. I wasn't sure where to start or what to do before.

I especially like the "Keys to Success" throughout the book which are comments and advice from other ProAdvisors. There are also a couple of chapters with other ProAdvisors' advice and comments, and things they wish they would have done differently or known sooner. It was great to be able to read all of them. Plus, the results of the survey of ProAdvisors was very interesting!

After getting this book, I feel much more confident starting my own business and it is nice to have this book as a reference when I need it!!! I would highly recommend this book if you are starting your own business (or want to)--whether your focus is on QuickBooks, bookkeeping, or taxes you'll find lots of useful information in the book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical advice 'from the trenches', January 8, 2008

By 

Richard B - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business ---Ideal for Bookkeeping or Bookkeepers, Accounting or Accountants, or Consultants (Paperback)

Truly a valuable contribution. As a CPA with an established retained CFO practice, I found in this book many 'not available elsewhere' ideas both for building a practice and for maximizing consulting practice income. A great mix of clear, comprehensive 'how-to' basics and valuable 'from the trenches' suggestions.