Work and Travel Anywhere in the World

things to know…

Being an entrepreneur is a rewarding.  The wonderful thing about being an entrepreneur is you get to choose what hours you work, what days you work and where you work. For me, becoming an entrepreneur was born out of a desire to be able to travel with my husband, who travelled (before COVID-19) about 150 nights a year and still do what I loved – bookkeeping.  I had a great job, I worked for a real estate company and because it was a small business, I was the accounting, payroll and HR department and reported directly to the Comptroller.  My boss was wonderful, the people I worked with were amazing, I loved what I did, but it involved going to an office to do my job and it was not set up to work remotely. I started to think about starting my own business, a business where I could provide bookkeeping services and travel the US and the world with my husband.  

I am a planner; I like to think things through and have a plan.  To work remotely I needed seven things

¨     a dedicated workspace (to begin), 

¨     a computer, 

¨     phone, 

¨     accounting software (that was a lot more flexible than QuickBooks Desktop), 

¨     a system to handle the flow of work from clients

¨     clients

¨     a list of places to visit (that would be an easy task)

A dedicated workspace

When you take the plunge and move out of the office environment, set aside a space that is your dedicated workspace. It is much easier to focus on work and keep in the habit of “going to work” each day if you set aside a room or area in your home that becomes your office.  A desk, a good chair, printer, office supplies and a reliable internet service will be what you need for your office.

A computer and phone

In today’s world, most people already have these at home so no additional outlay here

Accounting Software

There are many cloud-based accounting software packages out there, find one you love, know how to use it and build your business using the one product, become an expert using that software. I use QuickBooks online.  I used the desktop version for many years, always loved the product and found their customer service to be very responsive (an absolute must if you are going to be learning a new product). You sign up as an accountant user so when you take on clients, their QuickBooks are all in one place under the one login and your Quickbooks subscription is free.

Systems and processes to organize client workflow

As your business grows, how are you going to organize client information you have requested and received. For programs like QuickBooks Online, clients are able to upload receipts and documents directly into QuickBooks which is a great tool.  Emails are also a great way to communicate with clients (especially if you are traveling to another country where the time zone is completely different to the USA) and if you set up folders by client, as you receive emails you can add them to the clients folder so when you are processing that client, all the correspondence is in one place.

Clients

Know who you want as your ideal client.  Once you have identified who you want to help, then you need to reach out to those clients.  How do you find clients - networking!  For bookkeeping, it is my experience that people are very hesitant to randomly select a bookkeeper.  Most people will ask their friends, family or accountant if they can recommend someone.  When you start out, your family and friends will definitely be recommending you but where else can you find clients – visit your local networking groups.  You may have to visit quite a few before you find the one that feels like home.  This is not only a place for people to get to know who you are and how you can help them and their business, it is a place that becomes your community, your resource center, your support network, where you may find your mentor or a mentee.  It is a place where you will find life-long friends.  Networking is important not only for people to get to know you and your business but transitioning to a life of a solo entrepreneur can be very lonely if you are not getting out to meet people.

 A list of places you want to visit

This is the easy part to plan - where you want to go. I worked and travelled all over America, Australia, Fiji, Europe, Mexico and Central America.  2019 was the year I travelled the most – 25 flights in one year. What I learnt from those first 3 years - it is totally possible to work from anywhere in the world (so long as you have internet), but it is  very hard to build a business if you are rarely in the same city for more than two weeks.  Build your business first and then travel the world