Many people are looking to start their own bookkeeping businesses. However, even if they have accounting knowledge, they are realizing they don’t know much about bookkeeping. The fact is that it is becoming a lost art. Most accredited universities don’t teach students how to become bookkeepers; in fact, in most accounting programs bookkeepers are frowned upon heavily.
So what’s a person to do if they want to learn these skills? I would recommend taking one of the following bookkeeping courses listed below.
Gatlin Education Services: This is great bookkeeping course that teaches how to keep track of records with QuickBooks. Normally I wouldn’t recommend a course that limits you to one software program, but if you are going to keep track of someone’s books, most people and small to medium sized businesses respect QuickBooks. Gatlin provides a great service, but one downfall is that it is usually only for students who are attending at a university or community college. This makes the course quite costly.
The Bean Counter: This is website by some guy named Dave Marshall. He offers free bookkeeping courses. The site is well done and the guy adds some humor to try and make accounting seem a little more fun. The site is well organized and has a lot of great information. As with most things that are free, you will probably have to spend a tad more time rummaging around the site to get all the value offered. There may also be an occasional item that The Bean Counter recommends you buy to increase your skills, but overall an excellent, free resource.
The Bookkeeping-Course.com: This site has nothing flashy about it. In fact it looks like one of those pages that has simply been copied and pasted from somewhere else. However, if you can deal with the lame graphics and the boring tone set by the text, then this is a great resource. It is also a good bookkeeper course for people from all over the world as it has information about different countries.
Universal Accounting: If you are looking for something that is easy to follow and are willing to pay for it, then Universal has great bookkeeper courses. This is as simple as you pay for the cd’s watch them and apply them and voila you are a bookkeeping master. The price may be too steep for some as the price for the program ranges from $1500 – $3000. But if you are serious about running your own bookkeeping business, then this might be a great option for you. Learning how to provide quality accounting services will take you some time and money.
Online Colleges: A lot of the online colleges like University of Phoenix offer accounting classes. Although online courses are usually geared more towards practical skills, don’t think that all of their accounting courses are going to teach you how to be a bookkeeper. I’ve got my Masters Degree in Accounting and I didn’t learn a lick about bookkeeping in school. In short, make sure that the course teaches bookkeeping skills (if that is what you want) before signing up for it.
Elliott Bookkeeping School: This may have been one of the first courses on “how to start a bookkeeping business.” The webpage shows it as it looks like it was made in the 1990’s, but the fact that this school has been around for so long lends it some credibility. You can take the class in person if you live in Oregon, but they also offer an online correspondence class that you can take at your convenience.
That about sums it up for my review of the best bookkeeping courses out there. If you know of another good resource, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
