I want to thank you and Allan for all of your work. Getting through the hassle of the financing paid off tremendously. As you are aware, I finished the course in two weeks of off-and-on studying, and I took the practice tests and final examination the same evening getting a 100% on the final examination. When you told me that I was in the elite few, that made me feel SO proud and excited about the whole process.
After teaching for fifteen years, and after taking an income tax preparation course and working through tax season this past year, I began heavily investigating Universal Accounting’s program. I had majored in economics in college with an emphasis in accounting. I was a treasurer for several organizations, was a manager at a McDonald’s, and did bank audit work for a couple of summers about 15 years ago. I was looking at my chiropractor’s bulletin board where his clients leave business cards. I noticed there was no accounting professional listed. Noticing that out loud, the massage therapist who works there asked me what I was talking about. I explained to her how I was thinking about starting my own accounting/bookkeeping/tax preparation business. She urged me to do so—because her husband needed someone to do his back taxes.
Making the decision to go through with it, I contacted Universal Accounting about their program. I purchased the package and anxiously awaited for the time when the package would arrive. While I was zooming through the course, I realized that I COULD do this.
After taking the course, I spent the remainder of my summer vacation preparing the forms, buying business cards, and letting the marketing get rolling. I also took an on-line Notary Public course. In Florida, we have access to a website that informs us publicly of new businesses that are starting up as their articles or fictitious licenses are filed with the State. I began accessing the website weekly, using the information to send out a welcome letter and business cards.
In two weeks time, I received a call from a new business owner. He and his wife were going to start a paving business, but their mother was going to do the bookkeeping. They asked me to set up the chart of accounts, advise them of a software package to use, and go over the accounting with their mother. She felt uncomfortable because she has done church accounting for 15 years, but did not know where to get started with a business. So, I have become a consultant to this company, and I go in quarterly to check her work.
Still sending out letters and business cards, one of my potential clients gave my business card to a friend who needed to find a new bookkeeper. I landed my BIG client. I am doing weekly payroll for about 50 employees in addition to setting up his books from scratch. His former bookkeeper—who supposedly had 20 years of bookkeeping experience—was putting funds into wrong accounts, not reconciling the accounts, and was giving him balance sheets with negative checking account balances that kept getting out of hand. We talked about what I could do for him. After working the numbers, he agreed to my price and I am off. If I get three more clients of his magnitude, I could quit my current job and “be my own boss” earning the same amount of money and working 5 hours a month per client.
My third current client is also done on a contractual, as-needed basis. One of my colleagues’ mother is a principal who is working on her doctoral dissertation. She needed someone who could do some “computer work” for her. So, I am doing some document preparation and data analysis. Although not technically accounting work, my advertising has led me to another client who is assisting in supplementing my income.
I am taking additional tax preparation classes so that I can assist my clients in preparing their personal and corporate income taxes come January. In that, I am generating some additional income by offering to prepare taxes.
So, in summary, after taking your course, I got some additional accounting information, I got some great marketing techniques, and I have gotten three clients in two months time will result in $10,000 per year of extra income that I did not have before I bought your training program.
Thanks for all of your help!