TL;DR
Behind The Hustle: Andrea Forte
Listen to ALL the Behind The Hustles
Last edition I wrote “This is the most important thing I’ve done for the profession in a long time”.
Pretty bold thing to say.
I was referring to the Behind The Hustle series of interviews I started in June. As of today, I have recorded 14 episodes. Each interview is so different, even though I ask them all these same 8 questions.
Tell us about your educational, training, and career background, and your business.
How did you get your first client?
What is the hardest part of entrepreneurship?
What is the best part of entrepreneurship?
Do you utilize any contractors or have staff?
What is your tech stack? If there are any that you love, share it.
Anything you are willing to share about revenue, income, or how much you charge your clients? And how you initially determined your prices and how/when you have raised them?
Close us out. What is your best advice for a new bookkeeper?
And to a person, they have shared something inspiring and surprising to me. Even though most of them have been in business for a shorter time than me, I have learned something from each of them.
Now, you can always ask your favorite AI about how to start your bookkeeping business. You can tell your favorite AI all your business problems and ask it how to fix things. But I believe that nothing will replace the benefits that come when real people tell their real stories.
So, I’d love to know which of these interviews spoke to you. View the playlist here.
I do have a favor to ask. Inside our private FaceBook group for our community, Jack W suggested that I try to update the video thumbnails and titles to make them more informative, rather than just using the person’s name. Unfortunately, spicy & short phrases are not my strong suit. If YOU listen to one of these and can think of a better title I could use, would you tell me? Comment below or email.
Like for Chris Kocina it could be “High school dropout turned successful bookkeeping nomad”.
Or for Nicole Beitenman, it could be “Toddler twins and a rental property portfolio. No excuses”.
Travis Thompson could be “No clients for 11 months. Look at him now.”
Or Ellen Oliver could be “Started solo and then formed a partnership”
And if any of you want my story, it is included in a chapter of the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook: Actionable Steps To Become A Virtual Bookkeeper Without The Overwhelm. Use code STACK for a discount.
When your AI prompts about how to start earning extra income with your accounting knowledge aren’t moving you forward enough, consider learning from real people actually doing it.
Deals Deals Deals
💰 Xero Con is in Denver, CO this year. There will be a one day sale on January 28th for 40% off. Put FIVE reminders in your calendar to snag this deal on this one day of the year.
💰 Scaling New Heights conference always has a sale on Ground Hog Day. That is Feb 2, for those of you who don’t celebrate that holiday.
💰 Veronica Wasek is updating her Complete QBO Cleanup System. Check out her webinar on Jan 20th about why clean ups can spiral out of control and how to stop it. If you end up wanting her full course, you can get 15% off if you use this link with the code BSH15OFF*. And be sure to tune in on February 4 when she comes on our community channel to teach us how to use Paid Diagnostic Reviews as a sales tool.
💰 Use code BkpgSideHustle1099 at 1099problems.io for a 10.99% discount on all the 1099 resources by Jennifer Dymond.
💰 Use code ASK1099 for 30% off your first 3 months of membership to Nancy McClelland’s Ask A CPA community. Great time to get the support you need for 1099s and Year-End Close season.
💰 Join Bookkeeper Launch* by January 31 and you’ll get the PREMIER level for the price of the PRO level. Add the Premier level to your cart and then use code upgradenow500 to get the discount.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
Be There or Be Square
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅January 16- Feb 2: 1099Problems Virtual Road Show* is a live series designed to help accountants and bookkeepers get immediate clarity on who needs a 1099, which payment methods are reportable, and how to decide confidently without endless research or forum debates.
📅January 20: Why cleanups spiral out of control and how to stop them.* Free session from Veronica Wasek.
📅January 20: Projects, Job Costing, and Progress Invoicing in QBO* will teach you about QBO’s new tools for construction and project management bookkeeping, including Estimates, Progress Invoicing, and Job Costing. Register HERE*.
📅Jan 22: How to build lucrative partnerships with CPAs and position yourself as their go-to bookkeeper*. Free session from Akadian.
📅January 27: Sales Tax in QBO*. Learn how to use the Sales Tax Center to calculate sales tax liability by customer location, type, and product category. Set it up properly to make sure you pay your state and local taxes accurately! Register HERE*.
📅+January 28: Behind The Hustle: Karl Strube. SUBSCRIBE to the YouTube channel to watch this interview. He has built a very niche business all focused on serving clients that have equity compensation. So niche! So nerdy! I can’t wait to learn about it.
📅 February 4+: From Leads to Clients: Using Paid Diagnostic Reviews to Qualify, Price, and Close With Confidence with Veronica Wasek. The queen of cleanups, Veronica Wasek, is sharing how to get clients by offering paid diagnostic reviews. Subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don’t miss it!
📅 February 4: Payroll Compliance: A Beginners Guide with Shannon Ballman Theis*. Payroll expert Shannon Ballman Theis is going to give you an over-the-shoulder look at the basics of payroll - who and when you have to pay, whether to pay hourly or salary, and the differences between employees and contractors. Register HERE*.
📅 May 4-6: GrowCon in Utah. THE Conference EXCLUSIVELY for OWNERS of Bookkeeping, Tax & Accounting Companies.
📅 May15: Wave-Seattle. See what happens when Erin Pohan brings together a community of forward-thinking women in accounting and finance who are shaping the future of our industry.
📅 June 14-17: Scaling New Heights in Orlando. The Groundhog Day sale is quickly approaching - that is a great time to grab your ticket!
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel
Featured Posts
🌶️ Oh bless it. Alicia L. asked what people were charging for 1099 prep? Where do you stack?
🌶️ Are you like one of these brave people that declared they would be making their first dollar as a bookkeeping entrepreneur in 2026? Go add your name to the comments and tell the group why you are doing this and what help you need.
Help You Hustle
💪Don’t miss the latest Behind The Hustle with Andrea Forte.
On the personal front, she is an immigrant to America from Bolivia. She also has a bakery business.
On the business front, she started her business 3 months after her baby was born, and her journey includes a partnership that did not last.
💪Free Decision Tree for 1099s from 1099problems.io*.
Jobs
💼 Y’all - THIRTEEN jobs were added to the Job Guide! Go check out the Job Guide HERE.
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
My Family Circus (44F, 41M, 14M, 12F, 11M)
🎪 Ummm…I could not pull off a My Family Circus section for this edition, so instead, I tried to think back to some of my favorite past write ups. Here are some links that will take you directly to them.
My very first composition for the My Family Circus section (it was so short 🤣).
The list of my favorite staples from Trader Joe’s
Gateway board games if you want to have a list of some fun board games that are not complex.
How we handle dish duty as a family.
Please make your children do push ups.
How I feel about pronouns.
Since I started this section in January of 2024, that means I’ve written just over 50 of these My Family Circus sections.
If you have any favorites that pop into your head, I’d love to hear about which one and why! Comment below!
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 This story is about how I took someone through my ideal client pipeline in the last 2 weeks.
Paid Diagnostic Review: I charge $435 (new price in 2026).
Cleanup: I charged her $2,200. This is less than what I just updated my website to say is my minimum for cleanups. But she had only been in business for 6 months and had a single checking account for most of that time. I actually priced her at $1,800, but she wanted a rush job because she had a meeting with her tax person on Jan 15, so I told her I needed to add an additional $400.
FreshBooks Office Hours: She signed up to be a member of my group for DIY FreshBooks users at $85 per month
🎢 Signed a new monthly client for $565 per month. He was a clean up client from November. In November I quoted him $525. But Jan 1, my minimum price went up, so I let him know he would be at that rate. In 2026, I only want to add 3 new monthly clients for this type of monthly bookkeeping and quarterly advisory meeting package. So I’m 33% of the way to that goal!
🎢 I started my new part time job as our school’s assistant softball coach 🥎. We had very long and very cold tryouts the last 2 days. And met last night to make our selections and cuts. This job has taken up a lot of mental energy. In my head, I knew it would. But I’m definitely feeling it acutely now. It is more than just softball. It is also “My family still has to eat dinner.” And “What do I do with my boys after school”? (Turns out this new hobby doesn’t involve 2 of my 3 kids…whoops!). I know I must improve on the family management front to make this decision of mine not to be a burden on the rest of the people I live with.
🎢I had lunch with a real person this week. My bookkeeping friend Trinity told me she was going to be in Fort Worth because of her daughter’s cheer competition, so we grabbed lunch.
But you know what. A quick lunch is small potatoes compared to the first time I met Trinity. Because the very first time I met her, we were roomies at my very first accounting conference. 👀 I knew going to a conference was important, but on-site conference hotel rooms are expensive and I was not making a ton of money. I do not remember which of us suggested it first, but we were able to save money by splitting the cost and by opting to stay off-site in an AirBnB. Since then, I have roomed at conferences with 2 other people I’ve met on the internet and had never met until I agreed to room with them. Does that make me a crazy person?
From The Vault
⚡1099 season is upon us - lots of questions in the FB group. Last year Shannon Ballman Theis shared everything we need to know about 1099s. Same rules apply to this year.
Letters To The Editor
✉️Kim Q., thank you for your feedback!
This was a fantastic newsletter Kate. Thank you for all you do for this community and for sharing so much of your life with all of us. The good, the bad and the ugly. Happy New Year!
Classifieds (Clickable)
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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