Whether you are starting your business or want to grow your business, these resources, organizations or websites may be able to help.  Please let us know if there is a bad link or if you have suggestions for additions or improvements to the list.  Check back periodically for new resources and websites that make the list!

QuickBooks

• Intuit Community Forums – Intuit Community Forums are user to user forms with thousands of Q&A. If you have a question, you can search the forums or post your question. If you can provide an answer, that is great and a good way to build your reputation.  Plus, if you include a link to your website in your signature, that helps your website search engine rankings.  Read the blog post about how to create an effective profile.

• Intuit QuickBooks Support– search for your problem, error code or message to find a knowledgebase article to help
  • Download QuickBooks Programs — if you need to reinstall QuickBooks but you don’t have the CD
  • QuickBooks License and Key Code Lookup Tool — if you previously registered QuickBooks
  • Download QuickBooks Guide / User Manual — Note there isn’t a download for QuickBooks Pro so get the one for QuickBooks Premier instead (the vast majority of the information is the same for Pro & Premier)
  • QuickBooks Network / Connection Diagnostic Tool — networking and multi-user errors when you open a QuickBooks company file – H202, H505, or 6000 series errors
  • QuickBooks Company File Diagnostic Tool — when the QuickBooks company file won’t open.

Practice Resources for Accounting Professionals

• Recommended Books written by Michelle Long:
  • Successful QuickBooks Consulting — Comprehensive Guide to Starting & Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business (or available on Amazon http://amzn.to/QBConsulting
  • How to Start a Home-Based Bookkeeping Business — http://amzn.to/BookkeepingBook
• Billing Rates:
  • Value_Pricing_Webinar 
  • Intuit’s 2011 Average Billing Rates Survey— Average billing rates for QuickBooks consultants, accountants and bookkeepers.
    • The 2009 Billing Rates Survey
    • The 2007 Billing Rates Survey provides average billing rates by population density, regions, stats and average rates for income tax preparation too.
  • Average Rates for Tax Returns from NSA
• Engagement Letters and Agreements
  • Sample Engagement Letters from Intuit
  • Sample Client Agreement and Fee Worksheets contributed by Ray Garnsey
• Resources for Payroll Services:
  • Practice Resourcesfrom Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals – aimed at a payroll practice but useful info for any accounting or bookkeeping business plus other payroll resources
    • Marketing Guide – with tips to build your client base
    • Pricing Guide – on how to price your services to be profitable
    • Client Start-up Checklist – makes it easier to get started
• The Sleeter Group’s QuickBooks Consultant’s Reference Guide
• The Sleeter Group — Free Tools– includes the following resources:
  • Client Interview Document
  • QuickBooks in Law Firms
  • Construction – Job Costing Using WIP (plus sample data file)
  • Data File Analysis Checklist
• Intuit Academy QuickBooks Training– free online training for accounting professional, virtual conferences and live events too.  Training includes QuickBooks, Lacerte, ProSeries and other business topics.QuickBooks Certified User Program from Real World Training

Certifications and Organizations

• QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program — Blog post here about why Michelle highly recommends joining the ProAdvisor Program
• Intuit QuickBooks Certified User Program
• National Advisor Network—professional group of Intuit Solution Providers and QuickBooks ProAdvisors — annual Scaling New Heights Conference
• The Sleeter Group — high quality technical and marketing information on accounting solutions for small-to-medium sized businesses and the consultants and accountants who support them — annual Accounting Solutions  Conference
• Penn Foster — bookkeeping education
• American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers
• American Payroll Association
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• National Society of Accountants
• National Association of Enrolled Agents
• National Association of Tax Professionals

Business Consulting and Resources

• Small Business Development Centers (SBDC)— located in all 50 states providing free consulting and other resources.  Michelle has been teaching QuickBooks seminars for local SBDCs for over 10 years.
  • Starting a Business resources
• Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE) — located nationwide, providing free consulting and other resources.  Michelle used SCORE when she started her business 20 years ago.
• FastTrac Entrepreneurship Programs – FastTrac is a great entrepreneurship program. FastTrac New Venture helps aspiring entrepreneurs create their business plan.

IRS, Taxes and Hiring Employees

• IRS Starting a Business — lots of information about requirements for small businesses and taxes
• IRS Video Portal – videos about starting a business, small business workshop and lots of videos about taxes:  business income, expenses, payroll taxes, IRS audits and more.
• IRS Virtual Small Business Workshop – for self-employed and small business owners
• Intuit Guide to Hiring — lots of information about hiring employees, plus a link to get a free book “Hire Your First Employee’
• Tax Resources on the Web – comprehensive list of links to tax resources

Business Plan Templates

• Sample Accounting and Bookkeeping Business Plan — from Bplans.com (over 500 free sample business plans)
• Template from SBA
• Template Gallery from SCORE

Licensing & Permits

• List of various licensing requirements and links to the license bureau for each state

Legal – Forming your Business Entity

• MyCorporation — online document-filing service to form a corporation or LLC
• Legalzoom — online document-filing service to form a corporation or LLC
• Nolo has books (available in many public libraries) and resources to help form a business entity
• Links to state websites for specific filing requirements for business entities — many have forms you can complete and file yourself

Marketing – Logos and Printing

• Intuit Creative Solutions — logo or other graphics work.  Read the blog post about my experience getting a logo created.
• Overnight Prints — business cards, postcards and  other printing needs (Michelle has used them for her business cards for years)
• Vistaprint — business cards, postcards and other printing needs

Website Hosting, Design, and Resources

• Intuit Websites
• GoDaddy
• Microsoft Office Live — free website and hosting
• Websites 4 Accountants – comparison of full-service website providers
• Website Grader – analyze your website (free)
• Google — free tools & resources:
  • Add your URl to Google — make sure the search engines find it
  • Google Analytics — analyze website traffic and visitors
  • Google Places — list your business to help with local search results

Social Media and Social Networking

• Hubspot —  resource for social media marketing, free webinars, etc.
• Linkedin — Plus, join the best group (i.e. Michelle’s group)  Successful QuickBooks Consultants with 5,000+ members
• Intuit Community forums
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Social Media Tools

• Ping.fm
• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Social Ooph
• URL Shortening
  • Bit.ly — provides statistics on links
  • Tiny.url

Client Portals – secure and affordable

• LeapFILE
• ShareFile