Basic Accounting

Here’s something on the internet that’s a godsend: free online bookkeeping courses. Do you think bookkeeping is confusing? If you’re like me, you can balance a checkbook or household budget just fine, but when you start trying to figure out assets and liabilities, it gets confusing. It might be easier if they used minus signs instead of parentheses to indicate negative amounts. Or if they didn’t add liabilities. But it is what it is, and, if you have a home business, you can screw things up badly if you can’t keep your books right.

When you have a home business, you are usually the sole proprietor, CEO, CFO, secretary and workforce. You don’t have the money to hire a bookkeeper and you don’t have the time to take bookkeeping classes. Thank goodness for free online bookkeeping classes. You can learn the basics by taking a free online class.

The one disadvantage of free online bookkeeping classes is that they are independent study for your own personal growth. If you have problems, there isn’t anybody to ask questions of. If you want to learn how to do something not in the course-like perhaps file your quarterly taxes-you’re out of luck. The free bookkeeping classes that you find online are a huge help, but sometimes you have to go to the next step.

The Next Step…and the One After That

The next step might be taking a regular distance learning bookkeeping class. It’s not free, but the cost is pretty reasonable, and it’s tax deductible. You’ll learn more and you’ll have someone to answer your questions.

You could discover that you enjoy bookkeeping, and begin to offer bookkeeping services through your home business. If you really enjoy bookkeeping and are good at it, you may wish to continue taking correspondence or online classes. You can get an accounting degree eventually, just by taking one online class at a time. You can prepare for the CPA exam or study for an MBA.

It is completely possible that your little home business could grow into an accounting practice, just because you took free online bookkeeping courses and discovered you enjoy bookkeeping and accounting.