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About Us Danielle Hewitt believes that online bookkeeping is the wave of the future. As she tells her clients, " When your books are kept online backing them up is not an issue. The accounting software is upgraded automatically. You obtain access to your books wherever you are. It makes dealing with your CPA's, financial planners, bankers and other professionals that much easier because they are able to remotely look at real time data (with your permission). And you don't need powerful hardware with large amounts of memory to operate the applications. You just need a high speed connection." The growth of her company, Invisible Accountant seems to support that belief. It is a bookkeeping company that provides services to its clients remotely. Danielle started Invisible Accountant in 2001 to fill a niche for outsourced bookkeeping. One of the first orders of business was to create a name. She wanted one that would draw attention and be "fun, whimsical and distinguishable". She considered using names like, Virtual Accountant or Cyber Accountant, but then decided not to choose anything that could even remotely be associated with the "dot bombs". She eventually came up with Invisible Accountant. It has worked. People she meets initially joke about it but just as quickly they ask her how it works. It creates the perfect opportunity for her to give them a "30 second commercial". And so the name is an integral part of her marketing efforts. However, it is just the beginning. MARKETING The quickest, easiest and most effective way to obtain new clients is to get referrals from CPA's. However Danielle says these are difficult to come by. "CPA's are constantly hounded by financial planners, insurance agents, human resource professionals, payroll service companies and the like because other professionals know that when CPA's speak, clients tend to listen. That's why it's the most effective way to build a business. And that's exactly why I try to work with them." Like any good business professional she also networks within local business groups. She attends Irvine Chamber of Commerce meetings, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), British American Business Council of Orange County (BABC OC) and Business Network International (BNI) to name a few. "Networking is not a quick way to build business. It takes at least a year before referrals start coming in. You have to get involved in the organizations, serve on their committees, let them know that you are there to contribute to the group and not just to hand out business cards." More traditionally, Invisible Accountant has recently hired a sales representative. Danielle was able to find someone who is the perfect blend of sales person and accountant. He'll be cold calling on local businesses and building relationships with CPA's. She's also hired a public relations firm to get her company's name in the paper. Every time she does a speaking engagement for one of the many organizations she is involved with, she sends the details to the PR firm and they try to get her press coverage. She's been featured on Intuits website and that's led to a few leads but her most unique method of marketing has been her company's own website at http://www.invisibleaccountant.com. To draw traffic to it, she has paid for sponsorship ads on http://www.bookkeepinghelp.com and http://www.accountantsworld.com Those resulted in a respectable amount of website visitors and prospects. Soon she will launch an associated online newsletter. It is planned to be very brief but informative. It will contain links to articles that are relevant to Invisible's client base to keep them up to date on issues that affect their businesses. At the same time, it will keep the Invisible Accountant name in front of them. ADVICE FOR OTHER PRO ADVISORS JUST STARTING OUT Danielle says, "The biggest challenge someone has coming into this business is to emphasize that bookkeeping is a distinguishable business segment and not a by product of audit or tax work. Clients do not tend to think of accounting and bookkeeping as separate services. They also don't realize that this type of service exists. They think about needing some bookkeeping help , they tend to think of hiring a relative or friend. They don't think of hiring a professional bookkeeping company in the same way they think of hiring an accounting firm. Yet, if they can move away from their traditional line of thinking they can gain so much more." For example, Invisible Accountant offers its clients: 1.
An accounting technician to do much of the manual data entry work She recommends networking with CPA's and Certified Financial Planners and advertising on Bookkeeping Help.com. Intuits ProAdvisor network cannot be overlooked either. It has given her a lot of referrals because "QuickBooks" she says, "is the acknowledged and accepted tool for small businesses." THE AVERAGE CLIENT According to Danielle, Invisible Accountant has no average client. Industries represented by their client base run the gamut and include: Real
estate Generally client revenues can be as little as $200,000 and go up to $3,000,000 per year and have anywhere between 1 and 100 employees. However, once they reach a size where they need three to four full time accounting people, Danielle encourages them to consider taking their accounting functions in-house. Truly Danielle wishes that more companies would enter the arena of professional bookkeeping. She believes that if these services were more prevalent small businesses would be more successful. She says, "Small business owners receive a higher level of service than they ever dreamed possible and then they wonder 'How did I ever go on without it?" Invisible
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