If you love crunching numbers then there’s something to do as a side hustle as an accountant.
Any person who knows how to play around with numbers with the objective of earning big bucks must know more than this when it comes to making money online.
Accountants are also prone to digitalization and the risk of losing jobs.
This is true especially when data says that around 95% of the accounting processes will undergo automation soon (source: UK media publication).
However, another study published by Brookings Institution had a different viewpoint related to the future of accounting and it predicted a positive outlook.
This calls for a need to have another source of income from a side hustle.
Here are more facts that convince us more as to why to start a side hustle today as an accountant:
- Around 67% of companies are looking to shift towards a cloud form of accounting (source: Sage)
- More than 58% of business owners are looking to implement the automation method.
- Nearly 60% of the companies aren’t satisfied with the services offered by the Accounting and Financial processes.
Okay, enough of numbers and stats, let’s get started with the side hustle opportunities now…
In this Guide
List of Side Hustle to start as an accountant
Before we dive in deep with each side hustle outlined ahead, I have summarized everything for you in the table below:
| Start a Blog | Earn at least $1000 per month as a beginner |
| Become a freelance content writer | Up to $37 from 1 article of 1000 words |
| Start a YouTube Channel | Earn at least $500 per month |
| Become a bookkeeper | $42,109 a year |
| Create a podcast related to accounting | Earn $500 per month |
| Start providing coaching online | $22 per hour |
| Sell courses related to accounting | Up to $10 per course |
| Earn affiliate commission promoting tools and software | $18 per customer a year |
| Earn ad revenue income by partnering with accounting software and packages | Earn $150 – $500 per month from partnered ads |
| Sell ebooks or guides related to accounts | $2.45 – $5.63 per ebook |
| Work as a data entry operator | $10 – $20 per gig |
| Start filing income tax returns | $30 – $225 for each gig |
| Hustle as a petsitter | $20 for dogwalk or $60-$100 for petsitting per night |
| Become an influencer on social media | $500 – $1000 per month |
| Start a Print on Demand business | $15 – $20 per merch sale |
| Find solutions to problems of other businesses | $10 – $50 per year on subscription sale per customer |
| Be a financial advisor | $45.27 per hour |
Now, let us start with the first side hustle, i.e. Blogging
Start a Blog
A blog is the first side hustle that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to make money.
The basic reason for this is that a blog opens a door to a lot of things that may happen in life.
As an accountant, you can start writing on content that you have learned exclusively during your journey so far.
How to save taxes, how to file returns, and how to do budgeting, all of these are not known ordinary.
These are the things anyone would be willing to pay to learn about or would definitely look to come to you for consultation as an accountant.
Some of the niches you can target as an accountant in a blog include:
- How to make financial planning.
- What are the steps to save on taxes?
- How to file returns.
- How to invest in stocks.
- Career steps on how to become an accountant.
- How to make money online etc.
There are multiple ways of making money from this such as
- Offering consultation services.
- Filing returns or offering advisory services to small businesses.
- Career counseling advice for anyone looking to make a career in accounting etc.
As such I am a certified Chartered Accountant and I love to write topics related to ways how to make money online in this blog.
So you can definitely connect with me on this if you need more details.
Become a freelance content writer
A content writer is someone who writes content for others to help them grow their business.
Finance is a niche that heavily relies on subject matter expertise of what you truly know about.
If you are someone who loves writing about travel niche or let’s say pet niche, you can certainly write an article related to 5 key aspects of bookkeeping.
But the above would be based on good thorough research from the internet, but nothing based on personal experience.
Whereas as an accountant if you have a good flair in writing and skills to put thoughts into words, you can command really good pay for your content.
I happened to write an article, the topic of which was “Should Venture Capitalists invest in startups in India now (Decoded under 10 mins)”.
This was the first article that I ever wrote as a freelance content writer and this got me an asking price of $375 for a requirement of 10 articles on the same niche.
The client had rejected 6 articles prior to this one and approved this for 1 major reason, i.e. “DATA”.
And I knew the data didn’t come as such as I had to go through several ratios and analyses which I learned during my journey as a professional CA.
So, regardless of your experience and knowledge, what you bring to the table as an accountant will make all the difference in terms of pricing for each content that you write.
Start a YouTube Channel
This is obviously an example anyone would recommend as videos are going to be the face of the business soon.
Anyone who you may know is popular on the internet and making a living on the internet is definitely on YouTube or trying to be on YouTube.
This is one platform that is absolutely free and provides all you need to know to scale your business to the next level.
Source: YouTube
A really good example is CA Rachana Phadke Ranade is someone who teaches online about the following things from her YouTube channel, such as:
- How to invest in Stock Market.
- What are the things needed to know to invest in Mutual Funds? and more…
This in itself is a ton of work and needs a lot of persistence and effort to scale business besides just teaching online on YouTube.
But, as an accountant, you hold the advantage of being able to explain to people who need clarification on a lot of things in life and thus make money.
A generalized earning would be $500 – $1000 per month as a beginner starting out.
Become a bookkeeper
A bookkeeper is someone who obviously manages books of accounts for others.
This means if you know about debit and credit and the 3 golden rules of accounting, you are good to start.
All it needs is your first client and you start to take care of the affairs of the business.
Handling all the transactions and making sure it’s recorded as they should be, will bring results for you.
Having the necessary time management skills, the ability to interact with clients, and a commitment to work is of utmost importance to play long-term games.
How to Become A Bookkeeper And Make Money (up to $300,000 yearly!) https://t.co/uEUULZ834b pic.twitter.com/3XAQtJST1o
— Bella Thomas (@bellathomas202) April 10, 2021
Salary reports a standard pay rate of $42,109 a year of earnings for bookkeepers.
Create a podcast related to accounting
Podcasts are the future and will see tremendous growth in the decades to come.
Right now, we are living in the infancy of the growth of podcasts which will soon see a boom in its growth the future.
Accountants can definitely get onto podcasts to talk about a lot of stuff that involves their profession.
People have created a podcast on a lot of different ideas that have started making them good money.
Journal of Accountancy is a podcast which is covering topics related to accounting, financial reporting, auditing, taxation, personal financial planning, and more.
What’s even more relevant is the fact that this podcast has around 400k paid subscribers on its platform.
Source: Journal of Accountancy
Start providing coaching online
Coaching and guidance towards a complex topic are always going to be the hotcake product in the market.
Accounting is one area where many people are not fundamentally clear as to what happens in the entire process.
If you can teach people complex topics related to the basics of accounting and how to deal with different subjects adjacent to that, you can make good money.
The role of being a tutor would perfectly fit in this category and people would be able to learn a lot from your knowledge and expertise on the subject.
An accounts teacher can work and earn up to $22 per hour (as per Ziprecruiter)
This comes out to be more than $3500 per month if one implements the solution correctly.
Thus working as a tutor carries a lot of weightage and you can build your reputation working in this field.
Sell courses related to accounting
Courses always remain to be one of the best ways to make money online.
There are a lot of people out there on the internet who are selling courses related to accounts and bookkeeping but hold zero experience in that.
If you hold true knowledge and experience in the subject matter above, then teaching others about what you already know won’t take much time for you.
If you hold any relevant experience working in the industry with different clients, then a course on this subject would be the best fit to start making money online.
Here’s a screenshot explaining the same…
Source: Udemy
The above shows that one can definitely expect to make around $10 for the sale of one course.
The courses are short and designed to fit the audience’s interest in under 5 – 6 hours.
Earn affiliate commission selling accounting tools
Affiliate commissions are a huge source of income for people who are selling stuff online.
As an accountant, you must be using several tools or software which would be your go-to products for each month.
Some of the prominent software used in the industry include:
- Quickbooks
- Xero
- Freshbooks etc.
Quickbooks offers up to 10% of the commission of the total sales that you make from your end.
Source: Quickbooks
This is the pricing structure of Quickbooks and the lowest price that we can see over here is $15 per month.
This translates to around $180 per year and you can expect to make a total of $18 per year from the sale of this software to ONLY one customer.
Now if you can get more conversions through either your Blog or YouTube channel recommendations, you can make around $18000 if you happen to sell to 1000 customers.
Earn ad revenue income by partnering with accounting software or applications
Besides the affiliate commission structure that we discussed above, you can also earn ad revenue by partnering with other applications or software.
Let’s say you have a Blog or a YouTube channel, where you can have a good enough following coming in, what can be some of the ways to monetize the audience?
As we discussed some of the primary ways include:
- Running ads in association with platforms such as Google, Mediavine, etc,
- Earning from affiliate commissions,
- Providing courses or coaching services to others.
But what if you partner with specific companies who are looking to advertise their products or applications on your platform?
You can definitely strike such a deal and start collecting revenue from such sources.
Here’s a sample email I sent out for one of my blog sites “Mokinys.com” looking for a partnership with another product.
This is one sample email as to how you can reach out to people across the internet and try to enter into a partnership to promote their content by showing the ads.
Selling ebooks or guides (digital copies) related to accounting
Ebooks are one of the best ways to market your product and knowledge to people.
This is a one-time investment of time and money and you can keep earning passive income month on month with what you offer to your visitors.
Digital products will always sell the best if done and implemented in the correct manner.
Here’s an example of one ebook that is selling well on Amazon:
Source: Amazon
The above image shows an example of how an ebook is selling for as low as $2.45 and has already gathered 56 ratings.
Now this means there is always a market where you can sell your product as an author of the ebook.
One needs to understand where to market the ebook or guide to get the best returns.
This certainly needs time to be able to get the best ebook in place that would be helpful for the readers and can bring revenue as well.
Here’s another example for your reference…
Source: Amazon
This again shows that you can sell an ebook for as low as $5.63 and this has around 936 ratings placed against it.
Thus, the potential for getting customers on board related to your business is immense and holds a lot of value in the future.
Work as a data entry operator
Data entry operators are making a small income such as $10 – $20 per gig on Fiverr.
Source: Fiverr
But, the primary thing over here is that many don’t possess the professional experience and expertise of being in the seat of an accountant.
What I mean to say is that alongside filling the information in the spreadsheet you can definitely do more.
You can also provide any FREE advisory services to the company or small business organization to grow their business.
This holds more weight than being a data entry gig. Here’s how…
If the company obtains a benefit of even $1 they would be MORE WILLING to hire you as a business CONSULTANT long-term.
This might seem small, but can door to other businesses in that same niche and you can scale your revenue pretty quickly.
Start filing Income Tax returns
Filing Income Tax returns is one task that many people don’t like to do in their life.
As a professional accountant, you can start filing returns of other people around you and charge money for that.
People tend to have a habit of not sticking to deadlines and doing the work on time.
This is where you can take advantage and work with the right mindset to capitalize on the opportunity.
Source: Fiverr
A professional accountant can charge somewhere between $30 – $225 for rendering their professional services.
This is a big opportunity for accountants to scale their business and grow as a professional as well.
Along with this, there are other ways of rendering professional services such as consultation or coaching services which can be an added service alongside this.
Hustle as a petsitter
Petsitting is something that has been catching up with trends for a long time and people make good money from it.
If you love having pets around you and playing along with them, then pet sitting can be a fun side hustle to start with.
This job does require the presence of mind and application of skills to handle situations as they demand attention.
Source: Rover
You can take care of pets in the absence of their owners and offer various services such as
- Petsitting.
- Dog Walking.
- Boarding services.
- Daycare.
- Drop-in visits etc.
All these services offered to carry a lot of value and you can start to make money at $20 per walk.
Source: Rover
Petsitting services can offer you around $60 – $100 per night for taking care of pets.
Become an influencer on social media
A social media account is a doorway to connecting with others.
The wider the door and the clearer your communication, the better your opportunities to earn money from this.
As an influencer, you hold the power to influence people in the right way to not only make money but also change the lives of others.
An accountant is not only skilled in handling books of accounts but also possesses skills related to art, networking or even storytelling, etc.
Identify what you are good at and see if the people around you need to know about that.
Once you find the doorway, you can connect to others via social media such as Instagram, TikTok, or even Facebook to showcase to the world your potential.
This path is a long-term game but definitely can help make money in the long run.
Start a Print on Demand business
A print-on-demand business model is a superb business model where you can start absolutely for FREE (i.e. without any investment).
Essentially, if you are an accountant you must be a part of a community of members such as a pool club, tennis club, gym club, etc.
Why not start promoting tees or caps or mugs to the club members and strengthen the bond of being a part of the community?
Source: Etsy
This t-shirt along with several other designs has sold over 8498 times and each one is roughly priced at around $20.
This roughly means selling all these tees as a Print on Demand business model on Etsy has made a revenue of $169k for the seller.
Isn’t it amazing?
This is the power of Print on Demand, as a simple design with a message on board has been a game changer for your life.
Source: Redbubble
Here’s a list of some items that are selling in the range of $22 – $29 for one product.
So, you need to identify your niche and interests and start uploading designs that would be the right fit for your audience.
Some of the free platforms to start using are:
- Redbubble
- Printful
- Teepublic etc.
Start finding solutions to problems of other businesses
As an accountant, you know several things which business owners are facing trouble with.
Let’s say you are working for a business whose primary task is to produce ebooks of 30 pages, wherein they are selling 3 different components:
| Content Pages | Component of the ebook | Pricing of the ebook |
| 1 – 10 | First | $1 |
| 11 – 20 | Second | $2 |
| 21 – 30 | Third | $3 |
This means a total amount of $6 is to be charged from the customers for the entire ebook.
Now, there are 2 ways to sell the above ebook of 30 pages:
- The author can sell the entire ebook in one package as a whole e-book with pricing as defined above.
Or
- This can be sold as 3 different e-books with each one split into 10 pages.
Now, if the business owner wants to sell the e-book in one package (having 30 pages) with a starter price of $1, but also wants to restrict the viewing scope from page 11 onwards.
How do they do it?
This means anyone would get the entire e-book paying upfront of $1 but would get restricted from page 11 onwards.
There is no proper solution to this.
If you can create a tool or plugin which can help them perform this, it would be a wonderful solution for the business.
You can charge a monthly payment of let’s say $1 or create a bundled-up price of let’s say $10 for a year.
Be a financial advisor
When it comes to health, we always consult a doctor. When it comes to relationships, we consult a relationship expert.
But, when it comes to wealth, we never risk our decision-making, but rely on a financial advisor.
Finance is a lot more complicated topic for everyone to understand.
This needs a lot of knowledge to order the terms in the right tone.
But, people don’t want to put their time into understanding every little detail of it.
Thus a financial advisor who has good knowledge of the subject will always come to the rescue.
As an accountant, you can take this as an opportunity and start helping out others.
Give them the right financial advice for investments in their life.
If you have started investing and have the knowledge about finance in good depth, you can definitely charge a good hefty amount for it.
Start small and lookout for smaller assets at first.
Source: Fiverr
You can definitely charge around $40 – $235 for offering financial advisory services.
Besides this, the average pay for financial advisors stands at around $45.27 per hour with a job projected growth rate of 15% which is 3 times higher than the normal 3%.
Final Words on Side Hustle as an accountant
Even as an accountant having a side hustle would be the best decision you can make in life.
This comes not purely from the revenue earning potential standpoint.
But this also comes from an aspect of what changes you bring to others’ lives in general.
If you are in a position to help someone financially and you get an opportunity to walk onto a path hustling for it on the side, then why not do it?
In fact, for anyone of us, be it an accountant or an artist or even a vet, every one of us have a choice to go something offbeat and see what comes out of it.
With this thought, I would like to leave this decision upon you to decide which side hustle to start as an accountant.
Do share with us your thoughts on this.