Let's be honest about the state of the VA bookkeeping industry right now.
There are a lot of beginners. More than ever. And on the other side of the table are people who have been doing this for years. Tenured bookkeepers. People who genuinely know the work, with track records and credibility built on real experience.
So if you're just starting out, the real challenge isn't learning debits and credits. It's this: how do you compete? How do you get an edge, and how do you land a client, when you're brand new?
I want to answer that with my own story, because I started from about as far behind as you can get.
Where I Started: No Experience, No Degree. Double Kill.
When I started as a VA bookkeeper, I had no experience. I had no degree. None.
What I did have was a senior high school diploma in Accountancy and Business Management (ABM). I enrolled in college as a BS Accountancy student and dropped out in my first year. So no degree, and no work experience in the field.
Double kill.
And the timing made it worse. This was during the pandemic and the post-pandemic period, when employers and agencies were hiring almost anyone, as long as they had a degree and experience. If you had both, finding a client wasn't hard. Landing one wasn't hard.
I had neither. So it was hard for me. Really hard.
But I still got a client eventually. Here's what actually happened.
Banana Chips, a Certification, and Two Months of Nothing
After the pandemic, I was working as a banana chip cook. That job is how I saved up money to buy courses, mostly QuickBooks Online training and certification.
Once I had bought the course and earned my QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification, I resigned.
Then came two months of nothing.
Two months of being stuck. Two months of getting rejected in interviews. Two months of self-doubt. Two months with no money and no income.
The only reason I survived that stretch was that I was still living with my mother. I didn't have to worry about food, daily expenses, or internet. I had a laptop and some equipment.
That was all I had. But I also had something most people don't: a lot of time. No full-time job. Not yet back in school. Hours and hours every day.
What I Did With All That Free Time
After sending out applications and preparing for scheduled interviews, I spent the rest of my time doing one thing: engaging in communities.
If you started as a VA bookkeeper during the pandemic, there's a chance you've seen my name. I've been using the same name in these communities from the start. I was very active in the accounting and bookkeeping groups on Facebook and other online communities, many of which now sell courses of their own. I commented, I asked questions about accounting and bookkeeping, and I answered other people's questions.
Then I started making content. I uploaded it to my personal YouTube channel and Facebook, and shared it in the communities where I was active.
That's honestly all I did. I'd seen a post saying that visibility is one of the things that can bring you clients. I didn't know how it would work. I didn't know the right approach. I just kept making content.
My earliest videos were all in English, on purpose. Content was my way of practicing. If you dig up my oldest YouTube videos, you'll hear me forcing myself to speak English so I'd get used to talking in interviews and explaining things to clients. It was hard, but I kept practicing.
And as I kept sharing in those communities, slowly, little by little, people started reaching out. They asked questions. They connected with me, and I connected with them. More and more people came to me for tips on how to actually do accounting and bookkeeping.
The Gap Nobody Talked About
Here's something important about that period.
Back then, you could get hired as a VA bookkeeper even without experience in accounting software or any real knowledge of virtual assistance. If you had local experience and a degree, you'd get hired. Clients assumed that if you had a degree and local experience, you already knew what to do as a VA bookkeeper.
That's where they went wrong.
A lot of beginners got hired who genuinely didn't know how to do the job, because bookkeeping in the Philippines and bookkeeping in the US are completely different ecosystems.
In the US, it's largely paperless. Things come through email. Bank and credit card transactions feed directly into the accounting system, and a big part of the work is bank reconciliation. In the Philippines, we manually encode almost everything, and we rely on physical receipts to get the details.
There are similarities, but there's a real gap.
So here was the situation: they had clients but didn't know what to do. I knew what to do but didn't have a client.
So I helped them. They'd share their screen, and I'd walk them through the concepts: why something works the way it does, what the workflow should be, what order things should be done in, how the reports should be formatted, and what the client actually expects. What's at the heart of the client's needs, so they could perform well and get paid. Because those were their clients.
While doing this, I made a lot of friends. Some of them I've honestly lost track of since. More and more people asked me to teach them and commented on my videos in the communities. And whenever someone posted a question I knew the answer to, I answered.
How My First Client Actually Happened
One day, someone reached out to me. She had a client, but she didn't know what to do with the work. She also had a full-time job. She asked me to help her understand QuickBooks and everything around it.
So I taught her, almost every day, depending on when she was free or when she was working on the client's books.
No matter how hard we tried, it just wasn't clicking. Her system couldn't fully digest how US bookkeeping works. She was drained from her full-time job, and the information I was giving her wasn't sinking in. In her day job she only handled AR or AP, so she wasn't yet comfortable with the full accounting cycle.
Eventually she told me: "I'll just give the client to you." She told her client that I would take over, because she couldn't handle it.
That's how I got my first client.
Not through my applications. Not through my resume. Not through interviews. Not even through my content. It happened because I connected with people, and that connection turned into a referral.
That was the start of my VA bookkeeping career. It was also when I realized that training and actual client work are very different. I learned a lot from the courses I bought, and there were similarities. But real work threw scenarios at me that no training ever mentioned. At least I knew the fundamentals and understood what I was supposed to do.
After that, my next client came from OnlineJobs.ph. That was the only time I was hired through OLJ. Every client after that came from referrals or from people who reached out to me directly.
Looking Back: What Was My Advantage?
Over the years I've kept asking myself: what was my advantage? Why did I get hired the very first time, with no degree and no experience?
That first referral is a huge part of why I've been a VA for almost five years now. It shaped my knowledge and my understanding of what this job really is. It opened my eyes to the pros and cons. And it led to the freedom I enjoy today: as long as I have internet, I can work from anywhere in the Philippines, or anywhere in the world, and still deliver my projects.
When I think about it clearly, the reason I got hired wasn't my skill. It wasn't a degree or prior experience, because I had neither.
What I'm sure of is this: I was diligent about connecting with people, and I was hungry to teach. I believed that teaching was repetition. Every time I explained something, the information stuck. Even without actual client work, I was already teaching and guiding people.
And over time, it wasn't just knowledge I was passing on. Their trust in me grew. Friendships grew. My whole network kept getting wider and wider.
Why Your Profile Alone Won't Save You
As a beginner, you simply can't win on profile alone. It doesn't matter how polished your Upwork profile is, how impressive your LinkedIn looks, how often you post or comment on your prospects' posts, or how many VA agencies and Facebook direct-hire posts you apply to.
What I believe works, then and now, especially when you're starting out, comes down to two things:
1. Who is your connection? Who do you know? Who is accessible to you and willing to help you?
2. Are you ready? Knowing a lot of people who are willing to help is useless if you aren't prepared when the chance comes.
If you're missing either one, you don't really have an advantage.
Think about my situation. When I started, I was ready. I knew accounting. Accounting was my strength. I was already teaching people who had clients when I didn't have one myself. I was ready to have a client.
So why wasn't I getting one? Because my network was still tiny, and I hadn't tapped into the people who would be willing to help me land that first client.
I was ready, but I had no connection.
Almost by accident, I ended up with both. I was ready as a VA bookkeeper, and little by little I developed my networking, collaboration, and connection skills. My circle grew. I built credibility in the community. People started to know my name. That's when I got traction and clients started being handed to me.
And it wasn't just that first client. There were a lot of them after that.
My Advice: Be Ready, Then Show Up
If you want an advantage as a beginner VA bookkeeper, here's what I'd tell you.
Step 1: Get Ready, Personally
Master the fundamentals. Get good at accounting itself.
Master one accounting software. Get good at QuickBooks Online.
Practice communication. Make content so you get used to speaking, and used to speaking in English, since you'll be communicating with clients from all over the world.
You don't need to be the best. Being exceptional isn't the reason people get clients. You just need to be ready, so that when a client is handed to you, you know what to do. You should be able to honestly say: "I'm okay at this skill. I can hold my own."
Step 2: Expose Yourself
Once you know what you're doing, put yourself out there.
Attend onsite conventions and trainings. Nothing beats in-person meetups. Your coach can become your friend. The person sitting next to you can become your friend. Your whole circle grows.
Join online communities if you can. Be hands-on. Show yourself to the world.
Practice building personal connections with the people around you, whether they're business owners, prospects, fellow VA bookkeepers, or other beginners.
You never know who will become your future client. Some business owners I've known for years are only now reaching out for help with accounting, software, and systems. When you've built a personal relationship with people, you've planted a seed in their hearts. Someday, somehow, they'll come to you, because you're the one they trust.
That's the advantage I believe in, and it still works today.
The clients I have now, the referrals I receive, the messages I get as a VA bookkeeper and especially for systems and software work, all come from my connections. People I know personally and talk to personally, not just online. People who know me because I make content, because I actually show up, and because I set aside time for networking, collaboration, and building real relationships.
Not because of my resume. (Still, fix your resume.) Not because of a degree. Not because of prior experience.
I got clients because I was ready, I knew I was ready and competent enough, and I had connections. People who believed in me and knew they could trust me.
How to Start Building Your Connections Today
So what can you actually do this week?
1. Take an onsite training. It's the fastest way to build personal relationships in person.
2. Join a community. We have one too. Go to kylenelsonomac.com and look for the button to join our community. After you sign up, you'll get access to our Discord server, where you can ask questions directly and make friends with people who are willing to help you too.
3. Reach out to your business owner friends, even your relatives. Just check in. How's the business? How are sales? How's life?
When it comes to building a network, you don't have to talk business all the time. The goal is a real personal relationship, where you're comfortable talking about anything.
With my clients today, we don't just talk about business. Sometimes we talk about their kids, their relationships, love, mental health, and overall well-being. I can talk with my clients on that level, and that's my edge. That's the advantage I've used as someone with no degree and no experience.
And even if you do have a degree and experience, if you don't have a human approach to connecting with people and building deeper relationships, your journey won't amount to much.
So if you're just starting out: be ready, personally. Then show yourself to the world, and build your connections and your network.
To know more about my services, writings -- connect with me here --- here's my website: https://www.kylenelsonomac.com/
Faith without action is Fiction.