I'm Not Going to Give You Tips
Let me be upfront about this one: there are no tips here. No tricks. No five-step framework for landing your first client.
What I have instead is an honest account of what the VA bookkeeping market actually looks like right now, and why it has become so difficult to find clients. If you came here for a shortcut, you can close this tab. If you want the truth about where things stand, keep reading.
I became a VA bookkeeper post-pandemic. I've watched people who started alongside me become incredibly successful. I've also watched people who started long after me get there too. So it's not impossible. But something has shifted, and the people in my community keep telling me the same thing: the difficulty has multiplied. Competition is heavier. There are fewer quality job posts. And the posts that do exist are mostly lowball offers from low-quality clients.
This is my attempt to explain what changed.
What the Market Looked Like When I Started
I started somewhere between 2020 and 2022. After training in QuickBooks Online, I enrolled in a QuickBooks Master Class through an online academy — the version built for people who already understood accounting. I took ABM in senior high school, so the fundamentals were already there. That course ran for about two months.
During those two months I did what everyone tells you to do. I applied everywhere. Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn, OnlineJobs.ph — I had a profile on all of them. I made content. I joined Facebook communities and shared short videos and trailers explaining what I was learning in my QuickBooks class.
I want to be clear that I had no real experience at that point. Making those videos was how I kept the knowledge fresh so I wouldn't forget it, and it forced me to get better at explaining things out loud.
The Facebook Communities Were Different Back Then
Here's the part that shaped my whole understanding of this industry.
Five years ago, VA bookkeeper Facebook groups were genuinely active. People asked real questions all day long. What's the entry for this scenario? What do I do in QuickBooks when this happens? Those communities were the source of truth. Between Facebook groups and YouTube, that's where you learned.
And the thing that struck me most: a lot of the people asking those questions already had clients. They had the work but didn't know how to do it. Meanwhile I knew how to do it and had no client at all.
That was my big question mark for a long time. How did these people get hired? The questions they were asking were so basic that even I — with zero experience — understood what their problem was. So I started commenting. I answered. I sent screenshots. I messaged people privately and walked them through things.
Compare that to now. Those questions have almost disappeared. What fills those groups today is course selling, onsite hiring posts, and hype. The learning culture that used to exist there has thinned out considerably.
How I Got My First Client
Because I was so active in those groups, someone eventually reached out to me. They had never posted, never commented, never replied to anything — they had just been watching.
Their situation: a full-time local job, plus a client they had landed on OnlineJobs.ph at around four dollars an hour. Already onboarded. And they had no idea how to use QuickBooks. They had local accounting experience but the software was overwhelming them.
I said yes. We started sessions and I taught them basic QuickBooks Online — the terminology, the navigation, the fundamentals. But it never really landed, because their full-time job was consuming all of their energy. What was left over for our sessions was the bottom of the tank. They couldn't give it their best.
Eventually they gave up. And when they did, they handed the client over to me.
That's how I got in.
The Rule That Used to Apply — and Doesn't Anymore
Back then, the rule was simple. If you had any directly related local experience — government, an accounting firm, any accounting position here — you could get hired as a VA even with zero VA experience and zero accounting software knowledge. Local experience was enough to open the door.
That rule is dead.
Today, clients want to see actual VA experience. Local experience alone doesn't satisfy them anymore. That single shift closed the exact door I walked through.
A Year-by-Year View of the VA Bookkeeper Job Market
My own path hasn't been stable in one company. I've moved through several, onboarded new clients recently, worked local roles, and spent most of my career doing QuickBooks Online bookkeeping for US-based businesses. That's given me a front-row seat to how each year has felt:
2020–2021: You could get hired with no VA experience as long as you had prior local accounting experience.
2022–2023: Even with modest effort, your chances on platforms like Upwork or OnlineJobs.ph were decent. I got hired on OLJ during this window without even expecting it.
2024: I stepped back and mostly ran on referrals, picking up project-based work here and there while focusing on a corporate full-time role.
2025–2026: I started exploring agency work — and this is where things got genuinely ugly.
What Hiring Looks Like Right Now
I'll be blunt about the current state. The leads are bad. Not "a little disappointing" — bad.
When there is work available, there's a high chance the culture attached to it is toxic. That's simply what's left in the pool. The good clients aren't hiring, because the good clients kept the people they hired back in 2021 and never let them go. Good clients keep good VAs. That's not a complaint, that's just how it works.
So who's left hiring constantly? Agencies. And if an agency is perpetually hiring, that tells you something about why nobody stays.
The application process itself has become insulting. Some of these companies put out forms so long and so strict that you'll burn an hour completing one. My personal rule now: if it's a form, I skip it. If it's an email application, I'll send it.
And after all that effort? No reply. No status update. Nothing. Sending an application status update is basic automation — it's a simple thing to build — and hiring agencies still can't be bothered. Then the pay on offer isn't even significant.
That's the honest picture.
Advice for VA Bookkeepers Who Currently Have a Client
If you have a good client right now, in a stable arrangement, hear me on this.
Be grateful. A hundred times over. If you're thinking about exiting to find something better, understand that it's rough out there. I mean that.
If you have a client who values you, who pays you, who gives you steady work — take care of that relationship. Don't try to exit. Don't experiment with leaving. Do your best work there. Help that client succeed so they have every reason to keep you.
If you want to add another client, go ahead. But never let that addition compromise the quality of service you give your main client. Protect your golden goose. That's the one actually putting money in your hands. Keep it at all costs.
That's the strongest piece of practical advice I have: do not take your current client for granted.
Advice for VA Bookkeepers Who Are Just Starting
Here's where I have to be honest with you, and where the title of this post earns itself.
I don't have much to give you. I can't put myself in your shoes and pretend I know your exact situation, because I'm four or five years ahead of where you are. I don't have the right to speak over your reality.
But I'll tell you this — even from where I sit, I still feel the pressure of how hard it is to find work right now. This isn't a difficulty that disappears once you're established.
So what do I actually recommend?
Pray. Pray seriously. Pray for the right vision. Pray that you'll be equipped for the client who eventually comes into your life — the one that arrives when you're actually ready for them.
I know how that sounds in an article about job markets. Stay with me.
Competition is a given. One post goes up and hundreds swarm it. Referrals? You have the least chance there, because you have no client yet and nothing to point to. When you're starting out, the margin you have to work with is impossibly thin. So prepare yourself, and pray.
Continuous improvement is a given. Getting good with AI is a given. All of that is part of the process. But I don't want us to forget that the things that arrive in our lives are entrusted to us. If we want to be trusted with something, we have to ask for it.
Why I Call This Impractical
I once sat with entrepreneur friends and we got into a conversation about whether God actually has anything to do with running a business, or whether it's purely the work you put in.
I brought up a churchmate of mine studying theology. Most people assume theology is just Bible history — the nature of God, the context of God. But he told me that seventy to eighty percent of theology is philosophy. It's about how you view things.
Before he said that, I had asked him a question: by the definition you're taught in bible school, what is a miracle?
His answer stayed with me. A miracle is God breaking or bypassing nature in order to accomplish something He desires.
The human mind can't process a miracle. Think about feeding five thousand people — and that count didn't even include the women and children — from a small amount of bread and fish. You can't reason your way into that. A miracle sits beyond human nature, beyond world logic, because God is beyond logic.
Now here's my point.
I had no degree. I had no experience when I started. How does someone like that become a VA four or five years ago? How did I get my first client at all?
Was it because I knew what I was doing? Or was it something else?
I've never once credited my passing an interview, or landing a client, to my own experience or skill. I genuinely believe every client I've been entrusted with was given to me.
It may sound illogical to you. It was illogical for me too.
Absorb the Shock
If you do get your chance — if a client comes and you get to step into this work — give it everything.
Absorb the shock of the pressure. Absorb the shock of self-pity. Absorb the shock of the culture. Going from nobody to VA is an entirely different world, and it will test you. If you get that opportunity and it hurts, endure it.
That's the most impractical episode I can share with you. And it's also the truth.
Whether you're a VA bookkeeper or not — I love you, and Jesus loves you far more.
Let's Connect
To know more about my services, writings — connect with me here — here's my website: https://www.kylenelsonomac.com/