I'm just curious why you are interested?
Is it for a specific job?
With a bit of excel and bookkeeping and or tax knowledge there would be no shortage of medium skill/medium pay work available for side hustles. I am currently working as a CPA but when I hit FIRE/RE I plan on picking up some side work PT at $20-$30/ hour as an employee or $50/hour independent or part time contractor just doing low level tax prep and bookkeeping work to keep busy. I don't want to do the higher level stuff at that point once I'm done.
This is exactly what I am looking to do. I'm looking for a side hustle for now and maybe a part time or seasonal gig in 5-10 years when I FIRE. I would at least consider a complete career change between now and then but would like to dip my toes in first (my current gig is pretty good but I'm growing bored). I have an interest in financial planning but would not be opposed to anything number crunching related since I enjoy that kind of thing anyway.
The other day I took a course at my local community college on estate planning and the professor pulled me aside after class and said her firm was hiring. She asked me about my computer skills and was less than impressed with my response so I figure I should brush up.
As a CPA, what would you look for if you were hiring an entry level candidate at your place of employment?
Well one thing I would mention is that unless it's for one specific employer that uses Quickbooks the other main accounting/bookkeeping software most small business use is Sage 50 (in Canada). In the US it might still be called Simply or Simply Accounting so I would most likely try to learn both.
As for an entry level candidate it would depend - there are basically 3 starting points in an accounting firm. Bookkeeper, Accounting technician and Staff Accountant. Keep in mind this is from a Canadian perspective based on a typical local public firm. I have worked at Big 4 but for a side hustle I think this can safely be ignored, although their smaller regional offices work in much the same way in my experience.
Staff Accountant is basically someone who wants to earn their designation and has an accounting degree, unless you have significant prior experience from before the time that you needed a degree this one is probably ruled out without going back to school. It is probably the most thankless/ demanding and you will only earn barely more than the other roles year 1 and 2 and as a side hustle you can't advance, so there is no point in looking to do this as a part time gig.
An accounting technician is someone who doesn't have a university degree or the desire to earn a designation but wants to do more than basic bookkeeping and personal tax prep. They usually have 2-3 years of college (I guess this might be trade school in the US?) Or they came right out of high-school 15+ years ago.
A bookkeeper or on the tax side a basic preparer usually just has experience and some limited credential or courses behind them.
The easiest way to get into a firm in your case would be to earn some basic credentials of some kind through a community college, a bookkeeping certificate of some kind perhaps.
I find a lot of firms simply don't advertise they are hiring even though there are multiple positions open at all times and they are drowning. Your best bet is to ask someone who works there, or to simply apply to multiple. The business is fairly seasonal so arrangements where a good employee only wants to work busy times of year are actually ideal and hard to come by.
From a small business perspective there is usually a shortage of bookkeepers/accounting technician types who give a crap and take pride in their work and lots of smaller companies are just looking to hire someone part-time. They are often only offering part-time hours and ~$20-$25 an hour so they can never find someone competent or that who will stick around. This leaves a niche to be filled if you are ok with this arrangement. The problem is that no business owner wants someone touching their books who has no experience.
Your best bet is to earn some type of basic credential, cut your teeth at a small local firm who will give you a chance and show you the ropes, then if you want to continue there you can or you can do part-time work for a few small businesses.
Alternatively you can volunteer to do the books for a small charity or not-for-profit and just leverage that experience to branch into paid work. Also speaking from experience the volunteer treasurer on these things is usually overloaded and would gladly train you if you wanted to learn. In my line of work I don't use quickbooks except pulling reports and sifting through it to examine what the internal accountant/bookeeper has done, but when I volunteered for a small board the treasurer taught me how to use quickbooks from a bookkeeping perspective.
