Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / Returning as a Bookkeeper After a Career Gap
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, when people think about returning to work after a career gap, they often assume they need to go back to school for a whole new degree. But sometimes it's just a certification that costs a few hundred dollars and a couple of weekends. Luna: That's exactly what happened with our guest on this episode. She was a stay-at-home parent for six years, and she came back as a bookkeeper. Lucas: Right. Her name is Monica, and before her gap she worked as an accounts payable clerk at a mid-size manufacturing firm. She wasn't a CPA or a controller, but she had solid transactional accounting experience. Then she took six years off to raise twins. Luna: And when she was ready to go back, she didn't try to get back into a corporate AP role. She went a different route. Lucas: Exactly. She looked at what was actually in demand locally. And what she found was that small businesses and nonprofits desperately need someone who can keep their books straight, but they can't afford a full-time accountant. So they hire a part-time bookkeeper. Monica realized she could be that person. Luna: But she hadn't touched a general ledger in half a decade. How did she get current? Lucas: She invested in the QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification. It's a free certification from Intuit—though you can pay for study materials if you want. She spent about 20 hours over two weekends going through the training videos and passing the exam. That certification alone told potential clients: 'I know the software that 80 percent of small businesses use.' Luna: Twenty hours is not nothing, but it's also not a semester. And that credential is recognized everywhere. Lucas: Right. And then she needed experience. Not just training, but actual recent work she could point to. So she volunteered to do bookkeeping for a local food bank. It was a small operation—maybe 10 employees, a few hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue. She offered to clean up their QuickBooks and run their monthly financials. Luna: Did they hesitate because she'd been out of the workforce? Lucas: Not at all. They were thrilled to get free help from someone with a certification and prior experience. She did that for about three months—maybe 10 hours a week—and that gave her a current reference and a real example for her resume. Luna: So that volunteer gig became her bridge. What happened next? Lucas: She started networking with other small business owners. Not at stuffy chamber of commerce events, but at a local co-working space that had a coffee shop. She'd go there twice a week, work on the food bank's books on her laptop, and strike up conversations with people around her. Within a month, two freelancers asked if she could take a look at their books. Luna: So she built a client base almost by osmosis. But that sounds like it could be inconsistent. Lucas: It was at first. She had three or four clients, each paying her $500 to $800 a month for a few hours of work. That's maybe $2,000 to $3,000 a month total. But then one of them—a small marketing agency—grew fast. They went from five employees to fifteen over the course of a year, and they needed her for 20 hours a week. She became their de facto bookkeeper, and they put her on a W-2. Luna: So she went from volunteer, to freelancer, to employee. And that happened within about 18 months of her getting that certification. Lucas: Exactly. And the interesting thing is, she didn't even apply for a job until that point. The job came to her because she was already embedded in the business. Luna: What about the confidence piece? I imagine after six years away from numbers, there's a mental hurdle—fearing you've forgotten how to do accrual accounting, or that you'll make a mistake. Lucas: Monica was very honest about that. She said the first time she opened a trial balance for the food bank, she felt a knot in her stomach. But she also said that muscle memory kicked in after about two hours. The core principles—debits on the left, credits on the right, the accounting equation—those don't go away. Luna: So the technical part came back quickly. But what about the interview? If she had applied for a corporate role, how would she have explained the gap? Lucas: She actually did interview at one point for a staff accountant role at a nonprofit. And she addressed the gap directly: 'I took time to raise my children, and during that time I kept my skills current by earning my QuickBooks certification and volunteering as a bookkeeper for a local food bank. I'm now looking for a position where I can contribute full-time.' That answered the question before they could ask it. Luna: It reframes the gap as a period of intentional skill-building. I think that's a template anyone can use. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's worth noting that bookkeeping is a field where the credential really matters. If you have a ProAdvisor certification or a Certified Bookkeeper designation from the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers, that carries weight. It says you've passed a standardized test, not just that you used to do the job. Luna: And the demand is there. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 170,000 openings for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks each year over the next decade. Not all of those are entry-level, but plenty are. Lucas: Plus, remote work has opened up the field. Monica now works from home three days a week. She told me she can pick up her kids from school, make dinner, and still close the books. That flexibility is huge for parents returning after a gap. Luna: Speaking of flexibility—and I know this is a bit meta, but it's relevant—one reason we're able to dig into stories like Monica's is that this show is ad-free. We don't have to squeeze in commercial breaks or push products. Lucas: That's by design. We want every episode to be packed with actionable advice, not interrupted by ads. If you find value in that approach and want to help us keep it going, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to say 'I appreciate this' and it makes a real difference. Luna: Yeah, it's a small gesture that lets us stay focused on what matters: giving you concrete strategies for your career comeback. And now back to that. Lucas: So the bookkeeping path is particularly good for people who had any kind of finance or accounting background before their gap—even if it was just a few years of AP or AR work. But what if someone has no accounting experience at all? Luna: That's a different episode, but I think the takeaway here is that a specific, low-cost certification combined with a volunteer gig can bridge almost any gap. Lucas: And Monica's story proves it. She didn't need a degree. She didn't need to know someone high up. She just needed 20 hours of training, three months of volunteering, and a willingness to talk to strangers at a coffee shop. Luna: I love that the coffee shop was her networking hub. It's so low-pressure. Lucas: Exactly. She wasn't handing out business cards. She was just working on something that looked interesting, and people asked. That's a lesson for anyone: put yourself in places where your target clients or employers naturally gather, and let your work speak for itself. Luna: So if you're listening and you have a background in any kind of transactional finance, consider bookkeeping as a re-entry path. The cost of entry is low and the demand is steady. Lucas: And if you want more details on the exact certification Monica used, we'll put a link to the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program in the show notes. But for now, the key takeaway is: you don't need a time machine to restart your career. You just need one current credential and one real-world example. Luna: Thanks, Monica, for sharing your story. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week with another comeback story. Lucas: Until then, keep building that bridge.