Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Part-Time Bookkeeper Built a 4000 Monthly Side Hustle in SaaS Consulting
Transcript
- Lucas: So today I want to talk about a side hustle that I think gets overlooked because it sounds boring on paper. But the numbers are anything but boring. Luna: Boring is often profitable. What are we looking at? Lucas: We're looking at a part-time bookkeeper, let's call her Maria, who built a $4,000 a month side hustle doing SaaS consulting for small accounting firms. Not building software, not coding — she's consulting on how to use existing software better. Luna: Okay, so she's like a QuickBooks whisperer or something? Lucas: Exactly. She's a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and she knows Xero inside out. But what made the difference is she didn't just offer 'bookkeeping services.' She productized her expertise into a specific consulting package: workflow automation for solo accountants and small firms using cloud-based tools. Luna: Productized — meaning she sells a fixed-scope service at a fixed price, not hourly billing? Lucas: Right. She offers a 'Process Audit and Automation Blueprint' — three weeks, $1,500. She comes in, maps out their manual processes, identifies where they're wasting time, and sets up automated workflows using tools like Zapier, Dext, and built-in integrations. The clients save hours per week, she gets paid a flat fee, and then she usually gets a monthly retainer for ongoing optimization. Luna: That's smart. So the retainer is where the $4,000 a month comes from? Lucas: Partially. She started with the audit package, and within six months she had four retainer clients at $700 to $1,200 a month each. Plus one-off audits for new clients. The $4,000 is net, after taxes and platform fees, working about 15 hours a week. Luna: Fifteen hours a week for $4,000 — that's over sixty-six dollars an hour effective. How did she find these clients? Lucas: She leveraged her existing network. She'd been a part-time bookkeeper for a few small firms, so she knew their pain points. But the real kicker was she started a LinkedIn newsletter called 'Automated Ledger' — just weekly tips on accounting automation. Within three months she had 800 subscribers, and that generated inbound leads. Luna: So content marketing into a niche. Did she use any freelance platforms? Lucas: Not really. She tried Upwork initially but found the clients there wanted cheap hourly work, not consulting. So she focused on LinkedIn and on niche forums like the QuickBooks Community and the Xero Discussion Group on Facebook. She answered questions there without selling — just being helpful — and people started asking if she could help them set things up. Luna: That's a classic inbound play. But the key is she actually knew the tools deeply. You can't fake that. Lucas: Exactly. And she invested in certifications — QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Xero Advisor, and she learned Zapier and Make. That gave her credibility. She also created a simple one-page PDF called '10 Automations Every Solo Accountant Needs' and offered it as a lead magnet on LinkedIn. Luna: So she's essentially becoming a fractional operations consultant for accounting firms. What's the biggest mistake she sees people make? Lucas: Undercharging, by a lot. She told me that when she started, she offered the audit package for $500. She got plenty of interest, but the clients who paid $500 didn't value the work. They'd push back on her recommendations. When she raised the price to $1,500, the quality of clients improved, and they actually implemented her suggestions. She also learned to say no to clients who wanted just hourly cleanup work — that's a race to the bottom. Luna: It's a mindset shift. You're not selling time, you're selling outcomes. How did she balance this with her part-time bookkeeping job? Lucas: She was working about 25 hours a week as a bookkeeper for a local firm. The side hustle started as weekend work — maybe six hours on Saturday and Sunday. As she got retainer clients, she shifted to two evenings during the week and one weekend morning. She also batch-processed audits: she'd do all her discovery calls on Tuesdays, all her mapping on Wednesdays. Very structured. Luna: Discipline is everything. So what's the one takeaway for someone listening who's a numbers person but isn't an accountant? Could this work for, say, a financial analyst? Lucas: Absolutely. The principle is the same: find a specific software ecosystem that small businesses or professionals rely on, become an expert in automating or optimizing it, and productize that expertise. It could be financial planning tools like LivePlan, or even CRM automation for real estate agents. The key is the niche is narrow enough that you're the only person they think of. Luna: And the upfront investment is just time and a few hundred bucks in certifications. No inventory, no overhead. Lucas: Low risk, high potential return. And the demand is only growing — small firms are drowning in software choices but don't have the time or expertise to integrate them well. Luna: It's a great example of turning a 'behind the scenes' skill into a visible, high-value service. I love it. Lucas: And it's a reminder that sometimes the most lucrative side hustles are the ones that sound a little dry at first. The boring stuff pays the bills. Luna: Speaking of paying the bills — I know we don't run ads on this show, and that's something I really appreciate. It lets us talk about whatever we want without a sponsor's agenda. Lucas: Yeah, it's a deliberate choice. And the reason we can keep it that way is because a small group of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big ask — just that if you find value in these episodes, that's what keeps the lights on and the content ad-free. Luna: Exactly. No pressure, just wanted to mention it because it's a direct way to support what we do. We're grateful for everyone who already does. Lucas: So back to Maria's story — one thing I didn't mention is that she also created a simple Notion template for her clients to track their automation progress. That became a small additional revenue stream, selling it for $50 a pop on Gumroad. Luna: Oh, nice. So she's layering income streams — consulting, retainer, and a digital product. That's smart diversification. Lucas: Exactly. The template alone brings in about $300 a month now, with almost no ongoing effort. She set it up once and it sells passively. Luna: I think the real lesson here is that expertise plus packaging equals leverage. You don't have to work more hours to earn more — you just have to package what you know in a way that solves a specific problem. Lucas: And Maria is proof that you can start small. She didn't have a big audience or a fancy website. She just started having conversations on LinkedIn and in forums, and that built momentum. Luna: Alright, so for anyone listening who wants to try something similar, what's the first step? Lucas: Pick one software tool that you already use or can learn in a month. Get certified in it. Then find a community — could be a LinkedIn group, a Reddit sub, a Facebook group — where people who use that tool ask questions. Start answering. After you've done that for a couple of weeks, offer a free 30-minute audit to two or three people. That'll be your test run. Luna: And if those first audits go well, you've got case studies and testimonials. Then you can productize and start charging. Lucas: Exactly. Maria's first client came from a forum question she answered about automating invoice reminders. That one conversation led to a $1,200 retainer. Luna: That's a great story. And it's repeatable. Thanks, Lucas. I think we gave people a lot to think about. Lucas: Hope so. That's it for today — see you next time.