You are retiring from your monotonous daily work that you have been doing for past couple of decades. It is now time to take a break, but not from life. This is the time when you can take all those exotic holidays, visit places you have wanted to go but couldn't as you were always so loaded with work. Unfortunately we humans are complicated creatures and we are hardly ever happy with our state. After all the relaxation and holidaying one fine day we might feel that we have become useless and have lost our productivity. Some of us have a wrong notion that after retirement people do not work. In fact retirement opens up world of opportunities waiting to be explored. One such field is bookkeeping.
Understanding the Scope of Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping as the name suggests is the work of maintaining books or the financial record of a company. It includes the work of maintaining records of the money the company owes to tax agencies, employees, workers and other vendors. Also it is to keep an account of the amounts owed to the company by its customers, buyers and clients. The bookkeeper needs to keep an account of all the monetary transactions. This includes each penny that is received or paid by the company. A businessman is generally very busy and hires help to maintain these records. Small business houses usually outsource their bookkeepers rather than hiring them full time. With the rise of internet and the computer, online bookkeeping has become the buzz word today. The world has surely become small with the use of the internet, so a person sitting in New Delhi can maintain a book of accounts for a person in Houston. With the help of online software the entries can be made, and these entries are accessible from any part of the world, where ever there is access to data communication link, (the entries will show only you have the necessary account and password.) This has made bookkeeping an ideal income option for a lot of retired individuals.
Educational Requirements and Training
For getting hired as a bookkeeper you must have knowledge of simple accounts to be able to adjust entries, do data processing, and maintain a journal and ledger. To get a good offer one must know some of the accounting and word processing software like QuickBooks, Peachtree, Microsoft office, and should be comfortable with working on spreadsheets. Communication skills need to be good and some work experience in this field is generally preferred. You will need to maintain and organize financial records like keeping accounts of the departmental activities, processing orders for supplies, and providing yearly and monthly financial reports among many other functions. He will need to know about ways of maintaining account balances and report on the status and ways in which tabular materials, statistical data and charts are prepared. However, people who are not trained should not get disheartened as there are lots of online and part time tutorials where they can get updated with any of the bookkeeping software.
Opportunities and Payment Options with Bookkeeping
According to a census conducted by the US department of labor there will be a 20% growth in the employment opportunities in the field of account and book keeping by year 2014. As the economy is growing the number of business are also increasing and there is an increasing demand of bookkeepers and tax preparers. The salary which is offered is around $30 - $60 for an hour, depending upon the kind of work you take up part time/full time.
During Retirement This is an Ideal Job
The pay scale which is offered in this field cannot be matched to any other retirement job in any other field. The best part is there is not much of technical know how required for this job making it even more ideal for an average retirement plan. The fact that the job is not very laborious; it can be juggled between other activities. With the aid of the internet one can do this work from any part of the world, so even if you are on a long holiday you can still make some money by taking care of somebody's books of accounts. So, don't let your experience go to waste, enhance it and make yourself more productive, as life does not end with retirement, in fact it's a new beginning. Bookkeeping helps you use previous work experience, or simply create a new career after retirement.
