13 Side Hustles for Accountants to Make Extra Money - Vital Dollar (2024)

Are you an accountant looking for ways to make extra money on the side? If so, you’re in luck! Several excellent side hustles allow you to use your accounting skills and expertise.

This article covers the best side hustles for accountants and finance professionals. Whether you’re looking to earn a little extra income or start your own business, read on for some practical ideas.

Looking for more options? See my list of 150+ side hustle ideas.

Best Side Hustles for Accountants and CPAs

Whether you’re just starting your accounting career or an experienced Certified Public Accountant, you can do some excellent side jobs for extra money. Here are my top suggestions.

1. Freelance Accounting

One of the great things about being an accountant is that you can easily offer freelance work to clients and get paid per hour. This means you can work from home, set your own hours (around your full-time job), and choose your clients.

If you’re looking to make extra money on the side, freelancing is a great option. You can find work through online platforms like Upwork or Fiverr, or by contacting local small businesses directly.

You can offer your accounting knowledge to small businesses needing help setting up or managing their finances, filing estimated tax payments, planning for families, preparing income tax returns, and handling other complicated tax issues.

Of course, the tax season up to the April tax deadline will be the busiest if you focus on tax preparation. This accounting side hustle can be highly profitable, and you may be able to make a significant amount of money in just a few months.

If you’re interested in tax preparation, you can start as a tax consultant, helping your family members and friends with their taxes. Once you’ve got some experience, you can branch out and work with other clients. You may want to advertise locally or work to build word-of-mouth referrals.

Freelancing can also help you in other ways aside from the extra money. The experience you gain and the connections you make may open up new doors in the future or help you prepare for advancement opportunities. Overall, it’s one of the top accounting side hustles.

Before you take on any clients as an independent contractor, check with your employer to ensure there are no issues or conflicts of interest with your full-time accounting job.

2. Bookkeeping

Another excellent accounting side hustle is to offer bookkeeping services. This can be a great way to make money while helping small businesses manage their finances. You can work from home and get paid per hour.

Bookkeeping does not require accounting experience, but as a professional accountant, you’ll have knowledge and experience that will certainly help your work. As a result, you may be able to charge more for your services than an entry-level bookkeeper.

A small business owner may hire a bookkeeper for short-term projects to help them set up or improve their own financial processes. However, most of your clients are likely to be ongoing.

This could include small businesses that aren’t big enough to need a full-time accountant but need someone to stay on top of their finances. You might work for these clients for a few hours weekly or monthly, providing stability.

You’ll need to be familiar with accounting software such as Quickbooks or Xero to get started. You can also consider taking a bookkeeping course to improve your skills if needed. Once you’re confident in your abilities, you can start looking for potential customers.

You can offer your bookkeeping services to clients through platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr or contact businesses directly. You may even know a few small business owners or entrepreneurs who would benefit from your services.

And since most of your clients will be ongoing, it’s possible to have a great side hustle with only a few clients or possibly even a single client.

To learn more, please see How to Start a Bookkeeping Business.

3. Consulting

You can further use your accounting skills by offering consulting services, especially if you want a high-income side hustle. Working as an accounting consultant is an excellent way to use the knowledge and experience you’ve gained from your job.

You can offer consultation for businesses of all sizes, but small businesses will likely be the most interested in your services. They may not have the resources or budget to hire a larger consulting firm.

There are many different ways you can consult for businesses. You can help clients with their finances, advise them on tax planning, or help them set up their own internal accounting and bookkeeping processes. The options to make money are endless, depending on your specific areas of expertise.

It’s also possible to offer consulting to families and individuals. For example, you can offer tax planning services to help people save money on their taxes. You can also offer financial coaching services to help people make sound investment decisions or plan for retirement. This option provides better income potential than some other CPA side hustles.

You can start this side hustle for accountants by contacting businesses or individuals you think could benefit from your services. You can also list your consulting business on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr.

4. Coaching

Coaching may be the perfect option if you’re looking for a side hustle for accountants that’s both rewarding and flexible. As an accounting professional, you have a lot of knowledge and experience that others would find valuable.

You can offer coaching services to business owners, entrepreneurs, families, and individuals. The topics you can coach are endless, but some ideas include financial, business, tax, and investment coaching.

Coaching is an excellent option if you’re looking for a side hustle that you can do entirely online. You can meet with clients over the phone or via video chat and work with clients worldwide.

You’ll need to decide on the coaching you want to offer and build up your experience in that area to get started. You can then start marketing your valuable services to potential clients. List your coaching services on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr, or you can contact businesses or individuals directly.

5. Printables

If you have a knack for design, you can create and sell printables online. Printables are digital files that the customer can print out. They can be anything from planners and organization charts to grocery lists and recipe cards.

As an accountant, you can create budget planners and other tax or financial printables. The possibilities are endless.

If you’re looking for ideas, search Etsy for keywords related to money and printables. You’ll see lots of examples of products you can create.

Although this side hustle is ideal for someone with graphic design experience, you certainly don’t need to be a designer. Thanks to Canva, creating printables is a simple task.

And if you prefer to hire someone else to do the design work, you can easily find freelance printable designers on Fiverr for reasonable rates.

You can sell your printables on Etsy or create your own website with a platform like Shopify or Podia. Creating your site requires more work, but the income potential is higher, and you’ll be in complete control.

Starting with Etsy is a good idea because you can get your shop up and running quickly and create your own website later.

6. Freelance Writing

If you’re a strong writer, you can use your writing skills and accounting knowledge to make extra cash on the side. Many businesses need content written but don’t have the time or resources to do it themselves.

As an accountant, you likely have a lot of knowledge and experience in personal finance, business finance, taxes, and investing. This makes you an excellent candidate for writing about financial concepts and accounting-related topics.

This is ideal because these topics generally allow you to earn an excellent rate for your services. And if you’re a CPA, you’ll be able to demand higher rates because your expertise is desirable to clients.

Your projects may include blog posts, articles for websites, eBooks, or even whitepapers. You can find clients by checking freelance writing job boards, joining Facebook groups for freelancers, networking on LinkedIn, or reaching out to websites and blogs that hire freelance writers for financial topics.

This is an ideal side hustle for accountants because you can easily do the work around your existing schedule. Additionally, if you have a few clients who need ongoing work (which is common if you’re writing for websites or blogs), you won’t need a lot of clients. You may be able to find a few long-term clients and have plenty of work to make a great side hustle income.

7. Blog or Niche Website

Starting a blog or niche website can be ideal if you want to make money through digital marketing. This side hustle will take some time to start and earn an income, but it can be very profitable once it gets going.

While you could start a site on any topic that interests you, one option is to use your expertise to create a blog on accounting, taxes, financial planning, or some other accounting-related topic. So instead of writing for other websites and blogs as a freelancer, you’ll own the business.

Starting a blog or niche website offers higher income potential (unlimited) than freelancing, but it will take longer to start making money. By freelancing, you can earn money as soon as you have your first client. With your own site, it might take six months or more before you start earning anything from your work.

As your blog or website grows, you can monetize it in several ways. You could monetize it through advertising (including Google AdSense), affiliate marketing, creating and selling products (like eBooks), or even offering services directly through your site.

This is an excellent opportunity if you’re interested in starting and growing an online business. It could begin as a simple side hustle, but the sky is the limit, and it’s possible that your site could turn into a thriving business.

Please read my Guide to Building a Profitable Niche Website to learn more.

8. YouTube Channel

You can create a YouTube channel on just about any topic to make money. As an accountant, using your expertise to create videos on financial topics like accounting, taxes, investing, or personal finance makes sense. This is an ideal way to use your knowledge from your full-time accounting job to make extra money on the side.

You’ll need to reach 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers to earn money from your channel through the YouTube Partner Program. Once you reach this threshold, you can apply for monetization and start running ads on your videos. You’ll then earn a portion of the revenue from these ads.

You can also earn money through direct sponsorships, affiliate marketing, or creating and selling your own products. These are just a few of the ways that you could monetize your channel.

Building a channel from scratch takes time and patience, just like starting your own website or blog. You’ll need to put in several months of work, at least, before you see much of a payoff. But the long-term rewards can be well worth the effort.

9. Podcast

Podcasting is another option for those who want to start their own side hustle. And like starting a blog or YouTube channel, it can be done on just about any topic, although it would make sense to use your accounting expertise.

To start making money from your podcast, you’ll need to monetize it through advertising, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, or creating and selling your own products. Like with a blog or YouTube channel, the key to making money with this side hustle is producing high-quality content that will appeal to a large and responsive audience.

It can take some time to build up a following for your podcast, but once you do, you can start earning an income from it. If you’re patient and produce quality content, this could be a very profitable side hustle for accountants.

Starting a podcast is easier and cheaper than you might think. If you have a laptop with a built-in microphone, you have everything you need to record your episodes. A higher-quality mic will produce better audio, but that’s not completely necessary to start.

Audacity is free software you can download for editing audio files. You can upgrade your gear once your podcast is making money.

10. Teaching or Tutoring

Tutoring may be the perfect option if you’re looking for a side hustle that’s both flexible and rewarding.

As an accountant, you have a lot of knowledge and experience in math and finance. And this makes you an excellent candidate for tutoring students who need help.

If you’re a CPA, you can tutor students preparing to take the CPA exam. Many people are willing to pay for personalized help to increase their chances of passing the exam.

Another similar option is to work as a part-time teacher. You could get a job as an adjunct professor at a local college or university and teach an accounting class. When I was in college, I took an evening accounting class taught by a full-time CPA.

You can check with community colleges or other colleges and universities in your area to get started. Or, you may be able to find a job teaching an online course that would allow you to work from home.

11. Create an Online Course

Another online business model involves creating courses to share your knowledge. This could be a course on anything from accounting software to tax preparation. And since you’re an accountant, you have the perfect skillset for creating a successful online course on related topics.

Creating an online course requires time and effort but can be highly profitable. Once your course is created, you can sell it repeatedly without additional work.

To start, you’ll need to determine what topic or topics you want to cover in your course. Once done, you can create your lectures and other course materials.

You can offer your course through a platform like Udemy or Skillshare, which is an easy way to start. However, you’ll have higher income potential if you create your own website and sell the course independently.

Creating a site may sound complicated, but it’s actually simple, thanks to Teachable or Podia. These platforms will help you create a professional-looking site that will host your course and accept student payments.

And if you want to increase your income and grow your business, you could create multiple online courses on different topics. This would give you a passive income stream that could eventually grow into a full-time income.

12. Self-Publishing

If you’re a good writer, self-publishing a book or e-book can be a great way to make money on the side. And since you’re an accountant, you could write an e-book on various topics related to your profession. For example, you could write a book on tax planning or how to prepare for the CPA exam.

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a popular platform for publishing e-books. It’s easy to use and doesn’t cost anything to get started. Once your book is finished, you can upload it to KDP and make it available for sale. Amazon will take a percentage of each sale, but you’ll keep most of the profits.

With this model, you don’t need to pay to print hundreds or thousands of copies of your book in advance, and you don’t need to deal with inventory. When a customer purchases your book, Amazon will print a copy and ship it to them.

Writing one book or e-book is a great start, but if you want to maximize your income and build a business, you can continue by working on additional books. This could eventually lead to a full-time income from writing if you can produce enough quality content.

Becoming a self-published author could also help your career aside from simply proving extra cash on the side. You’ll be able to brand yourself as an expert on the topics you write about, which could lead to opportunities for speaking engagements, sponsorships or brand partnerships, or even a new job.

13. Investing

Investing in stocks is a great way to make money on the side, and you can do it with just a few hundred dollars. Thanks to fractional shares and commission-free trades, platforms like Public.com and Webull make it easy for anyone to invest.

If you’re looking for passive income, buying dividend stocks is one of the best options. These stocks pay out a portion of their profits to shareholders each quarter (or sometimes annually or monthly) and provide a steady income stream. You can reinvest your dividends to buy more shares or use the cash for anything you want.

Another option is to invest in real estate through platforms like Fundrise. With Fundrise, you can invest in a portfolio of income-generating properties for as little as $10. And since Fundrise is a passive investment, you won’t need to work to earn money from your investment.

There are other ways to invest in real estate, like becoming a landlord. This requires more work since you’ll need to find tenants and manage the property, but it can be a great way to earn extra income if you have the time and energy for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts on Side Hustles for Accountants

As a finance professional, you have much knowledge and expertise that others would be willing to pay for. If you’re looking for ways to make good money outside your full-time job, consider freelancing, starting a blog or YouTube channel, or launching your own podcast. These are just a few of the many finance side hustles for accountants. With some hard work and dedication, you can earn a nice income from one or more of these options.