Newsletter veterans successful in switching from subscriber base to membership program.

After many years in the subscription newsletter industry, award-winning copywriter Steve Sahlein and publishing executive Stan Hartman formed a partnership in 1987 to create The American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers (AIPB).

It's a national association for bookkeepers which now has 30,000 members and offers the only national cerification for bookkeepers.

"A CB (Certified Bookkeeper) is to bookkeepers what a CPA is to accountants: the cream of the profession," Sahlein told NL/NL.

Asked if he missed creating knock 'em dead newsletter promotion packages, Sahlein said much of what they do is quite similar to newsletter promotion and product development. "We're still using a DM package that I wrote almost 20 years ago."

And they do publish a newsletter, The General Ledger, a monthly which comes with AIPB membership. It provides breaking IRS, tax and accounting news.

Target audience

Sahlein said that AIPB's focus is the bookkeepers at companies with fewer than 100 employees. "They are often the only accounting professional in the company and therefore the de facto CFO. They are responsible for just about everything but the tax return: payroll taxes, accounting, and even some tax, such as depreciation."

Because most bookkeepers learned on the job, AIPB offers a substantial amount of continuing education in the form of self-study courses.

The Certified Bookkeeper program

Sahlein and Hartman quickly discovered that bookkeeping is the one profession for which there is no national standard. That means that the bookkeeper who graduated with a four-year accounting degree cannot distinguish herself (85 percent of AIPB members are women) from the receptionist who started paying bills when the bookkeeper quit.

In 1997, AIPB began the Certified Bookkeeper program, a national certification for bookkeepers. To become certified, Sahlein said, a bookkeeper must:

* Sit for three two-hour exams at any of 300 Prometric (formerly Sylvan-Prometric) test centers nationwide on the following topics: adjusting entries, error correction (including the bank reconciliation), payroll, depreciation (book and tax), inventory and, as of October 1, internal controls and fraud prevention.

* Have two years' experience as a bookkeeper (which, like CPAs, can be attained before or after taking the exam).

* Sign a code of ethics.

To maintain certification, a bookkeeper must earn 30 Continuing Professional Education Credits a year.

Sahlein said, "In 2003 over 50 college and university continuing education programs offered a course to prepare working bookkeepers for the national exam. (This is not a course that teaches people to become bookkeepers; anyone who does not have a command of double-entry accounting would be utterly lost from Day 1.)

"In 2004, we expect to increase this fivefold to 250 schools (we'll know for sure in September," Sahlein said.

"We just came out with a new self-study course that teaches double-entry bookkeeping in around two hours (one sitting)," Sahlein said. "It is aimed at the person who never heard the terms debit and credit before. In two hours, a receptionist or secretary can enter a new profession as a bookkeeper under supervision."

Member benefits

Membership in AIPB also offers these benefits:

* They may call up for free help anytime, getting free answers to everyday bookkeeping, accounting and payroll questions.

* They receive discounts on AIPB's continuing education books and manuals.

* They may receive liability insurance at reduced rates if they are freelance bookkeepers.

* They receive the monthly technical (tax, payroll and accounting) newsletter.

* The website, www.aipb.org, provides a free job bank and links to over 150 free accounting and tax websites offering free calculators, free accounting templates, and free accounting software.

For years they have been charging $39 for an annual membership in AIPB but recently increased that to $47.

Sahlein and Hartman appear to have the tiger by the tail, because The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook states that in the future Certified Bookkeepers will have the best prospects for a bookkeeping job.

AIPB, 6001 Montrose Road, #500, Rockville, MD 20852, 800-622-0121, fax [phone], www.aipb.

Sahlein, 800-757-4967