I have been doing this for twenty two years
Twenty two years of bookkeeping and tax preparation. Long enough to have seen what a good set of books does for a business, and what a bad set does to one.
I learned this work inside large corporations, where the standard is high because it has to be and nobody thanks you for it. Clean reconciliations. Real deadlines. A file that survives being looked at. Most small businesses never get access to that training, because the firms that work that way charge accordingly.
So I do it that way, for people who could not otherwise afford it. That is the whole business.
I grew up in the country around horses, which is where the early mornings come from, and the habit of checking a thing twice before you trust it.
Running a house with my husband and five kids in it is where I learned the rest of it, which is that a budget is a promise you make to somebody.
twenty two years and I still open every statement
Rachel, Founder and CEO, Lake City, Florida
What I will tell you that others will not
This part matters more than my resume.
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If your books are worse than you said
At the first look, with a number, not after three months of invoices.
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If you do not need me
An hour of setup help and a good habit beats a monthly bookkeeper for some people. I would rather lose the retainer than take money for work that does not need doing.
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If a question is past what I do
Some questions belong to an attorney or a specialist. I will name that rather than guess.
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What something will cost, before I start
Not an estimate that moves. A number.
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When you are about to do something expensive
Buying equipment, hiring, changing how the business is structured. Ask me before, not after. Before is free. After is a cleanup.
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When I am wrong
It happens. You will hear it from me first.
the honest version is usually cheaper in the end
Why I left the big rooms
In a large company your work is one column of a very long spreadsheet. It matters, but it changes nobody's day. Here it does. A duplicate deposit I catch for a contractor in Branford is his week. No job is too big or too small. That is not a slogan I picked, it is the shape of the work.
Where I am
Lake City, Florida. Columbia County, where I-75 and I-10 cross, close enough to the Suwannee to smell the water after rain. I work with people here and with people in other states I have never met. The local ones hand me a folder, the remote ones use the portal, and the books come out the same.
Twenty minutes, and nothing to prepare
A shoebox is fine. A spreadsheet is fine. Nothing at all is fine too.