Monthly Bookkeeping
Transactions categorized, every account reconciled, and a financial package in your inbox by a fixed date each month. No wondering whether it got done.
Grand Rapids & West Michigan
Clean books, closed every month. From $150.
Bookkeeping for small service businesses. The price ranges are below, so you'll know roughly what this costs before you ever get on a call.
- 50+businesses' books handled
- 14years in bookkeeping
- QBOCertified ProAdvisor
Before anything else
Let's find out quickly whether this is a fit
Most bookkeeping pages try to be right for everyone. This one doesn't. Reading the right-hand column and deciding to look elsewhere saves us both a call.
This works well when
Good fit
- You're a service business with roughly one to five people
- Payroll runs itself, or you run it, or there isn't any yet
- Revenue is straightforward — no inventory, no multi-state sales tax
- You're comfortable working by email on a monthly rhythm
- You'll spend a little on tools that save us both hours
This won't work when
Look elsewhere
- You need answers within the hour, or someone on call nights and weekends
- You want a controller who owns cash-flow decisions, not a bookkeeper who reports them
- Receipts and documentation mostly don't exist and won't going forward
- Questions routinely go unanswered for more than a couple of business days
- Work lands with no notice and has to be turned around the same day
Services
Four things, done properly
Most clients start with a cleanup or a catch-up project and move onto monthly bookkeeping once the books are current.
Catch-Up & Cleanup
Months or years behind, or working from books someone else got wrong. Reconstructed period by period, reconciled against source documents, and explained in plain English.
QuickBooks Setup & Repair
A chart of accounts built around how your business actually earns, plus bank feeds, rules, and reports configured so the file stays clean on its own.
Payroll & 1099 Coordination
Works alongside Gusto, ADP, or Paychex — recording it correctly, reconciling it, and handling year-end 1099 preparation and W-9 collection.
Pricing
What this costs
Every set of books is different, so the monthly number comes after I look at yours. But you shouldn't have to get on a call to find out the range — here it is.
Simple books
$150–250
per month, typical
- One-person business, low volume
- One or two accounts
- No payroll, no sales tax
Growing business · most common
$300–600
per month, typical
- A few employees or contractors
- Several accounts and credit cards
- Payroll recorded, 1099s at year end
More moving parts
$700+
per month, typical
- High transaction volume
- Multiple related entities
- Michigan sales tax filing
Catch-Up & Cleanup
Priced as a flat project and quoted in full before any work begins — never hourly. Three months behind and three years behind are the same process, just a different number of them.
quoted flat
These are ranges, not a price list. I'll give you one flat monthly number after a look at your books, and that number holds — no hourly invoices and no surprises. If your business changes enough that the work does too, we talk about it before anything changes. Monthly fees are drafted automatically from your bank account on the first, so there are no invoices to chase on either side.
How it works
Four steps, then it runs on a rhythm
The whole point of monthly bookkeeping is that it stops being something you think about.
Fit check
Ten minutes by email or phone to confirm you're in the good-fit column above. If you're not, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.
Flat quote
A look at your file and your volume, then a fixed monthly number and a fixed catch-up number if you need one. Both before you commit to anything.
Access and setup
Read-only access to your books, plus statements for any period being cleaned up. You get a checklist so nothing stalls halfway.
Monthly close
Books closed and your reports delivered by the 15th, every month, without you asking. Questions go out in one batch, not a trickle.
One thing worth saying plainly: this practice runs on email and a monthly cycle. You'll usually hear back the same business day, and I'm reachable by phone when something genuinely needs a conversation — but I'm not on call nights and weekends, and work that needs turning around within the hour isn't a fit. I'd rather tell you that now than after you've signed.
About
Kay Shooks
I've worked on the books of more than fifty businesses — as an in-house finance manager, as an outsourced bookkeeper carrying a full client roster, and as a staff accountant supporting CPAs through tax season. The through-line is the same everywhere: I'm fast at the transaction work, and I'm stubborn about tracing a problem to its actual root instead of forcing a number to balance.
The most complicated engagement I've handled was a manufacturer running five related entities on more than $3 million in revenue, with intercompany transactions crossing the US–Canada border. I inherited roughly a year of misclassified transactions and inaccurate revenue costing from my predecessor, worked through it with the external accountant, and rebuilt the processes so it wouldn't drift again.
Tenacity Bookkeeping exists because that work suits smaller businesses just as well, and most of them can't hire someone to do it in-house.
- QuickBooks Online Certified ProAdvisor — Level 2 in progress
- QuickBooks Online and Desktop, ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Hubdoc, Excel
- Payroll, 401(k) administration, sales tax, 1099s, month-end close
- Based in Grand Rapids, working with businesses across West Michigan
Industries worked in
Video production · Graphic design · Ecommerce and retail · Legal · Construction · Dental · Acupuncture · Gyms and fitness · Manufacturing · Furniture making · Home cleaning · Marketing and PR · Coffee · Interior design
Questions
Straight answers
Why not just quote me on a call?
Because you'd find out eventually, and making you sit through a discovery call first wastes your time to create leverage I don't want. I can't give you an exact number without seeing your books — but you should be able to tell in thirty seconds whether this is in your range, not thirty minutes.
Are you a CPA? Can you do my taxes?
No. I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA, and I don't prepare or file returns. I've worked in a CPA practice and alongside accountants for much of my career, so I know what your accountant needs at tax time — and what it costs you when they don't get it. Clean books mean your CPA spends their time on tax strategy instead of billing you hourly to fix bookkeeping.
How far behind is too far behind?
There isn't a point where it becomes unfixable. As long as bank and card statements exist, the books can be rebuilt. I've reconstructed a full year of someone else's misclassified work on a five-entity business — a year of your own transactions is a smaller problem than it feels like.
Do I have to switch software?
No. I work inside your existing QuickBooks file, Online or Desktop. If the setup is genuinely working against you I'll explain why, but changing platforms is never a condition of working together.
What do you need to get started?
Read-only access to your QuickBooks file, and bank and credit card statements covering any period being cleaned up. For catch-up projects, add payroll reports and loan documents. You'll get a checklist so none of it is guesswork.
Do we need to meet in person?
No — this practice runs remotely, and that's part of how the pricing stays where it is. If you'd rather sit down somewhere in Grand Rapids once to get started, that's fine too.
Find out where your books actually stand
A ten-minute fit check, a flat quote, and an honest answer about whether this is worth doing.
The button opens an email with seven quick questions about your business. Answer what you can — I’ll take it from there.