Bookkeeping for marketing agencies
Categorized, reconciled, closed, and handed to you on a date you can plan around
- P&L by the 10th business day on Growth and Scale
- Written into the agreement
Most agency bookkeeping is a compliance product: it makes the return easy to file. This is a management product. It exists so you can price a retainer and size a hire before the quarter closes.
The short version
- Categorized, reconciled, closed. P&L by the 10th business day on Growth and Scale, the 15th on Starter.
- The close date sits in the agreement, with a delivery day named.
- Your data flows in on its own. Expect about fifteen minutes a month.
- What we don't do is in writing: no tax, no AR, no AP, no payroll.
Already know your books are the problem?
Thirty minutes, last month's P&L, and a straight read on what it's costing you.
We do the books for marketing and creative agencies, and nothing else. So we already know what a billable pass-through is, why your contractor line swings 30% month to month, and where agency COGS stops and overhead starts.
What the monthly close covers
Every engagement includes the same four bookkeeping deliverables, whatever tier you're on.
| Deliverable | What it means |
|---|---|
| Transaction categorization | Every transaction coded in QuickBooks Online, monthly |
| Account reconciliation | Every bank, card and processor account reconciled, monthly |
| P&L statement | Updated by the 10th or 15th business day, depending on tier |
| CPA support | We answer your CPA's data requests and bookkeeping questions directly |
The close date is in the contract
It sits in the services agreement. Growth and Scale clients get the P&L by the 10th business day of the month. Starter gets it by the 15th. That's a real difference and we price it as one.
Why the date matters
If you find out in late February that January's margin slipped, January is gone and February is half gone. A close on the 10th business day gives you most of the month to do something about it.
How your information gets to us
This is the part that makes or breaks a bookkeeping relationship, and most firms never explain it. The honest answer: we build the system around how your agency already works, and then it mostly runs without you.
- 1
Almost everything comes in on its own
Your bank, cards, Stripe and payroll feed straight into QuickBooks. You never forward a statement or download a CSV.
- 2
Receipts get captured where the money is spent
If card receipts are the messy part, we'll usually recommend a spend tool like Ramp: your team snaps a photo at the point of purchase and it lands coded. If a tool is overkill, one shared folder or a single monthly email works fine. We'll tell you which fits.
- 3
One email, once a month, and it's short
Anything we genuinely can't work out arrives in one batched list. Most months that's a handful of lines and a few minutes of your time.
- 4
The close doesn't wait on you
If something's still open when the close date comes, we close on our best professional judgment and flag exactly what we assumed, so you get numbers on the date you were promised either way.
What that looks like day to day
Once the first month is set up, most owners spend fifteen minutes a month on their books. The information arrives on its own instead of being chased.
Every structural decision we make together gets written down, so nothing lives in anyone's head and nothing gets re-litigated in March.
This is what your month would look like.
Fifteen minutes of your time, a close on a date you can plan around.
What we don’t do, in writing
What we don't do
This is the part most bookkeepers leave vague. Ours is in writing, in every agreement.
- No tax work. No preparation, no filing, no planning, no advising. You keep a licensed tax professional and we feed them clean books.
- No accounts receivable. We don't invoice your clients, chase payment, or talk to them about money they owe you.
- No accounts payable. We don't issue payments to your vendors or run your bill pay.
- No payroll processing. No payroll tax returns, no remittance. Payroll enters the books as journal entries from your provider's summaries.
- No GAAP-basis deliverables unless we agree to it in writing, and no audit preparation or representation.
- No legal, HR or compliance advising.
We build the report that tells you who owes you and how late they are. Your team sends the emails. That split keeps us out of your client relationships, which is where a bookkeeper does not belong.
What we see across the book
Agencies between $600K and $1.2M run operating profit at 15% to 20% and put 25% to 35% of revenue into people. Those bands come from the engagements we close every month, and they are the first thing your numbers get measured against.
Where bookkeeping stops and advisory starts
Clean books are the floor. Three of the four layers that own your numbers sit above them, and we cover all three.
Pick your depth
- Records only. Categorized, reconciled, closed. That's Starter.
- Records plus a monthly read. Dashboard, quarterly calls, monthly Loom walkthroughs, an annual budget, quarterly forecasts. That's Growth.
- Records plus a weekly pulse. Weekly financial report, monthly forecasts, monthly calls. That's Scale.
See how the four layers divide up if you're working out who you need, or go straight to the rates.
Questions
The ones people actually ask on the first call
When exactly will my P&L be ready each month?
By the 10th business day of the month on the Growth and Scale tiers, and by the 15th business day on Starter. The date is written into the services agreement rather than left as a target.
Do you handle invoicing my clients and chasing late payments?
No. We do not invoice your clients, chase collections, or contact them about what they owe, and that is excluded from every agreement. We do build the weekly aging report showing who is open and how late, so your team can work from it.
How much of my time does this take each month?
About fifteen minutes, once the first month is set up. Bank, card, Stripe and payroll data flows in on its own and receipts get captured where the money is spent. Anything we cannot work out arrives as one short email a month.
Do I still need a CPA if you keep my books?
Yes. We do not prepare, file, plan or advise on tax. We keep the books clean through the year and answer your CPA's data requests directly so the handoff at year end is short.
Will you clean up books that are already a mess?
Historical clean-up is a separate line rather than part of the monthly fee. It runs $250 a month or $2,000 for a year of catch-up work, and a year-to-date cleanup can be scoped as a one-time project alongside the ongoing close.
Next step
Thirty minutes, and you'll know where you stand
Bring last month's P&L. We'll tell you what it's actually saying about your margin, your owner pay and your next hire. If we're not the right people to fix it, we'll say so on the call.
You bring
Last month's P&L. That's it. No prep, no forms.
We do
Read it live and tell you what it says about margin, owner pay and your next hire.
You leave with
The two or three things worth fixing first, whether or not you hire us.
No deck, no pitch. If we're not the right people for it, we'll say so on the call.