Bookkeeping for marketing agencies
Categorized, reconciled, closed, and handed to you on a date you can plan aroundA close that lands on the 25th is a history lesson. Ours lands on the 10th business day, and the dashboard updates with it.
We do the books for marketing and creative agencies. Not restaurants, not e-commerce, not contractors. That narrowness is the point: 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 contractual, not aspirational
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.
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.
The 48-hour rule that keeps the close on time
Most late closes are caused by one unanswered question about one transaction. So the agreement handles it. At the start of each month you get the list of uncategorized or questioned transactions, and you have 48 hours to respond. If you don't, we close the books using reasonable professional judgment and flag what we assumed.
Your books never sit open waiting on you. That's deliberate.
Questions come batched
You won't get a drip of one-off pings. Questions arrive together, on a rhythm. Structural decisions get written down so nothing lives in anyone's head.
What we don't do
This is the part most bookkeepers leave vague. Ours is in writing, in section XVIII of 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.
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.
- 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 trying to work out who you actually need, or go straight to the rates.
Practical terms
- Six-month minimum on every partnership. Twelve months waives the $3,000 audit fee and locks your rate.
- Billing runs automatically through Stripe on the same date each month.
- Work outside the agreed scope is $150 an hour, agreed in writing first.
- You give us access to banks, cards and the accounting system within 3 business days of signing.
- Agreements are governed by Idaho law.
Questions
The ones people actually ask on the first callWhen 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. Accounts receivable management is excluded from every agreement, which means we do not invoice your clients, follow up on collections, or contact them about outstanding balances. We do build the weekly aging report that shows who is open and how many days past due, so your team can work from it.
What happens if I do not answer your questions about a transaction?
You have 48 hours from the start of the month to respond on uncategorized or questioned transactions. If nothing comes back, we close using reasonable professional judgment instead of holding your books open, and we tell you what we assumed.
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
A 30-minute call, and you will know whether this fitsMonthly bookkeeping, a Fathom dashboard, and fractional CFO advisory for marketing and creative agencies doing $300K to $5M. Logan works every account.