What to Expect When You Hire Boomtown as Your Bookkeeper
Most bookkeeping websites are pretty vague about what the work actually looks like, which isn't helpful when you're trying to decide if you want to hire someone. Hiring a bookkeeper is a meaningful act of trust (you're handing over access to your business's financial life), and I think you deserve to know exactly what you're signing up for before you commit to anything.
Here's what working with Boomtown looks like in real terms.
Who you'll actually work with
You'll work with me, Kass. I'm a certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor and I'm the only person who touches your books.
Boomtown is a one-person firm by design, not by accident. I'm not trying to grow into an agency, and I'm not in a scaling-up phase that will eventually hand your account off to a junior staffer. When my client roster is full, I refer new leads to trusted colleagues rather than take on more work than I can do well. I think that's the honest way to run this kind of firm.
I don't outsource bookkeeping offshore, ever. In rare cases where I need an extra set of hands, I have a small group of US-based colleagues I can bring in temporarily, and they get paid a fair wage for the work. That's non-negotiable on my end.
How we'll communicate
Email is my primary channel. My hours are 9 AM to 6 PM Eastern, Monday through Friday. My goal is to respond within two business days, and usually I'm faster than that.
Once you're a client, you'll get set up in my CRM with a dedicated Client Portal. That's where I'll send transactional questions (the "hey, what was this $340 charge on April 3rd?" kind of thing), where you'll upload any documents I need, and where I'll deliver your monthly financial reports. You'll have access to the Portal at all times, and it sends automatic reminders for anything outstanding.
For bigger conversations (strategic questions, changes in your business, anything that benefits from actual back-and-forth), you can book a virtual call with me anytime through my online scheduler. The link lives in my email signature.
What a typical month looks like
Once we've settled into a rhythm, the monthly cadence works like this:
Around the 5th of the month, I'll send statement requests and any transactional questions I have from the prior month's work. These come through the Client Portal.
By the 15th of the month, I need your responses back. Sometimes it'll be earlier (if you can get statements to me within a week of my request, that's ideal), but the 15th is the real deadline.
By the 21st of the month, your financial reporting package is in your Portal. That's your P&L, Balance Sheet, and any other reports included in your service package.
One important thing about reports: I won't run them until all outstanding items are resolved. Reports built on incomplete data aren't useful, and giving you numbers I don't trust would be worse than giving you nothing. So the 21st delivery depends on the 15th deadline being met.
What I need from you
Two main things.
First, responsiveness on document requests and transactional questions. When I ask for a statement or a clarification, I need it within the timeline above. I realize this isn't anyone's favorite task, but it's what makes the rest work.
Second, view-only access to your financial systems wherever possible. If your bank, payment processor, or POS system offers view-only access, granting that to me is the most efficient setup. I can pull what I need without you having to download statements every month, and you keep full control of your accounts. For systems that don't offer view-only access, we use the Portal for uploads.
If anything in your business changes (new bank account, new payment processor, new revenue stream), I need to know within a month so we can keep your books accurate as you grow.
What's included, and what's not
Monthly bookkeeping with me covers the core work: categorization, reconciliation of every bank and credit card account, and your monthly reporting package. Beyond that, your specific package gets customized to your business, so this will vary.
What's not automatically included:
1099 processing. It's available as an add-on if you let me know by December 1st ($99 setup fee plus $20 per 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC). If you'd rather handle 1099s yourself, my colleague Rachel at Gentle Frog has great resources on her blog.
Tax preparation. I'm not a tax preparer. My job is to get your books clean enough that your tax preparer has something solid to work with, and I'm happy to coordinate directly with them at tax time.
Financial advising. I can tell you what your numbers are and what they mean. Investment advice, retirement planning, anything of that nature is outside my lane.
The first month or two
Expect more contact from me than you'll get long-term. I'll be asking a lot of questions as I learn your business: how you categorize this type of transaction, what this vendor does, how a given revenue stream flows through your systems. It's front-loaded on purpose. Once we've worked through the initial questions, things settle into the monthly rhythm and you'll mostly hear from me on the normal schedule.
What changes over time
I review every client's scope of work every six months. If your business has grown, added complexity, or outgrown the original package, we'll talk about updating it. I also adjust rates annually to account for my own rising business costs, which I'll communicate well in advance.
If something isn't working, tell me. If you'd rather something be done differently, tell me. The one thing I'll ask is that you don't try to "help" by doing bookkeeping tasks in the file yourself. It's faster for me to do the work correctly from the start than to untangle well-intentioned changes later.
If this sounds like a fit
Book a free call and we'll talk about your specific business and what a package would look like!