Gig Harbor bookkeeper services for growing businesses.
Lynn Solutions works with multiple companies that operate in Gig Harbor, from healthcare and dental, to contractors and tradesmen, to design firms, wellness clinics, eCommerce shops, brick-and-mortar retail, and anything in between. If you operate in Gig Harbor, we are here to help!
We run the money side of your business. That means the books close and reconcile every month, invoices go out and are chased, payroll ties out properly, and the owner gets reports they can actually use to make real business decisions.
No more chasing your bookkeeper around trying to get a basic understanding of your business. We make sure you have what you need to run the business.
Serving Gig Harbor, Tacoma, Pierce County, Kitsap-area businesses, and Washington State remotely.
THE MARKET
Gig Harbor businesses run lean, but their books are more complex than they look.
Gig Harbor is the place the peninsula goes for their dentists, contractors, designers, and dinners out. It's the hub for everything west of the Narrows Bridge. Across the larger Gig Harbor area, there are about 2,000 businesses. Most of them are small enough that the owner is usually still doing the work, and doing the back-office admin too.
The customers here expect a lot from you, and why shouldn't they? Gig Harbor is one of the more affluent areas in Washington, where over half of the residents have a bachelor's degree and the average income is around $110K a year. The town itself has a bougie feel to it for a reason.
But that means hiring a once-a-month data-entry bookkeeper doesn't hold up for a lot of growing businesses here. Neither does hiring a full-time controller, AP clerk, or staff accountant. Most businesses in Gig Harbor are right in the sweet spot between having enough money to need a finance team on staff, and having just enough back-end work that the owner can't afford to keep spending weekends doing it themselves.
That's where we come in. We own the close, the reconciliations, the receivables, and the reporting. Whatever you need, you get, all without having to bring a finance team onboard.
WHAT WE SEE
What we see working with Gig Harbor companies
We've supported multiple companies that have operations in Gig Harbor. Dentists, healthcare companies, wellness clinics, design firms, contractors, tradesmen, eCommerce shops, brick-and-mortar retail... you name it. The industries might differ, but one thing is usually a common denominator: the books don't usually reflect the truth of what happened.
Our healthcare clients and other businesses subject to HIPAA see deposits landing in batches from insurance companies and merchant processors, rarely matching a single day's charges. Without someone reconciling the day sheets and deposits back to what was actually billed, revenue looks fine up until the point it suddenly doesn't.
Payroll is also the biggest line item for most Gig Harbor companies. The handoff between your payroll processor—Gusto, QuickBooks, ADP, etc.—and your accounting software has to be clean. That means clean journal entries, reconciled payroll reports, and someone ensuring that the payroll system and the accounting system talk to each other properly. This should be a monthly rhythm, not a once-a-quarter workflow.
One of the most common things we see with our contractors in Gig Harbor is that jobs can span multiple months, deposits usually come in before work actually starts, and materials end up in limbo in the accounting software, often being coded to the wrong job or wrong account. Worse yet, they might be thrown into a general expense account instead of a COGS (cost of goods sold) account.
Then, on top of that, there's Washington State sales tax and B&O tax. Sales tax is affected by where you complete the actual work, whereas B&O is affected by your industry type. You could be in Gig Harbor one week and Port Orchard the next. We help you sort it out either way and make sure you only pay the government what they need and not a dime more.
Design firms also deal with retainers, project billing, and pass-through purchases all coming from the same bank account. If client furniture, materials, and pass-through purchases aren't handled consistently, revenue and expenses can get overstated and your margins stop telling the truth. That can make the P&L look healthier—or worse—than the business actually is, which can create problems when you're trying to understand profitability or get approved for financing. Not a good situation!
THE PROBLEMS
The problems we usually get called about
Most owners don't reach out because they have a bookkeeping problem. Yes, bookkeeping is part of the solution, but when you don't have one team owning the numbers for your business, it gets messy fast. Usually we see things like these:
- Bank reconciliation hasn't been finished in a few quarters.
- Undeposited Funds keeps growing.
- Ask My Accountant is filled with random transactions nobody knows what they are.
- The owner doesn't trust the P&L, which leads to decisions being made off the bank balance.
- Invoices go out late, and nobody is watching what's past due and following up.
- The payroll report and QuickBooks don't agree, and nobody knows which one is right.
- The same data is being typed into three different systems. Errors grow and staff get fatigued doing it.
- The owner is doing books Sunday night just to try and stay on top of it.
We can fix any of these. If multiple are happening at once, it usually means it's time to find a bookkeeping company you trust to own the process for you.
WHERE TO START
Cleanup or monthly bookkeeping: where do I start?
Cleanup is for books that are behind, unreconciled, or that you just plain don't trust anymore. Maybe you had a bookkeeper or a staff member doing it and they left the company or moved on. Maybe QuickBooks looks current but hasn't been reconciled in months.
The first thing we do is fix the history. Reconcile every relevant account, correct everything that has been miscoded, and get the balance sheet correct. Without cleanup, you can't build accurate books, and it needs to be done before monthly work can begin properly.
Monthly bookkeeping is for books that are up to date and that you can trust enough to make decisions off of. We close every month, usually by the 15th, and reconcile everything. Receivables are tracked, payroll is coordinated properly, and we send you a report each month that you can make decisions off of. We like to highlight things we noticed that might be worth your time as well.
Not only do you get the data entry right, but you get a partner who helps you interpret what's going on too.
Many clients who come to us with unreliable books start with monthly cleanup. Once the books are clean, it's infinitely easier to keep them that way. If you're not sure which one you need, that's what our Fit Call is for.
If the bigger issue is software that doesn't sync up properly with QuickBooks, or you need help interpreting the numbers rather than just producing them, we also do financial systems work and CFO and advisory support.
HOW WE WORK
How we do it all remotely
Gig Harbor is right across the bridge from us. We know the South Sound well, and how businesses in Pierce County are required to report and comply with state and local agencies. From sales tax and B&O tax to L&I and payroll taxes, we get it, and we've done it remotely for our clients across not just the South Sound, but the country.
We don't need to be in your office to do the work. We need accountant access to your accounting software and access to the reporting we need from your bank. That's mostly it.
Most major banks with business banking have a setup where we can pull reports without using your personal login, and we get that access without being able to move money around. QuickBooks is easy to configure so we have remote access. SecureAccess Washington (SAW) and the Department of Revenue are accounts we can add to our list of managed accounts when they're part of the scope.
That's it! We get secure access to your systems and everything comes in digitally. The close happens on a schedule—and, side note, we usually overdeliver on our timelines.
When something looks off to us—and it will at some point—like a deposit that doesn't match the bank report, or a job that is suddenly underwater, you hear from us first. Usually we catch things like that before anyone else in the company knows it's happening because of how active we are behind the scenes.
We help companies catch and fix major issues almost every week at this point in our six-year tenure. It's the benefit you get when you have someone who knows your books, and you don't have to hire them internally and train them up. We've done this, and only this, for quite some time now.
FIT
Who we're a good fit for
We've been doing this for six years now, and we've served dozens of clients ranging in revenue from $100K a year to $50M a year. It's a wide range, we know... but we've had the pleasure of doing business with larger multi-state companies, as well as plenty of small mom-and-pop businesses and everything in between.
It's taught us that, though the joke says otherwise, size doesn't actually matter. What matters most is the scope of what you need.
That means how complex your books are, what's broken, what needs handling monthly, what software you use, and how willing you and your team are to stick to the processes we need to ensure you can succeed.
You can be a $100K-a-year business and be a poor fit for us, or a $25M-a-year business and be a great fit. It all depends on the nature of your issues. We've seen a lot, and if we run into something we aren't comfortable handling, you'll know upfront and in writing.
The best relationships we've developed are with those who want someone to handle the money side of their business. That's it.
Want the books closed regularly? We're a great fit.
Need someone to handle your accounts receivable? Easy.
Payroll processing? Yes.
Do you have broken financial workflows, like a CRM that doesn't play nice with QuickBooks? We can build you workflows that help.
We're not a good fit for you if you need someone onsite regularly, or are unwilling to give us the access we need to serve you excellently. We won't take on new clients who we don't think we can absolutely wow.
- 6 years in business
- Dozens of clients served
- Experience with $100K–$50M businesses
- Headquartered in Tacoma, serving remotely nationwide
“Their responsiveness, professionalism, and commitment to getting things right have made a huge difference for our business. I truly cannot recommend Lynn Solutions highly enough.”
QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions
Do you work with businesses located in Gig Harbor?
Do you need to come onsite?
No. Almost all of our work is done remotely. In the rare event that we need to come onsite, we usually know before we engage, and sometimes we turn those opportunities down. Still, it's worth the conversation, as we have done onsite work before.
Our work can be done entirely digitally and securely. If you need us onsite regularly, we aren't a good fit.
Should I start with cleanup or monthly bookkeeping?
If your accounts haven't been reconciled in a while, start with cleanup. If you don't trust your reports to make accurate business decisions, start with cleanup.
If the books are current and you need someone to own the process moving forward, start with monthly bookkeeping. Most of our clients need some level of cleanup before we begin monthly.
What kinds of businesses do you work with around Gig Harbor?
We've worked with businesses operating in Gig Harbor across healthcare, dental, wellness clinics, contractors, tradesmen, design firms, brick-and-mortar retail, and eCommerce.
More broadly, we love working with professional service firms, trades, and other service businesses that have outgrown basic bookkeeping.
Can we help contractors track job and project costs?
Yes. If you want it within the scope, we can do that. We have experience with Work in Progress (WIP) accounting, job costing, and deposit tracking with contractors.
We make sure invoices happen properly, location is tracked, and, more specifically, that the Washington Combined Excise Tax Return is filed properly when that's part of our scope.
For contractors, accrual and cash reports differ drastically, and this becomes a headache when you file taxes monthly. We have a ton of experience here and will help you keep it sorted.
Do I need to be a certain size?
No. Size does not matter. We've worked with businesses between $100K and $50M in revenue. Fit depends on the scope of what you need done and personality more than anything else.
If you're willing to give us what we need to serve you excellently, we will likely be the right fit.
Let's look at your books
Book a Fit Call. We'll discuss what's going on currently with your books, figure out where they need help, and whether cleanup, monthly bookkeeping, or something else makes sense.
If we're the right fit, you'll get a clear scope and price. If we're not, I'll point you in the right direction.