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Bookkeeping by Alli, LLC

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United States
Iowa City, IA
Bookkeeping by Alli, LLC

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I help business owners reclaim time and increase profits through accurate and timely financial data. Contact me for a free review of your books!

Spend more time building your business or enjoying life by hiring a bookkeeper. With accurate financial data, you can make sensible decisions and see at a glance where your money is going and where you may be leaving money on the table. But bookkeeping is its own skillset, and not one that is every business owner’s greatest strength. If you already work in QuickBooks Online, I can clean up your books and ensure you are current and ready for the year ahead. If you're new to QuickBooks Online, I can get you all set up so we can get to categorizing. In all cases, I provide ongoing monthly financial reporting so you always have a current picture of the financial health of your business. A good bookkeeper saves you an average of 10 hours per month. That's 120 hours per year to put toward what matters most to you – whether that’s growing your business or spending more time with your family. Entrusting your bookkeeping to me can help you realize the following benefits:

- Have all transactions categorized so you can see exactly where your business is most profitable, where there is room for growth, and where your money is going each month;
- Receive monthly reports so you can make sound, timely decisions based on current data for your business;
- Have a clean set of books to give to your tax preparer, which can help you realize tax savings;
- Avoid late fees and penalties for missed deadlines;
- Manage payroll with ease, knowing that an expert is ensuring proper calculations of wages and deductions. I began my professional career as an office assistant at an estate planning law office, doing bookkeeping, payroll, and client services, before taking an administrative role at the University of Iowa. After 13 years as a department administrator, I decided to return to bookkeeping to use my skills in a different way while gaining more flexibility to spend time with my husband and three children. I would be thrilled to apply my love of organizing and categorizing to your financial data so you can focus your time and energy where it matters most to you. Contact me now for a free evaluation of your books!

10/27/2026

It's now been a little over a year since I quit my job to run my bookkeeping business full time.

I've learned a lot this year—but some of the most important lessons haven't really been about bookkeeping at all.

1. The technical stuff is rarely just about the software.

I started out in 2024 getting trained on the basic mechanics of QuickBooks. Since then, I've spent a lot of time untangling bank feeds, credit cards, clearing accounts, sales tax, payroll, system migrations, opening balances, duplicate transactions, and all the other delightful things that can happen inside a QuickBooks file.

And I've learned that the answer usually isn't, “What button do I need to push in QuickBooks?”

It's “How is this business actually moving money, and why was it recorded this way in the first place?”

Understanding the client's processes and the accounting behind the software is what allows me to fix things without accidentally creating three new problems.

2. Your time is a business expense.

This one has taken me a while to really internalize.

It's easy as a service provider to think about revenue first: How many clients do I need? How much can I charge? How much more work can I take on?

But there's another number that matters just as much: How much of my time does this revenue consume?

A client who pays more isn't necessarily a better client if they consume an outsized share of your time. And taking on more work isn't automatically progress if it leaves you with no capacity for anything else.

I'm learning to look at my business not just in terms of how much money it brings in, but what that money costs me in time, attention, and capacity.

3. Boundaries are part of running a good business.

This has probably been the hardest lesson.

I genuinely like helping people. When someone asks if I can take on a project, solve a problem, train their staff, or clean up a mess, my instinct is often to figure out how I could make it work.

But I've learned that “I could” isn't the same as “I should.”

Sometimes the right answer is:

I'm not taking on new clients right now.

That's outside the scope of what I offer.

I don't have the capacity to do that well.

I can't take that on at that price.

And saying no doesn't mean I'm being difficult, unhelpful, or leaving money on the table.

It means I'm protecting the capacity I need to do good work for the clients I have chosen to work with—and to build a business that actually fits the life I want.

I'm still learning. I'm still adjusting. And I'm sure there will be plenty more lessons ahead.

But I'm getting better at not just running my business, but running it intentionally, in a way that works for me.

And the freedom to do that is, so far, the greatest part of being an entrepreneur.

10/20/2026

I have a confession:

I actually enjoy zeroing out clearing accounts.

I know. I’m a real party animal. 💃

But seriously, a properly reconciled clearing account is one of those little bookkeeping things that makes a huge difference.

Take a business that processes payments through Square, Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, etc.

A customer pays $1,000.

The payment processor takes $30 in fees.

The bank deposit is $970.

If you only record that $970 deposit as revenue, your books are telling you the wrong story.

You want to see:

$1,000 of gross revenue
$30 of merchant fees
$970 deposited into the bank

That matters for a few reasons.

👉 You want your true gross revenue reflected in your financial statements. This can matter when you're applying for financing, but it also gives you a much more accurate picture of your actual profit margins.

👉 You want those merchant fees on your P&L. They're a real expense, and you need to know what you're spending to generate that revenue.

👉 You want to catch problems. A clearing account that doesn't zero out can point to a missing transaction, a duplicate, a timing issue, a miscategorization—or an error made by the payment processor or bank. Yes, those happen!

👉 You want to know that the money actually made it from the payment processor to your bank. The clearing account gives you a way to follow that money all the way through.

And that's why I love reconciling them every month.

When I get that clearing account down to $0.00, I know I've accounted for the money coming in, the fees coming out, and the deposits landing in the bank.

It's basically a little monthly bookkeeping puzzle.

And yes, I find that satisfying. 😂

Do you know what's sitting in your clearing accounts right now? 👀

10/13/2026

Business owners: check who is the Primary Admin on your QuickBooks Online account.

And if it’s your bookkeeper, I’d strongly recommend changing that.

The Primary Admin should generally be the business owner.

Why? Because these are your books. You own the business, you own the financial records, and you should have ultimate control over the account.

Your bookkeeper should have the access they need to do their job—but that doesn’t mean they should control the entire QuickBooks account.

Here’s where this can become especially important:

What happens if you and your bookkeeper part ways?

Hopefully, it’s completely amicable. But even then, you don’t want your access to the books to depend on the person you’re no longer working with.

And if the relationship ends badly? You definitely don’t want to discover that someone else has control over your company’s accounting file.

As a bookkeeper, I just want Accounting Firm access. This gives me the access and tools I need to manage the books without putting ownership of the account in my hands.

A good bookkeeper should make your business easier to run—not make you dependent on them for access to your own financial records.

So go check your QBO account.

If you’re the business owner, make sure you are the Primary Admin.

10/06/2026

Recently, I lost a prospect because I live abroad.

Yeah, I was disappointed.

Everything seemed like a great fit. For once, I would be inheriting pristine books, and there was even an opportunity for some overlap with the retiring bookkeeper. It felt like one of those rare situations where everything lined up beautifully.

But the prospect is in financial services, and ultimately their broker said they couldn’t engage someone who lives outside the U.S.

So… not a fit.

There are lots of reasons a prospect might not be a good fit for your business. Sometimes it’s the client’s needs. Sometimes it’s your capacity. Sometimes it’s pricing, communication style, industry, or the services they need.

And sometimes, for me, it’s the fact that I’m living abroad.

Would I give up this adventure with my family for the sake of one additional monthly bookkeeping client?

Absolutely not.

It’s actually a good reminder of why transparency matters so much.

I’m very upfront with prospects about where I live. I’d much rather find out early that there’s a dealbreaker than get deep into the sales process, build a relationship, make plans—and then discover that we can’t actually work together.

Not every prospect is meant to become a client.

The real skill is recognizing the misalignment early, saying it out loud, and respecting the boundary without apology.

Clarity upfront saves everyone time—and protects the kind of work and life you actually want to have.

09/29/2026

A day in my Georgian life 🇬🇪

People sometimes ask what working remotely from Georgia actually looks like.

Really, it's a lot like working from anywhere else—with a few fun differences.

My typical weekday looks something like this:

☀️ Somewhere between 6–7 AM: Wake up with the toddler. Feed him, make coffee and breakfast, say my prayers, and squeeze in a quick workout.

🐕 Around 8: Take the dog for a walk.

📚 9 AM–12 PM: Homeschool my kids.

🥗 12–1 PM: Lunch, then get the toddler down for his nap.

💻 1–4 PM: Bookkeeping time. This is my main focused work block.

🌊 4–6 PM: Outdoor family time. We might head down to the beach, go to the park, rollerblade, or just wander around town.

🍽️ 6–8 PM: Dinner and more family time—or, because I'm working with clients in the U.S., sometimes client meetings. My evening is their morning.

🌙 Then it's the bedtime shuffle: toddler to bed, dog out for another walk, big kids to bed.

And if I still have a little work left to do, I'll spend another hour catching up before calling it a night.

It's definitely not a traditional 9-to-5.

But that's one of the things I love about running my own bookkeeping business. I get to build my work around my family rather than trying to fit my family around my work.

And right now, that means doing bookkeeping from Georgia while raising and homeschooling three kids—with the Black Sea just a short walk away.

Not a bad office view. 😊

09/22/2026

One of the things I've learned the hard way in my bookkeeping business is that clear communication about pricing and scope is actually part of doing good work.

My very first proposal included a discounted cleanup fee because I was assuming the client would also hire me for ongoing bookkeeping.

They didn't. 😅

They wanted the cleanup and nothing else, which meant I ended up doing a substantial amount of work for less than I would have charged if I'd been clearer about the terms of the discount.

I chalked that one up to experience.

And then I did it again. 😂

A little later, I had a proposal where the client was deciding whether to keep a particular service in-house or have me take it over. I hadn't explicitly said that outsourcing it to me would increase the monthly fee.

So naturally, they said, "Yes, we'd like you to do that."

And I couldn't exactly come back afterward with, "Oh, by the way, that costs extra."

The communication failure was mine, so I ate that one too.

I've gotten a LOT better at this.

My recent proposals include a pricing grid that shows exactly how the price changes depending on what the client wants me to handle, what they want to keep in-house, and whether they're hiring me for cleanup only or ongoing bookkeeping.

No assumptions. No hoping we'll figure it out later. No awkward conversations halfway through an engagement because we had different ideas about what was included.

And honestly, I think this is a lesson that applies to a lot more than bookkeeping:

If the price changes depending on what someone chooses, they should be able to see that difference before they say yes.

It can feel awkward to spell everything out. Sometimes you worry you're being too particular or making the proposal unnecessarily complicated.

But clarity isn't being difficult.

Clarity is part of the service.

09/15/2026

Cleanup work is fun.

There’s something genuinely satisfying about taking a set of books that are a complete mess and turning them into something that actually makes sense. I love the detective work, the problem-solving, and that glorious moment when everything finally reconciles.

But if I’m being honest… I’m also really looking forward to the day when my monthly recurring revenue is nice and steady, everyone’s books are ticking along smoothly, and there are no mysterious transactions from 18 months ago waiting for me to untangle. 😂

There’s a particular kind of business-owner peace that comes from knowing exactly what’s coming in each month and knowing your clients’ books are being maintained consistently.

So yes, give me the cleanups for now. I’ll happily solve the mysteries.

But by next year? I’d really like to be bored. 😆

09/08/2026

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I actually want from my business.

It’s really easy, especially when you spend a lot of time around other small-business owners online, to get caught up in the numbers. There are bookkeeping influencers constantly talking about hitting $250k, $500k, adding employees, building teams, scaling, etc. And sometimes I catch myself thinking, Am I not thinking big enough? Should my goals be higher?

But then I stop and think about why I started my business in the first place.

I want to make a good living.

I want our family to be comfortable.

But I also want to have time with my kids. I want to be able to take a Tuesday afternoon off if we want to go somewhere. I don’t want to spend 40+ hours a week working just so I can turn around and use that money to pay someone else to do the things I didn’t have time to do.

So I’m starting to think that maybe $120k–$150k in annual revenue is actually a pretty ambitious goal for the life I want.

If I can get there while working 15–20 hours a week, with clients I enjoy, enough financial cushion to breathe, and plenty of time for my family, why would I automatically need to keep pushing for $250k?

Maybe someday I’ll decide I want to build a bigger business. And that’s fine. But I don’t want “bigger” to become the goal just because that’s what everyone online seems to be measuring.

There is a point where you’re no longer building the life you want.

You’re just building a bigger business.

And those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

My goal isn’t to see how big I can make my business.

My goal is to make it just big enough.

09/01/2026

I finally bit the bullet and switched to Teams.

I have been a Zoom diehard since my University of Iowa days. It was the first video conferencing platform I used, so it’s the one I got comfortable with. And I hated the Teams layout.

But since starting my own business, I haven’t been able to justify paying for Zoom, which meant I was stuck with 40-minute meetings.

For a while, I had a workaround. When Zoom kicked us out at 40 minutes, everyone could just click the meeting link again and we’d start a new meeting.

It was annoying, but it worked.

Until my last meeting.

At the 40-minute mark, Zoom kicked us out, as usual. I told everyone to click the link again—and then Zoom told me, the host, that I had to wait NINE MINUTES before I could start another meeting.

😂

Okay, fine. You win. I’ll stop using your platform.

I’m already paying for Microsoft anyway. I’ve just been stubbornly refusing to use Teams because I didn’t like it.

So here I am, officially on Team Teams.

And honestly? I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

What technology have you finally given in and adopted after resisting it forever?

08/25/2026

A bookkeeping mystery turned into an unexpected side quest this week. 🐉🗡️

The original mission: figure out why a Square clearing account had a suspiciously large balance.

Simple enough, right?

I started digging. I traced deposits, reviewed transactions, and pulled Square Sales Summary reports to compare everything against the journal entries I had recorded.

And then…

🎵 Dun dun dun… 🎵

The side quest appeared.

The historical Square journal entries didn’t seem to match the freshly pulled reports. Cue the moment every bookkeeper knows:

“Wait. Did I mess something up?” 😳

So I did what bookkeepers do best: followed the trail.

And the culprit was something I absolutely did not expect…

My computer’s time zone. 🤦‍♀️

Since moving to Georgia, my computer had switched from Central Time to my local time zone. Apparently, even computers need a little “where in the world are we?” adjustment when you move across an ocean.

Once I fixed that, the reports lined up again. The side quest actually proved that the journal entries were correct!

Back to the original mission: the large clearing account balance was caused by a few deposits that had accidentally been categorized directly to income instead of flowing through Square clearing.

Mystery solved. Books cleaned up. Detective hat retired… until the next accounting adventure. 🕵️‍♀️

This is one of the reasons I love bookkeeping. It’s not just entering numbers — it’s investigating, asking questions, and figuring out what the numbers are trying to tell you.

(And yes, sometimes the answer is “check your computer settings.” 😂)

Address

Iowa City, IA

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 3pm
Tuesday	9am - 3pm
Wednesday	9am - 3pm
Thursday	9am - 3pm
Friday	9am - 3pm

Telephone

(319)3182321

Website

https://www.bookkeepingbyalli.com/

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