Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Laura Kelly, Partner with Knoll & Company P.C Discussing Bookkeeping Strategies

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

With over a decade of experience in accounting and bookkeeping, Laura specializes in helping business owners manage and understand their finances. As a partner at Knoll & Company, PC – Next Generation CPA Firm, she focuses on building strong bookkeeping systems that keep businesses organized and positioned for growth. Her goal is to make the numbers clear so owners can confidently move their businesses forward.Learn more: https://www.knollcpa.com/The information provided in this content is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, laws and regulations frequently change and may vary depending on individual circumstances. Please consult a qualified financial, tax, or legal professional for advice specific to your needs before making any decisions. Knoll & Company P.C. and its representatives do not provide legal advice. All services are provided in accordance with applicable professional standards and ethical requirements.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-laura-kelly-partner-with-knoll-company-p-c-discussing-bookkeeping-strategies

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, Laura Kelly, who's a partner with Nolan Company PC and we'll be talking about bookkeeping best practices. Laura, welcome to the program. Hi, how's it going? Hey, doing good.

And I know that in the world of taxes, tax prep and bookkeeping, probably people would not check the box as a business owner saying, man, I love bookkeeping because it is tedious. It is monotonous. It is all encompassing. There's a lot of aspects to that. So I want to learn all about what you guys are doing there on bookkeeping and how you help business owners with that. So talk a little bit.

about what actually got you into the business before we dive into some of the best practices. What's your story? Oh, I have been bookkeeping since I was about 19 years old. So about now 12, 13 years. How old am I? Yeah, about 12. 13 years. We're actually talking about your age. Okay, there's that. Yeah, 32. 32. But no, we, I've been doing it. I just got it as some gig. Someone needed some help and I was good at numbers. I've been learning through experience and then I've got an associate's degree in accounting, but it's experience that gets you. You know, I've said that a lot of times. I've got an MBA in marketing, but I have said and feel like you need to have the degree

because people want you to have a degree to get certain jobs, but the real world experience and doing the thing over and over and over again, that's where the true value comes in in the industry because, like, You can learn book knowledge about bookkeeping, but then not know the first thing about, ooh, I've seen this before. This issue came up with this other business. We fixed it by doing this. Many times they can't teach that in a book.

No way. And then also the way it integrates with taxes, you don't learn that in like regular school or anything. And even then you don't learn that just from being a bookkeeper for a business. What really helps is being a bookkeeper for a CPA firm because that every single day, you're tying your work. into a completely different aspect that follows right through your taxes. So here's a pop quiz for you.

What you just brought up there, we could probably spend an hour on that one concept, you know. But think of an example of a time where or like, hey, a typical traditional by the book bookkeeper would, you know, just fill in the blanks or interdue data entry. but here is where we take it to the next level with integrating with the CPA, the tax prep, the strategy of the business. Give me an example of what that would look like.

Well, throughout the year, instead of having someone who's just entering in your books for like not really understanding, just putting buckets in categories based on what they feel like the expenses should be, you're getting us that in the background. As we're doing the bookkeeping, we're thinking what this is for and how it ties. into actual taxes so you can tax strategize and plan because you have accurate numbers throughout the year, all year. And so we typically get clients that have a separate bookkeeper and just think of us as the CPA. So they just send the final numbers over and they don't realize that some of this is wrong. We know. You know, so they keep the, they send the proverbial shoebox full of receipts in at the end of the year and say, have at it. And whether it's. And whether it's, you know, It's, you know, or it's an Excel file or it's a whatever, but the power of doing it throughout the year to have things up to date, monthly, quarterly, then helps bring up potential problems.

Also helps you be talking to the back office of, you know, okay, well, here's this company that had this bookkeeping, you know, line item. How could this impact? Because it kind of makes me wonder, would there be a positive or negative impact into the, you know, what they're going to talk about tax wise? and then that gives the CPA person team a member a reason to reach out and go, hey, you know, we were looking at this entry and what would happen if or tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, that's a good point. A hundred percent. Like you get people that are in there.

I imagine when I first started as that 19 year old just helping out. I was just putting numbers in buckets, though. I read and what was doing. So having someone like a CPA firm also do your bookkeeping. is even though it is does has a little bit more extra cost to it, the headache and the savings and taxes that you get just by having a professional who knows bookkeeping doing it too. Well, because then you know, yeah, you're putting it in the right bucket. You're putting the right category and you're coding at the right waist.

And then it probably potentially when it comes time to do the taxes, maybe it's a more seamless. Oh, 100. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, like if. Yeah, I would think so. And probably, you know, if one of the CPAs on your team was listening in or we were on video, they'd be nod their head going, yes. You know, do the books all the way through the year. We can put out little, you know, spot fires, brush fires before they come to be some raging problem. That's a good point. That is that pretty much half of our issues that we see are people that do their own bookkeeping and send us in these numbers. And it's, I feel bad, but they're wrong. They're like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. That's all right. Yeah.

I mean, that's how we make our money. I guess it's why you go to the professional, but. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about pricing. You guys offer flat fee pricing instead of by the hour. Is that prevalent in the industry where typically a bookkeeper is X number of dollars per hour? And then who knows? It's almost like a blank check.

So talk about the benefit of flat fee pricing versus charging by the hour. Yeah, I think it's pretty new in the sense past like five or so years. like it's really kind of starting to become a norm actually because you see this big problem. A lot of new clients that we get, say, I've got this accountant that I'll send in questions and every single time I have a question or I need them to do work, it's a bill. It's just a big bill and I have no control over it or how it works. So the flat fee per month that covers your bookkeeping, whether it's just review or full charge bookkeeping, and then your personal and your business tax return for the year and you just pay one monthly fee is gives that security that one it's getting

done you know it's happening and two you're not afraid to ask questions because you're like oh it's going to cost me money so we get a lot more communication with our clients because the flow back and forth a steady stream of communication and back and forth with that monthly fee there's no no one scared that's the yeah the biggest thing i've seen Yeah, that's a really, really good point. I love that. And people love just the aspect of, you know, it's like an all you can eat buffet. Yeah, I can go back for more if I want versus, oh, I got a had a refill on my Coke and I got charged for that.

So that's a really great point. And many times there will be some back and forth questions and stuff like that. So talk a little bit about the communication slash responsiveness. I feel like, you know, if, you know, I've got kids in college and my wife is taking doctoral level classes and I hear, you know, I don't want to email the professor because it'll take forever to get back. Well, I think responsiveness is a pretty important thing in business. So why is responsiveness so critical in bookkeeping? Well, it just, I think it wants, it helps. A business owner is kind of, they're all over the place, the entrepreneurial spirit.

You know, they got a ton of things working on in the business. background. So if you're asking me like in the middle, like in the evening whenever you're looking over something or you're getting back to me with questions in the evening, we've got a general 24-hour response policy. I think it's really important because it gives, even if I don't have the answer for you right now, which is kind of how typically it works. It's usually a research question. But if I don't get back to you, then you think that I'm not working at it at all. and it stresses the client out even more. So our goal is to be a partner and a helpful person for the business that they're running.

So a 24-hour response just to say, hey, I got your message. I'm going to check on it this day or better yet, I've got an answer for you. But 24-hour rule is probably one of the best things that we've ever implemented because it just gives the client that ease of mind, that they know we see it. We're working on it. We're not on the back burner. It's just sometimes things take a little bit longer, but at least you know we're working on it. And then talk a little bit about the actually the channel of communication. Is it emails flying back and forth?

Is it phone calls, text? What is the method that you make sure that your client feel supported in the communication channels? Well, we use our own portal. It's called LISO, but it's one. We like to do it so that way it's a hub. So in one spot, you know, when you're logging in, everything tax and bookkeeping related for your business or personal, it's all going to be on there. You're not trying to look in your email and then find a text message and try to figure out all these

different avenues because I feel like in this day and age there's like 40. So we try to keep everything in our hub and it is really helpful. I know one more thing. A lot of the clients kind of say sometimes, oh, I got to sign in. But when you really think about it, it is honestly the best way. everything together and organize. And it's the best way you can get a hold of us. And, um, private and protected and, and all of that. Yeah. No, definitely. I always kind of forget. That's the main reason too. There's that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's very personally as an organization person. I like the one hub thing. Yeah. That's a good point. So then talk a little bit about, um, full service bookkeeping versus just a, you know, like a bookkeeper that fills in the blanks. So what are some of the aspects of bookkeeping like bill pay or full service versus not full service? What does that look like? So we offer basically three tiers. So the minimal is some people just have their in-house bookkeeper, but want that bridge that I was talking about where someone's taking a look at your bookkeeping and making sure that one, it's correct. And two, we can then move it in and how it applies to your taxes, that full service flow.

So at least, you know, if you want to have someone else do it, you've got an in-house thing working, we can still make sure that tie-in is happening throughout the year is what that's really for. But as your business grows or that person that's in-house doing it can't do it anymore and you just want us to take it over, that's kind of our second tier, which is just in the background recording and reconciling expenses for you, putting everything in QuickBooks and still that same flow into taxes. And then the full charge is if, okay, my business has gotten super high. I don't have time to pay bills. I don't have time for this, but I don't really want to hire some, like, in-house person with a full salary. I'll just give it all to Nolan Company. And we handle paying your bills, accepting invoices, doing budgets, reporting.

It's like a full charge accounting department in your back pocket. Wow. And then same year taxes flow into it. So we offer, like, but it just, It depends. We usually see, normally we get the starter offers for the books review and then we just watch our clients grow and we grow with them. So it's nice to have that support with them. You know, and having it all in one place, because I'm sure that if you were to list out the bullet points of all of those things you mentioned, that there's a lot. And if you started Googling around, there's a lot of service providers that can do that. And it's like, okay, well, I'm going to go search for the cheapest one that does this and this and this. But you get what you pay for, A. and two, why not just have it in one place? And then everyone knows that they're doing the right thing.

It's on your brand. It's one company. And yeah, you paid a penny or two more, buck or two more. But guess what? It's done. You've got one point of contact, one login to communicate to everybody. I would think that that would be a huge piece of mind for clients, too. Yeah, that's typically what we see in just even a transition for having past accountants

and like coming to us and stuff. Our big, you know, bonus and what we offer as a firm is just that all-inclusive, like, support. So we're here. We're not stressing you out. We're here 100% of the time. You've got questions. Your bookkeeping is all-inclusive in there. And you just know it's being taken care of because that peace of mind is really what they're looking for.

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So you mentioned QuickBooks. Is that the only software that you guys work with recommend? Or what if someone comes in and goes, I want you to bookkeeping and I use whatever else? We are at QuickBooks Online only firm. We've got a couple people grandfathered in that we're switching over,

mainly because QuickBooks desktop is becoming obsolete anymore. But QuickBooks Online is it just integrates with everything. The costs are efficient for us. And it's user-friendly. A lot of people can use it. So it's just let's make things simple. We are very systematic. So we want to make sure that we've got one thing that works and everyone knows how to use it.

Everyone in our firm is QuickBooks Online certified, just makes things streamlined and better for the client. Yeah, that's a great point. And, you know, sometimes it's like the most important gift you can give to a client is to say no, because if I try to fit in your, you know, oh, I use so-and-so, okay. And it's easy to, it's kind of like quick books, but I, and if someone was like, okay, yeah, we'll try that. Then it gets you guys off your game off of your, you know, a professional delivery that you focus on. It does nobody any good.

So I love that you say quick books only. So awesome. Well, Laura, this has been great just kind of getting a lay of the land of bookkeeping best practices. If someone is interested in reaching out and connecting with you guys and learning more, what's the best way they can do that? They can head straight to our website. We've got it at NOLCPA.com. And then in the upper right-hand corner, there's a little green, or blue button, excuse me, and

says, get in touch. And right then and there, you can get a hold of us. Bern is our front office. She's wonderful, wonderful lady, and she will get you where you need to go, or you can go directly on that website and click into the contact thing. And it'll send a request to us directly an email. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, it was good. I'm talking to you too. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. www.Influentialentrepreneursradio.com.