Service
Bookkeeping Services in Largo, FL
Your books get reconciled every month, categorized the way your business actually runs, and closed on a schedule you can plan around. You get statements you can read without a translator, and your tax preparer gets a file that does not need rebuilding in March.
- 5.0 from 22 reviews on Intuit ProAdvisor
- 30 years fixing QuickBooks files
- Elite Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
- Free 15-minute call no obligation
Thirty Years in Other People's Books
Bookkeeping is the service Robin Shea built the firm on. She has spent thirty years as an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor at the Elite tier, certified across the full product line, and her profile is listed publicly in Intuit's Find-a-ProAdvisor directory. Before founding Shea & Shea she studied accounting and business management at Southern New Hampshire University, worked cost accounting at Sanders Associates, and managed the office at an investment advisory firm.
The tagline, We Teach Accounting In Plain English, describes the working method rather than a slogan someone wrote for the website. The monthly close arrives with statements you can actually read, and when a report does not make sense, you get walked through it until it does.
What’s Included
Bank and card reconciliation
Every account tied back to the actual statement each month, so the balance in QuickBooks is the balance at the bank. This is the step most self-managed files skip, and it is the reason their numbers drift.
Transaction categorisation
Income and expenses coded to a chart of accounts built around how your business actually earns and spends, rather than the generic list QuickBooks ships with.
Monthly close
The period gets closed on a schedule so prior months stop moving. Once a month is closed, last quarter's numbers stay put and you can compare periods honestly.
Profit and loss, balance sheet, cash position
The three reports that answer what came in, what you own and owe, and what is actually available. Sent monthly and walked through in plain English if you want that.
Accounts payable and receivable tracking
Who owes you, how long it has been outstanding, and what you owe out. Standard or advanced depending on how complicated your billing is.
Year-end handoff
A closed, reconciled file your tax preparer can work from directly, plus the schedules they usually ask for.
Where self-managed books usually go wrong
Reconciling to the app, not the statement
Marking transactions as matched inside QuickBooks is not reconciliation. Reconciliation means the closing balance agrees to the bank's own statement for that period. Files that skip this drift quietly for months.
Letting Uncategorised Expense grow
It starts as a parking space for one unclear charge and becomes one of the largest accounts in the file. Every dollar sitting there is a dollar of margin nobody can explain.
Never closing the period
If prior months stay open, last quarter's numbers can change after you have already made decisions on them. Closing is what makes comparison meaningful.
Using the default chart of accounts
QuickBooks ships a generic list. A chart of accounts that does not match how you earn and spend will produce reports that are technically correct and practically useless.
Treating owner draws as expenses
Money taken out of the business is not a cost of running it. Getting this wrong overstates expenses and understates profit, which matters the moment a lender or a tax preparer looks.
What It Costs and What Moves the Number
Bookkeeping is priced monthly. What moves the number is transaction volume and how many accounts have to be reconciled. A single checking account with sixty transactions a month is not the same job as four bank accounts, three cards and a merchant processor.
You get the figure before any work begins, on the free discovery call. It does not change without a conversation, and if your volume grows enough to change the scope, that is a discussion rather than a surprise line on an invoice.
Catch-up work is quoted separately from the monthly fee. If your books are months behind, that backlog is a defined project with its own price, and the monthly rate starts once the file is current.
Who This Suits
- Owner-operated businesses that have outgrown doing the books themselves at night
- Businesses whose tax preparer sends back a list of questions every year
- Anyone making decisions off the checking account balance instead of a profit and loss
- Businesses with a file that a previous bookkeeper left in an unclear state
Who It Does Not
- Businesses looking for tax return preparation or filing, which is a separate profession and we work alongside whoever does yours
- Anyone needing audited financial statements, which requires a CPA firm
- Personal or household bookkeeping
How Switching Actually Works
You keep your file
Your QuickBooks file stays yours. There is no proprietary system to get locked into and nothing to migrate away from later.
Review before commitment
The file gets looked at before anyone quotes. If it needs cleanup first, you are told that up front rather than discovering it in month three.
Overlap with your current bookkeeper
There is no need for a hard cutoff. Most handovers work best with a short overlap so nothing falls between the two.
First month is a real close
Month one ends with a reconciled, closed period and a set of reports, not a setup invoice.
Doing it yourself, hiring in-house, or outsourcing
| DIY in QuickBooks | In-house bookkeeper | Outsourced monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Software only | Salary, tax, benefits | Flat monthly fee |
| Reconciliation discipline | Depends entirely on your week | Consistent if trained | Fixed monthly schedule |
| Cover when someone is away | None | None, unless you have two | The practice covers it |
| QuickBooks expertise | What you have taught yourself | Varies by hire | Advanced Certified ProAdvisor |
| Scales with volume | Poorly | Requires a second hire | Scope adjusts |
Bookkeeping Services, Frequently Asked
How long does it take to get current if I am behind?
It depends on how many months are open and how clean the underlying records are. A year of a simple single-account business is a different job from eighteen months across multiple accounts with missing statements. The data file review tells you the real answer before you commit.
Will you talk to my tax preparer directly?
Yes, and it usually saves everyone time. Clean books mean fewer questions in filing season, which often costs you less on their side too.
What do you need from me each month?
Bank and card statements or read-only access, plus answers on anything ambiguous. Most clients spend a few minutes a month on questions once the setup is right.
Do I need QuickBooks Online or Desktop?
Either works. If you are choosing, that is worth a conversation, because the right answer depends on inventory, job costing, and whether multiple people need access at once.
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Client Reviews
What her clients say
5.0 from 22 reviews on Intuit’s Find-a-ProAdvisor directory, reproduced word for word.
I can honestly say, I do not know what I would have done without finding Robin. After noticing some issues on my balance sheet, I attempted to utilize QB Live for clean-up services and was rejected! I did not know what to do - QB…
QuickBooks is great, but I made many missteps before Robin saved a drowning man. She got me setup with the correct version, helped me get it setup properly, and trained me to use it effectively. I feel confident I can keep the…
Would highly recommend! Unbelievably efficient. Helped our business correct many issues with Quickbooks!
Get your books off your desk
A free 15-minute call with Robin. Where your books actually stand, and what it would take to fix them. No charge, no obligation.