The 15-person agency that hired a part-time bookkeeper and stopped losing $18K a year to admin drift
A 15-person marketing agency was doing books through the founder's spouse for three years - nights and weekends, one QuickBooks login shared with the accountant. Invoices went out late, receipts went uncategorised, and month-end close took two weeks because nobody knew what half the transactions were.
AR days at 68 (industry benchmark is 32). Roughly $18K/year lost to uncategorised expenses that missed the deduction window. Founder was making pricing decisions on gut, not gross-margin data, because the P&L was always six weeks stale.
The team hired a part-time bookkeeper - 15 hours a week at $28/hr through a fractional accounting firm. No CFO, no controller - just consistent execution.
First 90 days
- Week 1–2
Books cleaned up to current: 8 weeks of uncategorised transactions worked through with the founder in one 90-min session.
- Week 3–4
AR chase automated - 7-day / 14-day / 21-day reminders. Payment terms standardised. Late-fee clause added to new contracts.
- Week 5–8
Monthly close cadence: 5th business day. P&L, cash-flow forecast, and gross-margin-by-client report delivered every month.
- Week 9–13
Vendor bills consolidated. Corporate card categorisation rules built. Founder now looks at margin monthly, not annually.
Outcomes (benchmark-based)
Before vs after
| Metric | Before | After | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days sales outstanding (DSO) | 68 days | 34 days | -50% |
| Monthly close time | 2+ weeks | 5 business days | -65% |
| Founder time on finance admin | 6 hrs/week | 30 min/week | 5.5 hrs/week back |
Days sales outstanding (DSO) before vs after part-time bookkeeper
days to collect payment
Stack used in this story
Honest trade-offs
How I'd run this for you
I run finance operations for agencies and small teams the same way - AR discipline, monthly close, cash-flow visibility. Not a CPA (I don't file taxes), but everything upstream of your accountant.
- AR chase system (7/14/21-day cadence) that gets DSO from 60+ days to under 40.
- Monthly close by the 5th business day: P&L, cash-flow, margin-by-client - every month, same format.
- Xero, QuickBooks, or FreshBooks proficient. Wise, Stripe, and PayPal for cross-border teams.
FAQs
Is this a real agency?
No - this is a composite story. DSO figures reflect published industry benchmarks (SCORE, Fundera). Recovered-savings figure is an illustrative composite based on typical deduction and margin blind spots at this size.
Do you replace an accountant?
No. Your accountant files taxes and does year-end. I handle the day-to-day bookkeeping, AR, AP, and monthly reporting that keeps your books current so your accountant's job is a 2-hour review, not a 2-week untangle.
Can you work in my existing accounting system?
Yes - QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books are all supported. I don't force a switch.
Related case stories
The 55-person distributed team that hired a payroll admin - and cut monthly errors from 8 to zero
A 55-person distributed team paid people across four countries every month - U.S. W-2, U.K. PAYE, Indian and Filipino contractors. Every payroll cycle had errors: wrong FX rate on one contractor, missed bonus on another, a hire's first-month calculation off by a week. Finance spent three days on damage control every month.
Executive VAThe consultant who hired an executive VA and finally reclaimed 14 hours a week
A senior consultant billing at £180/hour was working 55-hour weeks - and roughly 20 of those hours were email triage, scheduling, expense reports, invoice chasing, and travel booking. On paper the math was obvious. In practice, delegating anything felt harder than doing it.
HR GeneralistThe 28-person remote agency that finally hired an HR generalist - and what stopped breaking
A 28-person creative agency ran without dedicated HR for four years. Every new hire onboarding was 'ask the founder', every policy question ping-ponged in Slack, and cross-border compliance was 'we'll figure it out later'. Later arrived when three key people quit citing 'no support' inside six months.
Your situation isn't this exact story - let's map yours
30-minute diagnostic call. I'll tell you whether the fix is a hire, a fractional operator, or a small workflow change - and give you the honest math either way.