Bookkeeping for Fort Wayne contractors, trades, and small businesses

Finally get your books right — without the stress, guesswork, or weekend panic

I work on your books every week, not once a month. That means problems get caught in days instead of showing up in a statement six weeks later, when it's too late to do anything about them.

Weekly bookkeeping · Text or email answered in 2–12 hours · Flat monthly pricing

Book a free Financial Game Plan Call →

30 minutes. No pitch. You'll leave with a written one-page plan to get your books clean and keep them that way — whether or not you hire me.

Prefer to talk now? Call or text 260-246-7803. You get me, not a phone tree.

Chris is a really knowledgeable individual and he takes the time to explain the ins and outs. My experience with Chris has been 100x better than my previous accounting firm. Absolutely recommend.

David Garner, Garner Enterprises

The Hidden Price of Waiting

What it costs to not have a bookkeeper.

Most small business owners think they're saving money by doing the books themselves — or by putting it off. The truth is that disorganized finances don't send you one big bill. They send small ones, on a schedule, and the IRS sets the rates in advance. Here's what those rates actually are.

$50,000

Late and unfiled returns

5% per month

Up to 25% of what you owe, for being late.

The IRS failure-to-file penalty is 5% of the tax due for every month or partial month your return is late, capped at 25%. Miss the deadline by more than 60 days and there's a floor: for returns due after December 31, 2025, the minimum is $525 or 100% of the underpayment, whichever is less — even if you would have owed almost nothing.

Failure to pay runs on top of that at 0.5% per month, also up to 25%, and it keeps accruing after the filing penalty maxes out at five months. The IRS charges interest on the penalties too.

S-Corp and Partnerships

If you file an 1120-S or a 1065, the penalty isn't a percentage at all. It's $255 per shareholder or partner, per month, for up to 12 months, for returns due after December 31, 2025. Two partners, six months late, and that's $3,060 before anyone has looked at what you actually owe.

Source: IRS, Failure to File Penalty and
Failure to Pay Penalty

lost per year (high estimate)

Payroll deposits

2% on day one

The clock starts the day it's due, not the day the IRS calls.

Payroll tax penalties don't wait for a notice. The IRS failure-to-deposit penalty is 2% if the deposit is 1–5 calendar days late, 5% at 6–15 days, and 10% past 15 days. Ignore the notice and it goes to 15%.

On a $15,000 deposit, that's $300 for being a few days late and $1,500 for being three weeks late. On the same payroll, every quarter, for a year.

Source: IRS, Failure to Deposit Penalty

Now Flip the Math

What $250 a month actually buys your business.

✓

Every Deduction Captured

Clean, categorized books mean your CPA can find every dollar you're owed come tax season. $250/month often pays for itself in tax savings alone.

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Decisions Based on Real Numbers

Monthly reports you can actually read. Cash flow you can actually plan around. Confidence to hire, invest, or hold back — at the right time.

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A Guide, Not Just a Service

You get someone in your corner who understands your business and tells you the truth — not just someone who processes your transactions and sends an invoice.

✓

Zero Penalty Risk

Payroll taxes filed on time. Quarterly estimates calculated accurately. Late fees and IRS notices become someone else's problem — because they become ours.

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Your Time Back

Stop spending your nights on spreadsheets. Those hours go back to your business, your family, or just your sanity. That has real value — we just take it off your plate.

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Peace of Mind

Knowing your books are current, accurate, and handled by someone who genuinely cares? That's not a luxury. For a small business owner, that's survival.

"The question isn't whether you can afford a bookkeeper. It's whether you can afford not to have one. We've seen what happens when businesses wait — and we've seen the relief on an owner's face when it's finally handled."

BOOK YOUR FREE FINANCIAL GAME PLAN CALL

Doing It Yourself

20+ hours a month

A quarter of a work week, spent on the thing you're worst at.

SCORE puts small business owners at more than 20 hours a month on financial tasks like accounting and invoicing — roughly 25% of a standard work week.

Price that at your own billable rate, not mine. A contractor billing $85 an hour who spends 20 hours a month on books is spending over $20,000 a year of their own earning capacity to do work they were never trained for. And it's the first thing to slide when the job runs long.

Source: SCORE data, as cited by HBK CPAs & Consultants

Deductions you'll never find in a shoebox.

There's no honest statistic for what disorganized records cost you in missed deductions, and I won't invent one. But the mechanism is simple: your tax preparer can only deduct what they can see. Mileage nobody logged, a tool bought on a personal card, a home office never measured, a sub paid in cash — none of it shows up on a return, because none of it shows up in the books.

None of this is the scary part.

The scary part is that every number above is avoidable, and you'd have to do nothing at all to avoid them — except know where you stand before the deadline instead of after it.

Weekly bookkeeping with me starts at $250.00 a month. One late return or one missed payroll deposit can cost more than a year of it.