How we work.
Start to monthly close.
No black box, no mystery invoice. Here's exactly what happens from the first 30-minute call to your fifth clean close — what we do, what we need from you, and how long each part takes. Six steps, and most San Francisco businesses are live within fourteen days.
A conversation, a cleanup,
then a rhythm.
Most bookkeeping engagements start with a contract and end in a year-end scramble. Ours starts with a call and settles into a monthly cadence you stop having to think about. Here's the shape of it before we get into the detail.
It starts with a conversation, not a contract
Thirty minutes on your current setup and what's actually broken. You get a clear monthly number before anything is signed — and if we're not the right fit, we'll say so on that call.
We meet your books where they are
QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave — we work inside whatever you already use. No migration, no new platform to learn, no fight with your CPA about where the file lives.
Cleanup is scoped before it starts
If your books need work before they need maintaining, we audit first and quote a fixed price. You'll know the number before we touch a transaction.
Then it becomes a rhythm
Every month: AI first pass, specialist review, senior sign-off, statements in your Portal. You upload documents as they land and get on with running the business.
Six steps from
first call to fifth close.
Steps one through three happen once. Steps four through six happen every month, for as long as you want them to.
-
01Day 1 · 30 minutes
Discovery
A 30-minute call — no pitch deck. We ask what you do, how money moves through the business, what platform your books live in, how far behind you are, and what's actually causing you pain. Usually it's one specific thing: a tax bill that blindsided you, a bookkeeper who went quiet, or the fact that you're doing receipts on Sunday nights.
You leave with a clear monthly quote scoped to your business — transaction volume, payroll complexity, service mix — and an honest read on whether we're the right firm for you. Some businesses we point elsewhere. That's a fine outcome for a 30-minute call.
What we need from you: half an hour and a straight answer about the state of your books.
-
02Week 1 · Live within 14 days
Onboarding
We connect to your existing bookkeeping platform — QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, or Wave — and set up your Portal. Your dedicated team is assigned: a named bookkeeper, a reviewer who'll sign off on every close, and tax or payroll specialists if your engagement includes them.
Everything we need gets collected in one session rather than drip-fed over three weeks of emails: bank and card access through your platform's secure connections, payroll details, entity documents, prior returns. If you're starting from nothing, we'll build you a fresh QuickBooks Online file — usually 3–5 days.
What we need from you: platform access and one onboarding session. That's the heaviest lift you'll have all year.
-
03Weeks 1–8 · Only if needed
Account review & cleanup
Before we maintain your books, we audit them. Not to judge — to rank. Missed filings, compliance exposure, incorrect balances, and unreconciled accounts get priority; vendor name cleanup can wait. You see the whole list in the Portal, sorted by risk, with an estimated completion date.
If cleanup is needed, it's quoted as a fixed price before any work starts — most catch-up projects run $1,500–$8,000 depending on scope and how many months are involved. We also check whether your chart of accounts actually fits your industry. A Mission District restaurant and a SoMa SaaS company need different structures, and fixing that at the foundation is cheaper than fixing every report after it.
What we need from you: whatever records you have. Bank statements alone are usually enough to rebuild from.
-
04Every month · Ongoing
Monthly bookkeeping
The rhythm starts. AI handles the first pass — categorization, document matching, anomaly detection, reconciliation prep. Your bookkeeper reviews every category, corrects the edge cases, chases anything ambiguous, and reconciles each account. Then senior management or our in-house CPA signs off before the month is closed.
Three layers on everything. Your books aren't trusted to one person, and they're never trusted to AI alone.
What we need from you: upload documents as they arrive and answer the occasional "what was this charge?" message.
-
05Every month · Usually by the 15th
Financial reporting
P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement delivered through your Portal — typically before the 15th of the following month. Not a PDF you file unread: reports built around the two or three numbers your business actually runs on, whether that's food cost percentage, burn and runway, project profitability, or realization.
Your cash balance and key metrics are live in the Portal the rest of the month too, so you're never waiting on a report to answer a question you need answered today.
What we need from you: nothing. This one just shows up.
-
06Ongoing · Year-round
Ongoing support
Message your bookkeeper directly in the Portal and get an answer in hours, not weeks — threaded by document, transaction, or month, so you never repeat context. Optional quarterly review calls with a senior reviewer to talk through trends and decisions before they're history.
As you grow, the engagement grows: add payroll when you hire, sales tax when you cross a nexus threshold, tax planning when the numbers justify it. Same team, same Portal — you're not starting over with a new firm every time the business changes shape. And it stays month-to-month. If it isn't working, you leave and take your books and your document archive with you.
What we need from you: a heads-up when something changes — a new hire, a new location, a new state.
Gusto
Your books stay yours.
The technology works around them.
We're not asking you to adopt a proprietary system. Your books live where your CPA, lender, and tax software expect them — the Portal and the AI sit on top, doing the things those platforms were never built to do.
Your accounting platform, not ours
QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave, Sage. We know each one's chart-of-accounts quirks, bank-feed behavior, and rules engine. Already set up? We pick it up as-is.
The Yesler Portal
A clean layer on top: document inbox, threaded messaging with your team, live task tracking, and every statement in one place. See the Portal →
AI document handling
Drop a PDF or snap a receipt on your phone. AI reads it, identifies the account and period, files it, and attaches it to the right transaction — before you close the tab.
Payroll integrations
Gusto, ADP, Paychex, and QuickBooks Payroll. Payroll posts cleanly to your books with no double-entry, whichever platform you're on.
Bank feeds stay in your control
We never hold your bank login credentials. Feeds run through your accounting platform's own secure connections — the same ones you set up yourself.
Documents you own
By default your uploads land in your own Google Drive, organized by year, month, and type — or our SOC 2-compliant vault if you prefer. Leave us and the whole archive goes with you.
Security by default
Encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). SOC 2 Type II controls. SSO via Google or Microsoft. Granular permissions for your CPA, co-founders, or investors.
Multi-entity and multi-location
Class and location tracking, consolidated reporting, holding structures. One café or six, one entity or a group — the setup scales without a rebuild.
Built to remove the three things
people hate about bookkeeping.
Surprise bills, silence, and single points of failure. Every design decision here traces back to one of those.
Three layers, not one person
AI first pass, staff specialist review, senior or CPA sign-off. The traditional model puts your books in one person's hands and hopes. Ours assumes any single layer can miss something — because it can.
Nothing happens in the dark
Every task, every status, every correction is visible in the Portal in real time. What AI flagged, what your specialist changed, what senior review caught. No "we'll get back to you," no wondering what you're paying for.
Scope quoted before work starts
Hourly billing rewards slowness. We quote a clear monthly number after discovery, and cleanup is a fixed price agreed before we open your file. The bill shouldn't be the surprising part of bookkeeping.
The same people, every month
A named bookkeeper, a named reviewer, tax specialists when you need them. They learn how your business works instead of re-reading it every 30 days — which is the entire difference between a service and a queue.
Your books never leave home
Work happens inside your platform, documents land in your Drive, and we never hold your bank credentials. If you leave, you take everything — no export fee, no hostage file, no rebuild.
It scales without starting over
Add payroll when you hire your first employee. Add sales tax when you cross a threshold in a state you've never visited. Add tax planning when it starts paying for itself. Same team, same Portal, no re-onboarding.
Process questions, answered.
How long until I'm actually up and running?
Do I have to switch accounting software?
What do you actually need from me to get started?
What if my books need cleanup before you can start?
How much of my time does this take every month?
What happens if it isn't working out?
Do you only work with businesses inside San Francisco?
Step one is a 30-minute call.
Book a free consultation. We'll review your current setup, walk you through the Portal, and quote a clear monthly number before any work begins — and if we're not the right fit for your business, we'll tell you on the call.