Nine partners. Fixed fees. Plain English.
No. 09
the Right numbers, in the Right places, at a Fee you already Know.
Ledger & Lane is a nine-partner advisory and tax firm. The fees are published below, the answers come in plain English, and the monthly close lands in six business days.
20 minutes, one partner, zero pitch.
What we take off your desk
1.1
Tax & compliance
You find out what you owe when it is too late to do anything about it.
Filings done early enough to act on, positions explained in sentences, and a calendar of every date that matters to your entity.
1.2
Advisory
The reports arrive. Nobody tells you what they mean.
A partner reads your numbers with you every quarter and names the three things to change before the next one.
1.3
Bookkeeping
The books are three months behind and the shoebox is getting heavier.
A six-business-day monthly close, reconciled to the receipt, with notes a human can read.
1.4
Cloud & systems
Five tools, none of them talking to each other.
One ledger, connected feeds, and a payroll that runs itself. We migrate, we train, we stay on call.
The numbers section
Every firm says trust us. We publish the figures instead, with notes.
96%
client retention
· note 1
6
business-day close
· note 2
214
clients on fixed fees
· note 3
1
day, longest reply
Days to monthly close
6
Ledger & Lane
15
Industry median
Notes to the statements
Note 1. Retention measured across engagements active three years or longer. The survey median for firms our size sits near 80 percent.
Note 2. Close measured from last receipt received to management pack delivered. Industry survey median: 15 business days.
Note 3. Every engagement is priced in the letter before signature. No client has received a surprise invoice since we opened the book in 2019.
The Ledger & Lane method
Fig. 1
Diagnose
Three weeks with your last twelve months. We map what is late, what is missing, and what it costs you.
Fig. 2
Fix the base
Clean ledger, connected feeds, a close that lands on schedule. Boring on purpose. Everything else stands on it.
Fig. 3
Report forward
Quarterly partner sessions on what comes next: cash, tax positions, hires, pricing. The report reads forward, not backward.
Fees, published
The statement below is the same one we sign. Ranges cover complexity. The number in your engagement letter is fixed for the year.
Engagement tier
Monthly, from
Scope of engagement
Band
Keep
$390
per month, from
- Monthly bookkeeping and reconciliation
- Accounts and statutory filings
- Payroll to five people
- Plain-English monthly notes
$390 to $640 by transaction volume
Steer
$890
per month, from
- Everything in Keep
- Quarterly partner session
- Rolling 12-month cash forecast
- Tax planning ahead of year-end
$890 to $1,340 by entity count
Scale
$1,790
per month, from
- Everything in Steer
- Monthly partner session and board pack
- Entity structure and exit readiness
- A named partner on call, same business day
$1,790 to $2,600 by group complexity
Note 1. Fees are fixed in the engagement letter for twelve months. If the scope changes, the fee changes before the work does, in writing.
Note 2. Ranges reflect entity count and transaction volume, discussed at the fit call and confirmed in the quote.
Note 3. The pledge: if our error causes a penalty, we pay the penalty.
Two of the nine price every quote.
Elena or Marcus confirms your fixed number within two business days of the fit call. No estimates, and no ranges in the letter.
Nine names on the door
No account managers and no juniors fronting for partners. The person in the room is the person on your file.
Elena Marchetti, CPA
Managing partner · Advisory
Saoirse Callahan, CA
Partner · Growth & forecasting
Douglas Ferrier, CPA
Partner · Compliance & entities
9
Accountants and advisors
Meet the benchWho this report is for
Owner-operators with 2 to 50 staff who want the close on time, every month
Founders who read their numbers and want a partner who reads them first
Operators tired of hourly billing and the meter it quietly runs
And who it is not for
Anyone shopping for the cheapest possible filing
Businesses that want the books left exactly as they are
Anyone allergic to a direct answer
Notes from clients
They told us the fee before they asked our revenue. That was new.
Dana Whitfield
Whitfield Joinery, Portland
Our close went from six weeks to six days. Board meetings stopped being archaeology.
Sam Okafor
Bluegate Logistics, Manchester
I brought them an actual shoebox. Nobody laughed until it was reconciled.
Mei-Ling Chu
Chu & Daughters Cafes, Vancouver
Still reading?
Fair. Take the guides: our plain-English notes on the six-day close, fixed fees, and entity structure. Ask on the call and we send them. No forms, no drip emails.
- The six-day close, explained
- What a fixed fee should include
- Entity structure in plain English
Ready?
Bring the shoebox, the spreadsheet, the whole drawer. Twenty minutes with a partner and you leave with a fixed number and a start date.