Bookkeeping for Atlanta Mental Health Practices
Bookkeeping for therapists, group practices, and prescribers around Atlanta. Books kept current and tax-ready by Aretha Dirden, working with you directly.
Bookkeeping for Atlanta Practices
I’m Aretha Dirden, and I keep the books for mental health practices in and around Atlanta. Private practice bookkeeping is the whole of what I do. Transactions categorized, bank and credit card accounts reconciled, and a monthly report that shows what your practice actually earned. I work from Lancaster, California, with clinicians all over the country, so Atlanta traffic has nothing to do with whether your books get finished on time.
Before I did this, I spent more than 15 years as a licensed nurse working in mental health. You will not have to explain what a late cancellation costs you, why summer looks nothing like January, or what happens to your cash flow when a payer sits on a batch for six weeks. You also will not be handed off to someone else on a team. You work with me.
Monthly Bookkeeping
Monthly Bookkeeping
Every month I categorize your activity, reconcile your accounts, and send you a profit and loss and balance sheet you can read between sessions. Starting at $165 a month. If a number looks strange to you, we get on a call and I explain it in plain language.
Catch-Up and Clean-Up Work
Catch-Up and Clean-Up Work
Maybe the books have not been touched since you signed the lease on your Decatur office. Maybe a previous bookkeeper left a tangle of duplicates and guesses behind. Either way, I get you current. No lecture about how it got this way.
Payroll for Practices with Staff
Payroll for Practices with Staff
If your payroll system is already up and running, I will run it. Every pay period processed on time so associates and front desk staff are paid right. I do not set up new payroll systems, and I say that plainly before we start. Here is more on full-service payroll.
Books Your Tax Preparer Can Use
Books Your Tax Preparer Can Use
I do not prepare returns. What I do is hand your preparer reconciled, organized books so filing season becomes a handoff. Quarterly estimates get made from real numbers instead of a rough guess in your head.
Practices I Work With Around Atlanta
Atlanta might be the busiest place in the Southeast for private practice. Therapists in the suites off Ponce and around the Decatur square. Psychologists doing testing and assessment work in Sandy Springs and Buckhead. Counselors renting a room two days a week in Marietta or Alpharetta. Clinicians in Grant Park and East Atlanta who moved most of their caseload to video and never looked back. The metro stretches across five or six counties and the practices inside it are just as varied.
What almost all of them want is the same short list. Books that are up to date, financials ready when the tax preparer asks, and an honest picture of profitability. That holds for a solo LPC seeing eighteen clients a week and for a group practice with six associates and an office manager. My nursing years were spent in mental health, so the prescribers in these practices are working in the world I came from. If any of this sounds like your situation, book a consultation with me and tell me about your practice.
Solo Therapists and Counselors
Solo Therapists and Counselors
LPCs, LMFTs, LCSWs, and psychologists running their own practices anywhere from Brookhaven to Peachtree City. Private pay arrives one way and insurance deposits arrive another. I reconcile both so you can see what a week of clinical hours actually brings in.
Group Practices Across the Metro
Group Practices Across the Metro
Associates paid on splits or salary, a W-2 admin, a contract supervisor or two. I record compensation correctly, track contractor payments all year so January 1099s are simple, and report in a way that shows margin per clinician before you hire the next person.
Telehealth and Online-First Practices
Telehealth and Online-First Practices
Plenty of Atlanta clinicians decided 285 was not worth the commute and built practices that run entirely online. Platform and EHR subscriptions, merchant processing fees, payouts that need matching to sessions. I reconcile that whole stack so the costs stop hiding.
ABA and Behavioral Health Teams
ABA and Behavioral Health Teams
Practices with behavior technicians and analysts working in homes and schools across Cobb, Gwinnett, and DeKalb. Staff-heavy payroll and high session volume. Your biller keeps doing the billing, and I make sure what lands in the bank reconciles to the books.
Questions About This Area
Do you work with practices across the Atlanta metro?
Yes. Inside the Perimeter and well outside it. Decatur, Midtown, Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Marietta, Alpharetta, Lawrenceville, Douglasville. Everything happens remotely, so where your office sits does not change how I work with you.
You are in California. Does that create a problem?
It has not so far. We talk by video or phone, you share your statements and give me access to your accounting file, and I do the work from my desk in Lancaster. Most of my clients are nowhere near me.
What does monthly bookkeeping cost?
Full-service monthly bookkeeping starts at $165 a month. The real number depends on how many accounts you have and how much activity runs through them. I will quote you after we talk about your practice.
Do you prepare tax returns?
No. I keep your books tax-ready and work alongside whoever files for you, whether that is a CPA in Atlanta or a preparer you have used for years. When they ask for financials, the financials are ready.
My books are almost a year behind. Is that too far gone?
No, and you are in good company. Catch-up work is a normal part of what I do. We record and reconcile the missing months, get you current, and then keep you current with monthly service so it does not pile up again.
Helping the People Who Help Others
Let's Start With
a Short Conversation
Tell me where your books stand right now, even if the honest answer is that nobody has looked at them in a year. I'll ask a few questions and give you a clear idea of how I can help.
