Bookkeeping for Fort Lauderdale Mental Health Practices
Bookkeeping for therapists, counselors, and group practices in Fort Lauderdale. You work directly with Aretha, remotely, every month.
Bookkeeping for Fort Lauderdale Practices
Fort Lauderdale has one of the busiest mental health communities in the country. Solo therapists in office suites off Las Olas, counselors working with the recovery community across Broward County, group practices in Plantation and Sunrise, telehealth clinicians seeing clients from a converted room in Coral Ridge. Almost all of them share the same situation. The owner trained to do clinical work and ended up responsible for the books too.
I’m Aretha Dirden, and I keep the books for practices like yours. I spent more than 15 years as a licensed nurse in mental health before I ever opened QuickBooks, so nothing about your day needs explaining to me. Bookkeeping for therapists and other mental health professionals is the whole of what I do, and I work with clients all over the country from my desk in Lancaster, California. If you want to see whether we’re a good fit, book a consultation and we’ll talk it through.
Monthly Bookkeeping
Monthly Bookkeeping
Every month I categorize your transactions, reconcile your bank and credit card accounts, and send reports you can actually read between sessions. Deposits get matched to what landed in the bank, so the numbers reflect real money.
Catch-Up and Clean-Up
Catch-Up and Clean-Up
If the books stopped somewhere last spring, or a previous bookkeeper left behind categories nobody trusts, we start there. Falling behind happens to good people with full caseloads. We get you current and keep you that way.
Payroll That's Already Set Up
Payroll That's Already Set Up
If your practice has a payroll system running, I process it. Pay periods handled on time so associates and front desk staff are paid right. I don’t build payroll systems from scratch, and I say so before we start.
Tax-Ready Records
Tax-Ready Records
I don’t prepare tax returns. What I do is keep your books in shape year round so your Florida tax preparer gets clean financials with the documentation behind them. Spring stops being a scramble.
Fort Lauderdale Practices I Work With
Broward County is one of the best known recovery communities in the country, and that shapes private practice here in a way it doesn’t in most cities. Counselors running groups and individual sessions in the same week. Clinicians serving people who came to South Florida to get well and stayed. Practices with payment arrangements that shift from one client to the next because the community they serve needs that flexibility.
Then there’s the season. Caseloads fill from November through April when the population swells, and summer runs quieter. A practice owner deserves to know what that pattern looks like in real numbers. Steady monthly bookkeeping gives you a year of honest history you can plan against, along with a clear view of what the practice keeps after everything else is paid.
Recovery and Addiction Counseling
Recovery and Addiction Counseling
Groups and individual sessions at different rates, varied payment arrangements, sometimes contract facilitators running the groups. Bookkeeping for recovery-focused practices is territory I know from my years in mental health nursing.
Therapists and Counselors
Therapists and Counselors
Solo LMFTs, LPCs, and LCSWs from Wilton Manors to Victoria Park to Plantation. Private pay and insurance deposits arrive on their own rhythms. I reconcile both, keep personal spending out of the practice books, and show you what a week of clinical hours earns.
Group Practices
Group Practices
Associates, supervisors, and admin staff. Demand across Broward grows and hiring follows. I record clinician compensation correctly, keep employee and contractor payments straight, and prepare year-end 1099s so you can see whether the next hire is carrying its weight.
Telehealth Practices
Telehealth Practices
Plenty of South Florida clinicians see clients who split the year between Florida and somewhere north. Platform subscriptions, merchant processing fees, and payouts that never quite match session totals all get reconciled so your income and your overhead are both visible.
Questions About This Area
You're in California. Does that work for a Fort Lauderdale practice?
It works well. All of my work happens inside your accounting file and through shared documents, so where I sit never really comes up. The three hour difference means I'm already at my desk early Eastern time, which tends to be when practice owners have a free minute to talk.
What does monthly bookkeeping cost?
Full-service monthly bookkeeping starts at $165 a month. Catch-up and clean-up work is priced per engagement after I see what's there. Payroll for practices that already have a payroll system running starts at $150 a month.
Do you work with addiction and recovery counselors?
Yes. Group sessions and individual work bill at different rates, payment arrangements vary from one client to the next, and all of it needs to be recorded properly. My nursing years were spent in mental health, so this corner of the field is familiar to me.
My books are months behind. Is that a problem?
No, and it's how a lot of my clients start. We pick a starting point, record and reconcile period by period until you're current, then move into steady monthly service. Book a consultation and tell me where things stand. There's no lecture coming.
Do you prepare tax returns or handle insurance billing?
Neither one. I keep your books tax-ready and hand clean financials to whoever prepares your return. Billing and claims stay with your biller or billing service, and I reconcile the deposits that come in from them.
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.
