Bookkeeping and payroll for mental health professionals in private practice

Call or Text: (661) 646-9745

How should insurance payments show up in my books if you don't do billing?

Let me say the boundary plainly first. I do not do insurance billing. No claim submission, no working denials, no posting ERAs, no credentialing, no coding. That work lives in your practice management system or with the biller or billing service you already use, and it stays there.

What I do is reconcile what that process produces. Once a payer pays, money lands in your bank account. My job is to make sure every one of those deposits is recorded correctly in QuickBooks and matched against what your own records say you were paid. That is how your revenue ends up complete and nothing you were actually paid goes unrecorded.

Insurance money almost never arrives in neat, one client one payment amounts. A single payer deposit often covers a dozen clients across several dates of service, sometimes weeks apart. Your books do not need that claim level detail, because it already exists in your billing system. In the books, the deposit gets recorded as income, tracked by payer when you want that view, and tied to the bank. The claim and clinical detail stays where it belongs.

A few things need real attention so the numbers stay honest. Payers sometimes net a recoupment or an overpayment adjustment out of a later deposit, which means the amount hitting your bank is smaller than the payments that posted on the billing side. Recording only the net makes your revenue look lower than it was. Payment processors and some clearinghouses take fees before money reaches you, so those get recorded as an expense with the gross recorded as income. Client refunds and payer takebacks each get recorded too.

The monthly rhythm is straightforward. I pull the deposit or payment summary from your system or from your biller, line it up against bank activity, and chase whatever does not match. If a remittance shows a payment your bank never received, you hear about it from me. If a deposit shows up with nothing to explain it, you hear about that too. I cannot fix a claim and would not try, and I can hand you a short, specific list of what did not tie out so you or your biller can go look. That reconciliation is a standard part of full-service bookkeeping, which starts at $165 a month.

Keeping this split clean is part of why bookkeeping for mental health professionals works best as its own job. Your biller knows payer rules and claim workflows. I know what your books need to show, and I only need summary level reports and your bank data to do it. No client names, no notes, no clinical records.

If you would like to talk through how your insurance deposits are being recorded right now, book a consultation with me and we will take a look together.

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.

More Questions

What should an addiction counseling practice's books account for?

Separate income by the kind of work behind it, since individual sessions, groups, assessments, and education programs earn very differently for the time and space they use. Your books also need a consistent way to record sliding scale fees, payment plans, and partial payments, plus clear tracking of group revenue and unpaid balances.

Read answer

What's different about bookkeeping for a psychologist who does testing?

Testing behaves like a second business inside the same practice. The engagements run long, the money often arrives on a different schedule than the work, and materials cost real money, so testing revenue and testing costs belong in their own categories.

Read answer

How do refunds and client credits get handled properly?

A refund reduces revenue in the period you give it back, and prepaid sessions sit as a liability until the session actually happens. Client credit balances need to be tracked by name so nobody's money quietly disappears into the books.

Read answer

What should I look at in my reports each month if I only have ten minutes?

Look at four things. Revenue compared to last month and the same month last year, the few expense lines that actually move, profit for the month, and cash on hand. That is enough to know whether the practice is healthy, and anything that looks strange can be a quick conversation.

Read answer

Is my practice actually profitable, or does it just feel busy?

Busy and profitable are two different facts, and only your books can tell them apart. Compare the revenue that actually reached your bank account against your true monthly overhead, then divide what is left by the clinical hours you worked. Full weeks with thin margins usually trace back to fees, no-show leakage, or subscription creep.

Read answer

What kind of practice fits AD Keeps The Books best?

Mental health practices with one to about ten people, anywhere in the country. Solo therapists, psychologists, LCSWs, addiction counselors, psychiatric nurse practitioners, group practices, telehealth practices, and ABA providers. If you want your books current and a bookkeeper who already speaks your language, you're the fit.

Read answer

AD Keeps The Books is Aretha Dirden, a bookkeeper who spent more than 15 years as a licensed nurse in mental health before taking over the books for the people doing that work. She handles monthly bookkeeping, catch-up and clean-up work, and payroll for therapists, psychologists, counselors, and clinical social workers in private practice, and she does the work herself for every client. Based in Lancaster, California, serving practices nationwide. QuickBooks ProAdvisor certified.

  • Intuit ProAdvisor Gold badge
  • Intuit ProAdvisor QuickBooks Level 2 Certified badge
  • Intuit ProAdvisor QuickBooks Payroll Certified badge

© 2026 AD Keeps The Books LLC