What is Ledge Accounting?
Ledge Accounting is a bookkeeping, accounting, and tax firm for small businesses, with a focus on franchise owners. The firm's motto is "Great decisions start with clean books." The promise is simple: Ledge takes care of the accounting so you can take care of everything else. Books are kept current every week, financial reports land by the 7th of every month, and a US-based CPA is a phone call away.
Why I started it
Before Ledge, I was CFO of a growing franchisor and helped scale it from two locations to eighty. Along the way I saw the same problems in nearly every franchise owner's finances: reports that arrived late or not at all, no one to sit down with and talk through the numbers, evenings lost to bookkeeping, generic tools that did not understand the business, and hourly bills that were impossible to predict. Ledge exists to fix those five things. The about page tells the story and introduces the team.
What you get every month
The services are packaged as one monthly relationship rather than a menu of hourly work. Bookkeeping is updated accurately every week. Monthly financials, including your profit and loss, balance sheet, and bank and credit card reconciliations, are delivered by the 7th of the following month. Each quarter, the team meets with you to talk tax strategy: asset purchases, payroll structure, and the deductions you are entitled to. Then annual federal and state tax filings are handled by the same people who kept your books all year, with a year-end walkthrough before anything is filed.
Support is part of the package, not an extra. The average response time is under two hours, by email, phone, or Zoom, and there are no hourly fees for asking a question. If your historical books are a mess, that is normal for a new client. Ledge cleans them up first, usually within ten days, then walks you through what the numbers say before ongoing service begins.
Built for franchise owners
Franchise accounting has its own wrinkles: royalty and marketing fees, franchisor reporting requirements, amortizing the franchise fee, and multi-location books that need to be compared unit by unit. Ledge has done this for more than 500 franchise owners, which is why the franchise accounting page is the heart of the site. The team already knows what your franchisor will ask for and what a healthy unit looks like against its peers.
Within franchising, boutique fitness is the deepest specialty. Ledge has served more than 350 boutique fitness studios, including Pure Barre, Club Pilates, and F45 owners. The firm also works with senior home care agencies, home services companies, and independent small businesses. Ledge is based in Austin and Dallas, Texas, and serves clients across the country.
What clients say
Ledge has a 97 percent client retention rate. Clients generally stay until they sell or exit their businesses, and there are no contracts holding them there. That shows up in the firm's Google reviews, which are consistently five stars. A few of them:
"Ledge Accounting has been a fantastic asset to my business. They provide accurate, timely monthly financials and sound financial planning advice."
"Ryland and his team at Ledge are extremely knowledgeable with all things accounting and taxes. We appreciate that we can reach them any time with questions and they are quick to respond!"
"Ryland and team do a good job of going through the numbers behind the business & I very much appreciate their quick and thorough work!"
The longer stories are on the success stories page. Some of my favorites are about exits, because clean books are what make a sale possible: how clean financials helped Frank Kirchhoff sell his business, how Ledge supported Jen's Club Pilates studios through their sale, and how Ledge worked with Emily's fitness studio from launch to a successful sale.
Pricing
Pricing is a flat monthly rate tailored to your business, set during a free consultation. There are no setup fees, no hourly fees, and no contracts, so the firm has to earn your business every month. The core plan covers full-service bookkeeping, monthly financial packages, reconciliations, one-on-one Zoom calls, and unlimited communication with your bookkeeping team. Tax filing is an add-on that brings in federal and state returns, a year-end tax walkthrough, CPA advice, and a tax strategy review twice a year.
In the press
Ledge and its story have been covered by Authority Magazine, FranchiseWire, and the Charlotte Business Journal, which named me CFO of the Year in 2018 for my work at Clean Juice before Ledge existed. Yahoo Finance picked up the milestone when the client base passed 500. The full list is on the press page, and the blog has practical guides on topics like franchise fee amortization, bonus depreciation, and the financial reports every studio owner should read each month.
Getting started
It begins with a free consultation. From there: an onboarding call, a cleanup of any messy history, a review meeting to walk through your financials, tax planning, and then the ongoing monthly rhythm. If you own a franchise or a small business and want your books handled by people who answer the phone, visit ledgefirm.com.