Small firm built for big things
Accounting systems built to support meaningful work.
My accounting career began at my local Habitat for Humanity affiliate, where I started as a bookkeeper. It was there that I first saw how closely accounting is connected to every part of an organization.
Donations, construction projects, purchasing, payroll, fundraising, volunteers, and day-to-day operations all eventually became part of the financial story.
Those early years taught me that accounting is about much more than financial statements. It's where the entire organization comes together.
From bookkeeping to financial systems
Over the next twenty years, I helped organizations solve financial problems, improve reporting, and build stronger financial systems.
Like many accountants, I started by working with businesses in a variety of industries. As my client base grew, I found myself working with more nonprofit organizations. The more I learned about the nonprofit sector, the more I realized it was where my experience and the way I solve problems fit best.
Over time, I started noticing the same patterns across nonprofit organizations. The accounting was rarely the hardest part. The hardest part was everything that happened before the information ever reached the accounting system.
I worked with organizations that were entering the same information multiple times, relying on disconnected software, and asking staff who already wore many hats to spend even more time moving information from one place to another.
Cleaning up the books was only part of the solution.
The bigger opportunity was understanding how financial information moved through the organization before it reached accounting, then building processes that were simpler, more consistent, and easier for everyone involved.
That realization changed the questions I started asking.
Instead of asking, How do we record this transaction?
I started asking, How did this information get here in the first place?
When I later began working with QuickBooks Online, those questions became even more important.
I realized software could organize financial information, but it could not fix the processes that created it.
If information enters an organization inconsistently, no accounting software can solve that problem on its own.
That realization has shaped my work ever since.
Yellowbird OS
Over the past several years, I have been researching, documenting, testing, and refining what has become the foundation of Yellowbird.
I call it Yellowbird OS.
Yellowbird OS is not software. It is a nonprofit financial operating framework.
It combines accounting, workflow design, documentation, reporting, automation, and technology into a single, repeatable approach to managing financial information.
Some organizations need better documentation. Others need better reporting. Some need automation. Others simply need processes that make sense.
The tools are different. The principles remain the same.
Financial information should be entered once whenever possible.
Processes should be simple enough that people can actually follow them.
Technology should reduce repetitive work rather than create more of it.
Accounting should support every department, not just produce financial statements.
Today I continue to provide accounting, bookkeeping, controller services, financial reporting, and audit support.
Every engagement helps refine Yellowbird OS because every organization teaches me something new.
My goal is to build a framework that helps nonprofits become better prepared, more connected, and less dependent on any one person holding everything together.
When every department works from the same foundation, people spend less time wearing every hat and more time focusing on the mission that brought them there in the first place.
Why Yellowbird?
People occasionally ask where the name came from.
I chose the name Yellowbird in 2018 while working with a marketing consultant. I wanted something that felt approachable, memorable, and a little different from the traditional accounting firm.
After I had settled on the name, my son reminded me that only a few days earlier he had been talking about using “Yellowburb” as a social media handle. I had completely forgotten that conversation, but I suspect the idea quietly found its way into my subconscious. He laughed, told me to keep the name, and Yellowbird was born.
Looking back, I cannot imagine building this company under any other name.
Founder, Yellowbird Nonprofit Accounting
Ready for Accounting Help?
Send me a quick note and let’s set up a free, no pressure chat. Together we’ll make the numbers easy.