Chattanooga, Tennessee
Books that balance. Taxes filed on time, every time.
Plumbline is a two-person bookkeeping and small-business tax office for contractors, restaurants, salons and sole proprietors. We keep the ledger straight so you can get back to the actual work.
Run by an enrolled agent. Flat monthly fees. No surprise invoices in April.
Services
Five things we do well, and nothing we don't.
We are not a franchise and we do not do audits, business valuations or anyone's personal return who doesn't also own a business. What we do, we do carefully, on a schedule, with a paper trail.
-
01
Monthly bookkeeping
Every transaction categorized, every bank and card account reconciled to the statement, and a short report you can read in five minutes. Done by the 12th of the following month.
from $225per month -
02
Payroll setup
We get you registered with the state, set up a payroll provider, enter your crew and run the first payroll beside you. After that it mostly runs itself.
$350one time -
03
Quarterly estimate reminders
Four times a year we calculate what you should send in, tell you three weeks ahead and nudge you again the week it's due. Included with every plan.
includedwith plans -
04
Year-end tax prep
Schedule C, partnership and S-corp returns prepared and e-filed by an enrolled agent who has already seen your books all year. No scrambling in March.
from $650per return -
05
Catch-up and cleanup
Months or years behind? We rebuild the books from statements, sort out the mystery deposits and hand you a clean starting balance. Estimate it below.
flat feequoted up front
Monthly plans
Priced by how busy your books are.
Plans are set by transaction volume, not by how much we think you can pay. If your business grows into the next tier mid-year we tell you a month ahead, and the price moves then, not retroactively.
| Plan | Transactions / mo | Accounts | Also included | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ledger | up to 75 | 1 | Monthly reconciliation, quarterly estimate reminders, year-end package for your tax preparer (or us) | $225per month |
| Journal | 76 to 200 | up to 3 | Everything in Ledger, plus sales tax filing, 1099 tracking and a 20-minute call each quarter | $375per month |
| Full Set | 201 to 500 | unlimited | Everything in Journal, plus payroll review, job or location cost tracking and a mid-year tax planning session | $595per month |
| Over 500 | 500+ | unlimited | Custom scope. Usually a restaurant with two locations or a contractor with a crew of ten or more. | quotedafter a look |
Year-end business returns are billed separately: Schedule C from $650, partnership or S-corp from $1,100. Plan clients get the books-to-return handoff at no extra charge, because we already have everything.
Catch-up estimator
How far behind are you?
Be honest. We have seen eleven months of receipts in a Cheerios box, and the person who brought it is doing fine now. Pick how many months are unreconciled and roughly how busy each month was, and you get a ballpark flat fee.
Estimated flat fee
$1,900 to $2,500
- 6 months × $290$1,740
- File setup and opening balances$150
- Allowance for gaps and surprises, up to$609
This is an estimate, not a quote. The actual fee is fixed after a 20-minute look at your statements, and it does not change once we start. Year-end returns for the catch-up years are priced separately. Ask for the firm number.
Shoebox to spreadsheet
What to send us, in plain language.
You do not need to sort anything. You do not need to have it in a spreadsheet already. You need to find these things and get them to us, by photo, PDF, portal upload or a paper bag left at the front desk.
- Bank and credit card statements
Every month, every account the business touches, including the personal card you swear you only used for the business once. PDFs from online banking are perfect.
- Receipts over $75, and anything for meals or travel
Photos are fine. The statement proves you paid; the receipt proves what it was for. Small routine purchases we can categorize from the statement alone.
- 1099s you received and W-9s you collected
If you were paid by a platform, a general contractor or a client who files 1099s, send them. If you paid subcontractors, send their W-9s so we can file yours.
- Loan, lease and equipment paperwork
Truck financing, the walk-in cooler, the chairs at the salon. The payment is on the statement, but how to split it is in the contract.
- Payroll reports, if you have employees
Quarterly summaries from your payroll provider. If you don't have a provider yet, that's a conversation worth having early.
- Last year's tax return
Even if someone else prepared it. It tells us your entity type, your depreciation schedule and what carried forward.
Missing something? Send what you have. A ledger with three gaps is a lot closer to done than a shoebox with none.
Key dates
Federal deadlines for the year ahead.
The ones that catch small-business owners most often. Plan clients get a reminder three weeks before each of these; everyone else is welcome to tape this to the wall by the register.
- Q4 2026 estimated tax paymentSole proprietors, partners and S-corp owners who pay quarterly.
- Partnership and S-corp returnsForms 1065 and 1120-S, or the extension request. Schedule K-1s go out to owners from these.
- Individual returns and Q1 2027 estimateForm 1040 with your Schedule C or K-1 income, plus the first quarterly payment for the new year. Yes, the same day.
- Q2 2027 estimated tax paymentOnly two months after Q1. This is the one people forget.
- Q3 2027 estimated tax paymentAlso the extended deadline for partnership and S-corp returns filed on extension.
Confirm dates each year. When a deadline falls on a weekend or federal holiday it moves to the next business day, and the IRS occasionally grants relief after storms. Tennessee has no general state income tax on wages, but franchise and excise tax and business tax have their own calendars, which we cover with plan clients directly.
About the office
Two people, one standard.
A plumb line is a weight on a string. It does one thing, which is show you what true vertical looks like, and it has never once been wrong. We named the office after it on purpose.
Plumbline opened in 2019 in a second-floor office on Market Street, after our founder spent nine years preparing returns for a regional firm and noticed the same thing every spring: the clients who had trouble were never the ones with complicated taxes. They were the ones with no books. So the firm starts with the books and treats the return as the last step, not the whole job.
We work in the accounting software you already use, or set you up in one if you don't. Everything we do is documented so that if you ever leave, your next bookkeeper can pick up the file and understand it. Clients stay anyway, which we take as the better compliment.
We take on about four new monthly clients a quarter so that nobody's books get the Friday-afternoon treatment. If we're full, we'll say so and give you a date.
-
Marguerite Haskell, EA Enrolled agent, founder
Licensed to represent taxpayers before the IRS. Handles every return, every notice and every planning conversation. Keeps a mechanical adding machine on her desk and uses it.
-
Dev Okafor Bookkeeper, catch-up specialist
Reconciles the monthly books and rebuilds the behind ones. Formerly ran the back office for a three-location restaurant group, so he has seen your kind of mess before.
Consultation
Tell us where things stand.
The first conversation is twenty minutes and free. We'll tell you which plan fits, what catch-up would cost, or honestly, whether you even need us yet.
- Phone
- (423) 555-0189
- [email protected]
- Office
- Second floor, Market Street, Chattanooga, TN. By appointment, so nobody has to wait by the stairs.
- Hours
- Mon to Thu, 8:30 to 5:00
Fri, 8:30 to noon
Longer in March and April, shorter the week after.