Quick Comparison
| Firm | Credentials | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Park East Bookkeeping Solutions | Founder-led since 2007; staff Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors with two decades of accounting practice | Greater Cleveland small businesses, professional services, real estate, restaurants, retail, nonprofits, growing startups |
| BudgetEase | Founded 2010 by Kathy Dise (MBA Finance, Toledo); five Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors plus Hubdoc, Fathom, Webgility add-on certifications | Cleveland small businesses including law firms with IOLTA, construction, professional services, nonprofits |
| Pinnacle Accounting, Inc. | Founded 2009 by Jake Mitrovic, CMA, Enrolled Agent, Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor with 25+ year background | Westlake and Independence offices serving construction, real estate, entrepreneurs, technology, transportation, architecture, law firms |
1. Park East Bookkeeping Solutions
- Address: 675 Alpha Drive, Suite E & K, Highland Heights, OH 44143
- Phone: (440) 533-9224
- Founder / Owner: Matthew Beck
- Operating Since: 2007 (19 years)
- Credentials: Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on staff; founder holds 19+ years of accounting practice spanning wholesale, retail, and professional services
- Service area: Greater Cleveland and inner-ring suburbs including Avon, Bay Village, Beachwood, Independence, Kirtland, Mayfield Heights, Mentor, North Olmsted, Shaker Heights, Solon, Westlake, and Woodmere, plus select interstate clients
- Industries served: Professional services firms (law firms, consultants, agencies), real estate and property businesses, restaurants and hospitality, retail, nonprofits, startups, growing small businesses
- Website: parkeastbookkeeping.com
Origin in a Single Accountant Practice
Matthew Beck launched the practice in 2006 as a one-accountant shop in Cleveland and incorporated as Park East Bookkeeping the following year. Two decades on, the firm pairs Beck with full-charge bookkeepers Kate and Max plus an executive support function, retaining the local accountability of the original model while extending coverage well outside Cuyahoga County.
A Highland Heights Base With Regional Coverage
The main office at 675 Alpha Drive in Highland Heights anchors east-side coverage, with a second presence in Beachwood. The firm publishes location pages for more than a dozen suburban communities and accepts remote work for clients beyond Ohio, a structure suited to owners who prefer a nearby office while wanting cloud access.
Function-Specific Bookkeeping Discipline
Park East separates duties across accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank reconciliations, journal entries, financial statement preparation, and payroll rather than running the entire workflow through one generalist. That structure helps catch coding errors before month-end close and gives clients a documented audit trail when CPAs request supporting schedules at tax time.
Industry Coverage Beyond a Single Vertical
Beck has built specialty experience in wholesale, retail, and professional services, and the company currently lists law firms, real estate operators, restaurants, retail merchants, nonprofits, and early-stage startups among its active client base. The breadth keeps the team fluent in disparate chart-of-accounts conventions, from trust-account compliance to inventory costing.
2. BudgetEase
- Address: 20600 Chagrin Boulevard, Suite 925, Cleveland, OH 44122
- Phone: (216) 333-1303
- Founder / Owner: Kathy Dise, President
- Operating Since: 2010 (16 years)
- Credentials: Founder is a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor for desktop and online with additional certifications in Webgility, Hubdoc, and Fathom; team includes Brad Wiescinski, Tiffany Andreoli, Caitlin Krapf, and Rosalee Hetzel as Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors (Hetzel at Levels I and II plus Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional)
- Service area: Cleveland metropolitan area with remote support to clients across Ohio
- Industries served: Law firms with IOLTA trust accounting, construction companies, nonprofits, professional services, and small businesses across multiple sectors
- Website: budgetease.biz
From Two Clients to a Multi-Bookkeeper Team
Kathy Dise launched BudgetEase in 2010 with two clients after a 20-year banking career and a stint at the Cleveland Clinic Innovation Center. The firm has since grown to roughly a dozen staff serving over a hundred active client engagements, a trajectory documented in local press and the Profit First Professionals podcast.
Bench Depth in QuickBooks Certifications
Five team members hold Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor status, and Rosalee Hetzel adds Levels I and II plus the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional designation. Adjacent certifications cover Hubdoc receipt capture, Fathom reporting, and Webgility e-commerce reconciliation, letting the team build integrated stacks rather than relying on a single platform.
Trust Accounting and Compliance-Heavy Work
The firm publishes guidance specific to IOLTA reconciliation for law firms, a niche many generalist bookkeepers avoid because state bar audit thresholds leave no room for error. Construction and nonprofit clients receive similar treatment with job-cost and grant-restriction reporting that maps to funder requirements.
Part-Time Engagement Model for Owners
BudgetEase positions itself for owners who want a fractional bookkeeping team rather than a full-time hire. Engagements scale by hours per month, with one assigned lead bookkeeper backed by reviewers, allowing continuity coverage during vacations or peak filing weeks without a staffing gap.
3. Pinnacle Accounting, Inc.
- Address: 24600 Center Ridge Road, Suite 215, Westlake, OH 44145 (Westlake) and 5005 Rockside Road, Suite 600, Independence, OH 44131 (Independence)
- Phone: (440) 471-0184 (Westlake) and (216) 239-1255 (Independence)
- Founder / Owner: Jake Mitrovic, CMA, Enrolled Agent
- Operating Since: 2009 (17 years)
- Credentials: Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; Certified Management Accountant; Enrolled Agent admitted to practice before the IRS; 25+ years of accounting, tax, and advisory background including 15+ years as Controller and CFO at a privately held company
- Service area: Cleveland west side from Westlake and inner-ring south from Independence, covering Lorain and Cuyahoga counties
- Industries served: Construction, real estate, technology startups and entrepreneurs, transportation, professional services, architecture and engineering, and law firms
- Website: pinnacleaccountinginc.com
Founder Holding the Advanced ProAdvisor Tier
Jake Mitrovic carries the Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor designation rather than the entry-level certification, the difference being a more rigorous examination on inventory, advanced reporting, and multi-company file management. Combined with his CMA and Enrolled Agent credentials, the practice can absorb questions that cross from bookkeeping into management accounting and IRS correspondence.
Two-Office Footprint Across the West and South Suburbs
The Westlake office at 24600 Center Ridge Road serves clients along the Route 90 corridor toward Lorain County, while the Independence office at 5005 Rockside Road covers I-77 traffic from downtown south through Brecksville and Broadview Heights. Both locations operate under the same intake team, allowing client transfers without onboarding friction.
Industry Mix Heavy on Asset-Intensive Work
Construction, real estate, transportation, and architecture/engineering clients dominate the industry list, all sectors requiring job costing, work-in-process tracking, and depreciation schedules beyond standard chart-of-accounts setup. The firm pairs this with technology and entrepreneurial clients who need scalable systems from day one rather than a rebuild at Series A.
Controller-Background Approach to Engagements
Mitrovic spent more than 15 years as Controller and CFO inside a privately held company before launching Pinnacle, giving the practice a perspective shaped by managing books from the owner side rather than from a pure CPA-firm vantage. Clients receive month-end packages structured for decision making rather than purely for compliance.
Reference Notes
Park East Bookkeeping Solutions traces its history to a single accountant practice Matthew Beck started in 2006 in Cleveland, formalized as Park East in 2007. The firm now lists offices in Highland Heights and Beachwood and serves more than a dozen named suburban communities plus interstate clients, with QuickBooks ProAdvisor certifications carried by staff members and approximately twenty years of accumulated accounting practice on the team.
BudgetEase began in 2010 when Kathy Dise transitioned from a Cleveland Clinic Innovation Center role into outsourced bookkeeping with two initial clients. Public profiles, local Shaker Heights press coverage, and the Profit First Professionals podcast all document the shop’s growth to roughly eleven staff and a 140-client active base. Five team members hold Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor designations, with adjacent certifications covering Hubdoc, Fathom, and Webgility integrations.
Pinnacle Accounting, Inc. was founded in 2009 by Jake Mitrovic and is headquartered in Westlake with a second office in Independence. The firm’s LinkedIn company page lists the 2009 founding date, and Mitrovic’s combined CMA, Enrolled Agent, and Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor credentials are corroborated across the practice website, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Local listings. Industries listed on the firm’s About page emphasize construction, real estate, technology, transportation, professional services, architecture/engineering, and law firms.
Selection Methodology
Four criteria filtered the candidate pool to the three firms profiled above. First, ownership had to be independent, family-owned, or founder-led, with no national rollup parent or private-equity holding company in the structure. Second, the company needed an active QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification verifiable through the Intuit directory or the shop’s own published materials. Third, the practice required a minimum five-year operating record under continuous ownership, ruling out recent launches without a track record. Fourth, the practice could not be a pure CPA tax practice that offers bookkeeping only as a loss-leader, since the directory targets owners seeking a dedicated bookkeeping relationship.
National and venture-backed providers were excluded by policy regardless of presence in the market: Bench, Pilot, QuickBooks Live, BELAY, Bookkeeper360, Bookminders, Supporting Strategies, Bookkeeper.com, and 1-800Accountant. Cleveland-headquartered CPA firms offering bookkeeping as a secondary service were also excluded when their primary positioning emphasized tax preparation or audit. The result is three founder-operated bookkeeping practices with verifiable certifications, multi-year track records, and identifiable owners answerable to clients directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do Cleveland bookkeepers charge for small business engagements?
Local independent firms typically price by monthly retainer scaled to transaction volume, account count, and platform complexity rather than a flat per-hour rate. Owners running between fifty and three hundred monthly transactions across one to three bank accounts generally fall into a similar pricing band across the firms listed here. Specifics require a discovery call where the bookkeeper reviews your existing file.
Should I pick a QuickBooks Online firm or one that also supports QuickBooks Desktop?
Most Cleveland firms have shifted toward QuickBooks Online because Intuit is winding down feature parity on the desktop product and pushing customers to the cloud subscription. If you already run desktop on a server, confirm the practice carries the desktop certification specifically rather than online-only, since the chart of accounts and reporting menus diverge between the two products.
Do these firms handle Ohio CAT and municipal tax filings?
Ohio Commercial Activity Tax filings, municipal income tax for RITA and CCA jurisdictions, and Cuyahoga County local requirements all touch the bookkeeping function even when a separate CPA handles federal returns. Each firm above either prepares these filings directly or works in tandem with a CPA who does, with the bookkeeper providing the supporting trial balance and source documentation.
Can I switch bookkeepers mid-year without disrupting my books?
Yes, and a clean mid-year transition is routine when the incoming firm requests a backup of your QuickBooks file, the trial balance as of the transition date, and read access to your bank and payroll portals. Reputable Cleveland firms will reconcile a baseline before taking over forward-looking work to avoid inheriting errors as their own.
Editorial Note
Published 2026-05-11. Firm details verified against company websites, LinkedIn company pages, Better Business Bureau profiles, Crunchbase, and Intuit’s QuickBooks ProAdvisor directory at time of publication. Phone numbers, addresses, founding dates, and certification claims should be confirmed directly with each firm before engagement, as office locations, staff certifications, and contact details can change without public notice.