Quick Comparison
| Firm | Credentials | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Amber's Accounting & Bookkeeping | QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor Level 2 across the team, with CPA, EA, and certified bookkeeper designations supporting the founder-led practice. | Virtual monthly bookkeeping for service-based small businesses, breweries, gyms, financial advisors, and engineering firms across Chicago and all 50 states. |
| BM Accounting and Tax, Inc. | QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite Advanced Online member, founder is an Illinois-licensed CPA, and recertification is required each year. | Monthly bookkeeping, QuickBooks Online setup and cleanup, payroll, AP and AR, and small business tax preparation in the Loop and surrounding suburbs. |
| Brilliant Solutions Group, Inc. | Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor team, Top 100 ProAdvisor recognition for the founder, Xero certified, and Intuit Premier Reseller. | QuickBooks setup and consulting, monthly bookkeeping, payroll, financial reporting, and fractional CFO support across roughly 18 small business niches. |
1. Amber’s Accounting & Bookkeeping, LLC
- Address: 6300 N Northwest Hwy #31943, Chicago, IL 60631
- Phone: (708) 925-7574
- Founder / Owner: Amber Malone (CEO) and Daniel (COO)
- Operating Since: 2016 (10 years)
- Credentials: QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor Level 2 (Amber, Alicia, Holly, Shelly, Kristen); team also holds CPA, EA, and certified bookkeeper designations
- Service area: Chicago metropolitan area in person, with virtual delivery across all 50 states
- Industries served: Service-based small businesses, breweries, gyms, financial advisors, engineering firms
- Website: ambersbookkeeping.com
Founder-Led Virtual Model
Amber Malone built the practice in 2016 after a decade of informal QuickBooks help for friends and family business owners on Chicago’s northwest side. Her husband Daniel later joined as Chief Operating Officer, and the husband-and-wife structure now anchors a fully remote team of bookkeepers, CPAs, and an enrolled agent. Owners speak with the same staff month after month, which is uncommon among virtual firms that route work through anonymous queues. The setup keeps the practice independent of any private-equity rollup or franchised national brand.
QuickBooks Online Specialization
Every bookkeeper on the team carries QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor Level 2, the higher of the two Intuit certification tiers, and the firm runs entirely on QuickBooks Online rather than Desktop. Day-to-day work covers transaction categorization, bank and credit card reconciliation, accounts payable and receivable cleanup, sales tax reporting, and monthly financial statements. The firm publishes a written month-end close checklist for each client so the owner sees what was reviewed and what remains open before books are locked.
Service-Based Industry Focus
The client roster is concentrated in service-based small businesses where revenue tracking, project profitability, and contractor or W-2 payroll splits drive most of the bookkeeping complexity. Breweries get a workflow tuned to taproom point-of-sale integration and excise tax tracking. Gyms get class-pack and membership revenue recognition. Financial advisors and engineering firms get trust-account-style segregation between operating cash and client retainers. The firm declines tax-preparation engagements as a standalone product so it does not drift into pure CPA work.
Onboarding and Cleanup
New clients begin with a discovery call followed by a fixed-scope catch-up if the prior books need correction. Amber’s team rebuilds the chart of accounts when needed, reclassifies miscoded prior-year transactions, and reconciles every bank, credit card, and loan account back to the most recent unmodified statement. After cleanup, the company transitions the engagement to a flat monthly fee and sends a recurring financial package by the fifteenth of the following month.
2. BM Accounting and Tax, Inc.
- Address: 444 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1200, Chicago, IL 60611
- Phone: (773) 571-6922
- Founder / Owner: Leonardo Santos Becerra, CPA
- Operating Since: 2010 (16 years)
- Credentials: Illinois-licensed CPA, QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite (Advanced Online), member of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite Program
- Service area: Chicago Loop and surrounding suburbs in person, plus remote engagements
- Industries served: Small businesses, nonprofits, individual taxpayers
- Website: bmaccountingandtaxinc.com
Loop Office and Founder Access
Leonardo Becerra opened the shop in 2010 and still runs the practice from a Suite 1200 office on North Michigan Avenue, two blocks from the Magnificent Mile. Meetings are by appointment only, and the founder takes the intake call himself rather than routing leads through a sales pipeline. The firm has stayed a single-office independent CPA practice for fifteen straight years, with no satellite branches or affiliate franchise arrangement.
QuickBooks Elite Recertification
BM Accounting holds the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite designation, which Intuit grants only to members who pass a recertification exam every year and meet client-volume thresholds across QuickBooks Online and Online Accountant. Inside the elite tier the practice carries the Advanced Online certification, which requires deeper testing on the QuickBooks Online Advanced product, multi-currency, class and location tracking, and inventory features. The annual exam requirement keeps the firm current with each Intuit release.
Bookkeeping First, Tax Second
The engagement structure treats monthly bookkeeping as the anchor service. Leonardo and his team handle bank feed reviews, accrual and cash-basis adjustments, payroll processing, sales tax filings, and a month-end close package for owners and their lenders. Year-end tax preparation is offered to the same client base, but the company does not take tax-only engagements where the books are not also under its care, which avoids the common disconnect between bookkeeper and preparer.
Bilingual and Nonprofit Niche
The practice operates in English and Spanish, which is reflected in the client roster of immigrant-owned small businesses across the Loop, Pilsen, and the near-northwest neighborhoods. A separate slice of the book is small Illinois nonprofits that need monthly statements aligned with the Form 990 functional expense allocation. Leonardo files the 990 himself, so the categorization decisions made during monthly bookkeeping flow directly into the year-end information return without a handoff.
3. Brilliant Solutions Group, Inc.
- Address: 205 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 810, Chicago, IL 60601
- Phone: (312) 324-0065
- Founder / Owner: Mariko Hayashi-Hall, CEO
- Operating Since: 2010 (16 years; BBB business start date)
- Credentials: Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor (team), Top 100 ProAdvisor recognition for the founder, Xero Silver certified, Intuit Premier Reseller and Solution Provider, BBB Accredited
- Service area: Chicago downtown and metropolitan area in person, with remote engagements nationwide
- Industries served: Construction, design and engineering, distribution, hospitality, legal, manufacturing, medical and health services, nonprofits, professional services, real estate, retail, salon and beauty, technology, transportation
- Website: brilliantsolutionsgroup.com
Founder Recognition and Independence
Mariko Hayashi-Hall founded the shop in 2010 and has been named to the Insightful Accountant Top 100 ProAdvisor list multiple times. The firm is registered as a Women and Minority Business Enterprise and has stayed under single-owner control since incorporation, a notable point in a market where many mid-sized accounting practices have been absorbed by national rollups during the past five years. The firm is BBB Accredited at its 205 North Michigan Avenue address.
Multi-Industry QuickBooks Practice
The team holds Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor status, which is the highest Intuit tier above the standard Online and Desktop certifications, and supplements it with Xero Silver Partner credentials for clients on that platform. As an Intuit Premier Reseller and Solution Provider, the practice sells and configures QuickBooks Enterprise for clients with inventory, advanced reporting, or multi-entity needs that the basic QuickBooks Online subscription cannot cover. Implementation includes chart-of-accounts design, class and location structure, third-party app integration, and historical data migration from prior systems.
Monthly Close and Reporting
Standard monthly engagements cover transaction coding, bank and credit card reconciliation, accounts payable workflow with bill.com integration, payroll posting from Gusto or ADP, sales tax filings, and a financial statement package delivered with budget-versus-actual commentary. Clients with lender or investor reporting needs receive an additional management report layer, and the firm coordinates directly with outside CPAs at year-end rather than insisting clients move tax work in-house.
Fractional CFO Layer
For clients who outgrow pure bookkeeping, the company offers a fractional CFO service that adds cash flow forecasting, KPI dashboards, lender package preparation, and budget development. This layer is delivered by senior staff rather than passed to a separate firm, which keeps the data flow from bookkeeping into forecasting on a single ledger and a single reporting cadence.
Reference Notes
Chicago has the third-largest small business count in the United States after New York and Los Angeles, and the city’s bookkeeping market reflects that scale. The market splits into three loose tiers: virtual-first independent firms that serve clients nationwide from a Chicago base, downtown CPA-led practices that pair bookkeeping with tax preparation, and suburban single-owner shops concentrated along the North Shore and the western collar counties. The three firms profiled above sit in the first two tiers and were chosen for their depth of QuickBooks credentialing rather than for marketing reach.
Illinois does not license bookkeepers as a separate profession, so verification rests on three external markers: QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification status confirmed through Intuit’s Find-an-Accountant directory, Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation lookup for any CPA on staff, and the Illinois Secretary of State business entity search to confirm the shop is registered as an active LLC or corporation. The Better Business Bureau accreditation flag adds a complaint-handling track record but is not a regulatory credential.
National rollups and software-bundled bookkeeping services are excluded from this directory by design. Bench Accounting, Pilot, QuickBooks Live (Intuit), BELAY, Bookkeeper360, Bookminders, Supporting Strategies, Bookkeeper.com, and 1-800Accountant all serve Chicago through remote staff but are not headquartered or independently operated in the city. Their staff turnover patterns and onboarding handoffs differ structurally from owner-led firms, which is why this list keeps them out.
Selection Methodology
Firms in this directory were screened on four criteria: independent or family-owned ownership with a clearly named founder still active in the business; current QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification at any tier from Online to Advanced; minimum five years in business under the same ownership; and Better Business Bureau listing or equivalent third-party verification preferred where available. National rollups and platform-bundled services were excluded by name, including Bench, Pilot, QuickBooks Live, BELAY, Bookkeeper360, Bookminders, Supporting Strategies, Bookkeeper.com, and 1-800Accountant. Pure CPA tax-only firms with no monthly bookkeeping product were also excluded, even when they hold ProAdvisor credentials.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I verify a Chicago bookkeeper’s credentials?
Three checks cover most cases. First, search the Intuit Find-an-Accountant directory at quickbooks.intuit.com to confirm an active QuickBooks ProAdvisor listing and the certification tier. Second, if the practice advertises a CPA, run the name through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation license lookup at idfpr.illinois.gov to confirm an active license number with no disciplinary action. Third, confirm the entity itself is in good standing through the Illinois Secretary of State business search. The Better Business Bureau profile at bbb.org adds a complaint history layer but is not a substitute for the first three checks.
What credentials should a Chicago bookkeeper hold?
At minimum, look for an active QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification, since most Chicago small businesses run on QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop. The Advanced Online tier is preferable for clients with inventory, multi-class tracking, or multi-entity needs. Beyond software certification, certified bookkeeper designations from the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers or the National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers signal formal training in payroll, accruals, and internal controls. A CPA on staff matters only if the engagement includes year-end tax filing.
How can I tell if a Chicago bookkeeper is independent versus a national rollup?
Three signals usually settle the question. Check whether the firm has a single named founder who still appears on the website’s About page and signs client communications. Confirm the office address is a working location rather than a virtual mailbox by cross-checking Google Street View and the Illinois Secretary of State registered agent record. Ask during the intake call who will personally handle the monthly close. Rollup-style firms typically rotate junior staff, route communications through a ticketing system, and quote pricing from a national rate card rather than scoping to the specific client.
When should a Chicago business hire a bookkeeper versus a CPA?
A bookkeeper handles the recurring monthly work: transaction categorization, bank and credit card reconciliation, accounts payable and receivable, payroll posting, sales tax filings, and monthly financial statements. A CPA is appropriate for year-end tax filing, audit representation, complex entity structuring, attestation work, and tax-strategy planning. Many Chicago small businesses run a hybrid model with an independent bookkeeper for the monthly close and a separate CPA for the tax return, which keeps each engagement scoped and avoids paying CPA-level rates for routine data entry.
Editorial Note
This directory was prepared on 2026-05-11 using publicly available firm websites, the Better Business Bureau directory at bbb.org, the Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor directory, the Illinois Secretary of State business entity search, and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation license lookup. Operating tenure figures, address details, and credentials reflect the most recent information published by the firms themselves at the time of writing. Inclusion in this list is not a paid placement and should not be read as a personal endorsement; readers are encouraged to confirm current credentials, BBB status, and engagement scope directly with each firm before retaining services.