Your Simple Bookkeeper, based in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area, helps micro-, small- and minority business owners with one of their most crucial, yet least enjoyable, tasks: keeping control of their finances. It’s a full-service operation, offering financial outsourcing, live video chats, Webinars, bookkeeping tips, video bookkeeping tips, blogs, newsletters and even contests. For companies that need help with accounting, payroll, bill payment, invoicing and taxes — and all of them do — Your Simple Bookkeeper is there.

HOW MENTORING WILL HELP: “I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost three years, almost entirely alone, making decisions mostly without any help,” Harrell says. “I’ve made some great choices, and other choices that I can’t tell if they were good or not. Mentoring in general helps me to get advice from someone who is currently in my shoes, or has been. They can help me avoid pitfalls, or help make the ones I can’t avoid not as detrimental. No one is an island.”

HOW $10,000 WILL HELP: YSB will use the funding to finish the trademarking process, tweak the logo, improve and put into overdrive its social-media presence, develop the YSB community Web site, and develop and implement a strategic marketing plan.

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“HAVING WORKED FOR several Fortune 500 corporations and large nonprofits, I know firsthand that not having your finger on the pulse of your company’s finances as an owner or CEO is deadly,” says Katrina Harrell, the founder of Your Simple Bookkeeper. “I’ve also noticed that the theme for most business owners is ‘I don’t hire a bookkeeper until I need to get my taxes done.’ Almost all of my clients were micro-, minority- and women-owned businesses. I’m all three — so this was alarming.”

YSB offers a full suite of financial and bookkeeping assistance, at service levels ranging up to $150 a month for the complete package. Harrell, 32, attended Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey, where she earned a BS in accounting. After college, she began her corporate-accounting career at Merrill Lynch.

“I’ve held titles such as staff accountant, budget analyst, senior accountant, accounting supervisor and controller,” she says. “But trust me, I’m a much better entrepreneur than employee. Your Simple Bookkeeper is a reflection of my personality and values — it’s everything I hated about corporate America completely undone.” •