Accounting by Bill LLC started in 1984 as Accounting & Income Taxes by Bill. In 2006 I shortened the name and changed from a sole-proprietorship to a limited liability company.

That’s the short story… the long version begins with my family and I moving to Central Florida from Syracuse, NY in the fall of 1983. We settled in Eustis, FL. My wife had a job at Waterman Hospital and I ended up purchasing and operating a small laundry/dry-cleaning business.

With my background and education in accounting I naturally kept my own books using a paper general journal and ledger sheets.

I bought my first computer, an Apple IIe, the following year and soon discovered there were no commercial accounting applications for the Apple, so I taught myself to write basic computer code and created my own program, which I appropriately named “Basic Bookkeeping.”

Automating my bookkeeping for my own small business lead to doing the same for a friend who was running a small construction company. At that point I decided that working 12 hours a day wasn’t enough so I bought a business license, filed my fictitious name notice and hung out my shingle. One of my first real business clients was a young man just out of high school who with his dad’s help started a marine repair business operating out of their garage. Today they own their own building and have expanded into a full service marine, bait and tackle shop. I’ll never forget the comment the dad made to me right after they had made the decision to purchase the property they had been renting… he said (to me), “this is all your fault.” After I got past the initial shock I realized that what he was referring to was I was big part of their success… financial success that was making their continued business growth possible.

By 1990 I had graduated to the wide wonderful world of the Microsoft Windows based PC and was running a full featured commercial accounting program to keep up with the variety of clients using my services. It was during this time that I also added tax returns to the list of services that I provided.

Over the years I have seen businesses come and I have seen businesses go. For the most part those that don’t stick around long are the ones that don’t take seriously the need for good organizational practices in their daily/weekly and monthly paperwork flow. I feel that is where my many years of experience can benefit anyone starting a small business find the road to success.