A Lancaster, California bookkeeping firm called AD Keeps The Books caters to mental health professionals, leveraging the clinical nursing experience of its founder.
LANCASTER, CA, UNITED STATES, August 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Aretha Dirde worked for over 15 years as a licensed nurse in the mental health sector. Now, she manages the finances for the very field she once served. Her company, AD Keeps The Books, offers bookkeeping for therapists and counselors, psychologists, clinical social workers, and other mental health practitioners in private practice, serving clients nationwide from her Lancaster, California headquarters.
This nursing background proves advantageous in concrete ways: Dirde is already familiar with the vocabulary, the flow of session-based income, the regular expenses of EHR subscriptions and liability insurance, and the payment structures associated with associates and contract supervisors.
"I entered bookkeeping from the same world my clients operate in," Dirde said. "I understand what a packed client load does to everything else on the agenda. Appointments fill the schedule, the accounting gets neglected, and one month of backlogs silently turns into a year. My role is to update the accounts without passing any judgment on their condition, and then keep them up to date so no backlog ever builds again."
AD Keeps The Books focuses solely on mental health practices, ranging from individual clinicians to group practices of about ten staff. This covers telehealth operations, ABA and behavioral health groups, addiction and recovery counselors, and prescribing practices managed by psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatrists—an area Dirde knows from her own nursing experience.
Monthly services include sorting transactions, reconciling bank and credit card accounts, and providing monthly reports. For practices that need their records addressed first, she distinguishes two scenarios: catch-up bookkeeping when books were never created, and clean-up bookkeeping for books that exist but contain misclassified entries, duplicates, and unreconciled accounts. Group practices can opt for payroll processing each pay period, recording clinician pay according to agreements, preparing year-end 1099 forms for contractors, handling bill payments, and managing invoices. Dirde also sets up and trains practices on QuickBooks Online. She holds a Gold-tier certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor designation, along with Level 2 and Payroll certifications.
"A full calendar is not necessarily a sign of a thriving practice," Dirde said. "With up-to-date books, an owner can see the true earnings from a caseload, the expenses to operate, and whether the billing rates are appropriate. Those are choices concerning the practice's future, and they require accurate numbers."
AD Keeps The Books purposely operates as a solo practice. Dirde handles all work personally for each client, so the individual a practice owner speaks with on the initial call is the same person handling the accounts and addressing inquiries month in and month out. Cloud technology allows her to support practices across all states.
Practice owners nationwide can schedule a consultation via the company's website or by telephone.
Aretha Dirde
AD Keeps The Books LLC
+1 6616469745
info@adkeepsthebooks.com
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