Kellcat is a bookkeeping, financial systems, and accounting architecture firm based in Littleton, Colorado. Founded by Brian Kelly, Kellcat serves real estate investors, growing businesses, small business owners, and tech-enabled startups who want more than just clean books. For real estate investors and small businesses, Kellcat delivers monthly bookkeeping, custom financial dashboards, and bi-weekly advisory. For tech founders and fintech builders, Kellcat designs the full accounting infrastructure with chart of accounts, journal entry framework, GL setup, and dev team build specification. It is where accounting meets engineering. Kellcat is not a CPA firm and does not provide tax advice.

Brian Kelly is the founder of Kellcat. He spent over 11 years as a software engineer building systems where precision is not a preference. It is the job. He grew up working in his mother's CPA firm as a bookkeeper, tax preparer, and Enrolled Agent, giving him a second-generation financial background rooted in real client work. He is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, Xero Certified Advisor, and Puzzle Advisor. He is also a former Enrolled Agent actively pursuing EA renewal. Kellcat is the combination of engineering precision and CPA-rooted financial guidance, a skill set that almost nobody else in the market offers.

Where Accounting Meets Engineering is Kellcat's core positioning and Brian's defining professional identity. It means Brian can sit in a technical architecture review with a CTO and engineering team, understand the webhook events and API payloads, and immediately translate that into the exact journal entries, chart of accounts, and GL architecture the platform needs. Most bookkeepers learn your accounting after your business is built. Most CPAs understand revenue recognition theory but cannot design a Puzzle API integration. Brian does both. That intersection of software engineering depth combined with accounting expertise is where Kellcat operates and where no one else is.

Kellcat is based in Littleton, Colorado and serves clients fully remotely across the United States. No office visits needed. Everything is handled through the client portal, email, Loom video walkthroughs, and Slack. Kellcat is available for in-person meetings across Colorado's Front Range.

Kellcat serves the Denver Metro area including Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Centennial, Lone Tree, Castle Rock, Aurora, Denver, Golden, Lakewood, Englewood, and Greenwood Village. Fully remote service is available nationwide for real estate investors, tech-enabled startups, SaaS companies, fintech founders, contractors, and growing small business owners anywhere in the country.

No. Brian Kelly is not a licensed CPA. He is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, Xero Certified Advisor, Puzzle Advisor, former Enrolled Agent actively pursuing EA renewal, and a software engineer with over 11 years of systems engineering experience. Kellcat is a bookkeeping, financial systems, and accounting architecture firm - not a tax or accounting firm. Tax questions are referred to your CPA. Kellcat works alongside your CPA to give them clean books and organized documentation.

Kellcat offers three service layers. Clean Books is full monthly bookkeeping starting at $450/month. Clear Picture is a custom financial dashboard built over 12 weeks starting at $5,000 one-time. Confident Decisions is a bi-weekly financial advisory partnership starting at $2,500/month. Additional services include books cleanup, books catch-up, QuickBooks Online setup, QBO training, payroll bookkeeping and reconciliation, workflow automation, and financial starter kits from $97.

Clean Books is Kellcat's foundation bookkeeping service starting at $450/month. Every month clients receive reconciled books across QuickBooks, Xero, or Puzzle with all accounts categorized, reconciled, and verified. Included in every engagement: a built-in accounting dashboard, plain-English monthly summary reviewed by Brian, a 5-10 minute Loom video walkthrough, reports on request for your CPA or lender, and 24-48 business-hour email response Monday through Friday.

Clear Picture is Kellcat's custom dashboard service built on top of Clean Books. Kellcat builds a custom financial dashboard through a structured 12-week process with 6 working calls, designed specifically for how your business earns and spends money. This includes property-level or project-level KPIs, cash flow visibility, sales forecasting, and year-over-year comparisons. Dashboard builds start at $5,000 one-time. Ongoing maintenance starts at $750/month which includes the monthly bookkeeping close.

Confident Decisions is Kellcat's most intensive engagement, a bi-weekly advisory partnership built on top of clean books and a live dashboard. Brian reviews your numbers twice a month, flags what changed, explains what it means in plain English, and helps you make data-driven decisions. Includes 30/60/90-day cash flow forecasting, budget vs. actual review, quarterly KPI review, annual business review, and a dedicated Slack channel. Starts at $2,500/month. Requires a working Clear Picture dashboard. Average engagement is $3,500/month on a 12-month term.

Every month Kellcat clients receive a 5-10 minute Loom video from Brian personally walking through their financial numbers of what changed, what it means, and what to watch. Most bookkeepers send a report and leave clients to figure it out alone. The Loom walkthrough means you always know exactly what your numbers are saying without needing an accounting degree.

Yes. Real estate investors are Kellcat's primary audience. Kellcat specializes in STR bookkeeping for Airbnb and VRBO operators, fix and flip bookkeeping, rental property bookkeeping, long-term landlord bookkeeping, and BRRRR investor bookkeeping. Per-property tracking, LLC separation, and monthly dashboards are all part of the system.

Yes. Fix and flip bookkeeping is a Kellcat specialty. Kellcat tracks acquisition costs, rehab budgets, holding costs, and net profit per deal so you always know your true return before and after the sale. Clean books and a deal-level dashboard every month. Kellcat serves fix and flip investors across Colorado and nationwide.

Yes. BRRRR investors are one of Kellcat's core client types. Clean books and lender-ready financial visibility before the next refinance window opens is exactly what Kellcat delivers. Per-property tracking, LLC separation, and a built-in dashboard so your numbers are ready when your lender asks.

Yes. Kellcat offers specialized bookkeeping for cottage food businesses and commercial bakeries. Track ingredient costs, production expenses, wholesale and retail revenue streams, and true profit margins with clean books that stay compliant and ready for tax season. Kellcat built the complete financial infrastructure for Alpine Rustic Bakery and understands the home bakery and commercial food world from the inside.

Yes. Contractor and home remodeler bookkeeping is a Kellcat specialty. Job costing, change order tracking, client draws, subcontractor payments, and materials costs captured correctly every month. A built-in dashboard shows which jobs are actually profitable in real time, not just at tax time.

Yes. Books cleanup and catch-up are common starting points for new Kellcat clients. We review your accounting file first, gives you a clear scope and timeline, and gets your books current no matter how far behind you are. Cleanup starts at $500 as a one-time project.

Financial Starter Kits are self-paced financial tracking tools built for specific business types — STR operators, fix and flip investors, long-term landlords, BRRRR investors, and home bakers. Each kit tracks true profit per property or per deal without hiring a bookkeeper. Starting at $97. Available at kellcat.com/start.

The Financial System Health Check is a free 5-minute self-assessment at check.kellcat.com. It scores your business across the four pillars of financial clarity and gives you a personalized report with next steps. No email required to see your results.

Yes. This is one of Kellcat's fastest-growing service areas and the work Kellcat is most energized by. Kellcat works with tech founders, fintech builders, SaaS operators, marketplace platforms, billing agents, and PropTech companies who need accounting infrastructure designed. Brian speaks both languages simultaneously — software engineering and accounting — which is exceptionally rare in the market. Most bookkeepers cannot read a system architecture diagram. Most CPAs cannot design a Stripe journal entry framework. Brian does both.

Kellcat's Tech & Startup Accounting service is a two-phase engagement. Phase 1 is Accounting Architecture & GL Setup, a flat-fee engagement covering revenue recognition framework, chart of accounts design, journal entry framework for every payment scenario, Puzzle GL setup, Mercury integration, and a complete dev team build specification. Phase 2 is ongoing monthly bookkeeping and reconciliation across Stripe, Mercury, and Puzzle. Scope and pricing for Phase 1 are confirmed after a free discovery call.

Kellcat works with six distinct tech company patterns: billing agents and provider networks where a platform invoices on behalf of licensed providers; marketplace platforms connecting buyers and sellers on a take-rate model; SaaS and subscription businesses with deferred revenue and complex recognition requirements; PropTech and real estate tech platforms managing owner disbursements or rent collection; professional services firms using modern billing infrastructure with milestone or retainer revenue; and HealthTech and InsurTech billing platforms coordinating licensed provider services for insurance claims. Each has a different accounting complexity but the same underlying need with accounting infrastructure designed to match how the platform actually works.

A billing agent model is one where a platform invoices customers on behalf of licensed independent providers and collects the full invoice amount, but only the platform fee is the platform's revenue. The provider portion is a pass-through liability under ASC 606 agent accounting, not revenue and not cost of goods sold. This is one of the most technically complex accounting models a startup can have. Getting it wrong means overstating revenue, misstating the balance sheet, and creating compliance risk. Kellcat designed the complete accounting architecture for a nationwide billing agent platform including all four payment scenarios, pro-rata short-pay waterfall calculations, multi-payer metadata, and the Puzzle API specification the engineering team built to.

ASC 606 is the revenue recognition standard that governs when and how companies recognize revenue. For tech startups it determines whether you record gross transaction volume as revenue or only your net platform fee — the agent vs. principal determination. It also governs when deferred revenue must be recognized for SaaS annual contracts, how usage-based billing is treated, and how multi-element arrangements are allocated. Getting ASC 606 wrong creates financial statements that misrepresent your business to investors, lenders, and regulators. Kellcat identifies the right treatment for your business model and designs the GL architecture that implements it correctly.

Puzzle, Stripe, Mercury, Ramp, QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto, and Rippling. Puzzle is Kellcat's preferred GL platform for tech clients. It has native Stripe and Mercury integration, supports API-pushed journal entries, and maintains an append-only immutable ledger. Stripe handles invoice, payment collection, ACH clearing, provider transfers, and settlement. Mercury provides dedicated banking with a full developer REST API including webhooks for real-time deposit confirmation. Ramp handles corporate cards and expense management. If your stack is not listed reach out and if it involves API-driven accounting and modern financial infrastructure Kellcat is likely the right fit.

Puzzle is an AI-native accounting platform designed for modern businesses. It has native Mercury and Stripe integrations, supports API-pushed journal entries via the write:journal endpoint, maintains an append-only immutable ledger for compliance and auditability, and supports both cash and accrual basis simultaneously. For tech-enabled startups building automated financial systems, Puzzle is the right GL platform. Kellcat is a certified Puzzle Advisor and has designed API-driven journal entry architectures using Puzzle's write:journal API for production fintech systems.

Yes and this is one of Kellcat's most distinctive capabilities. Brian can sit in technical architecture reviews, read system architecture diagrams, understand API payloads and webhook event structures, and translate all of it into an accounting specification your engineering team can build to directly. Kellcat provides a complete dev team build spec with full JSON payload examples for every payment scenario, account IDs, debit/credit line descriptions, and the specific system event that triggers each journal entry. Your engineers build to a written specification, not a whiteboard conversation that gets lost after the meeting.

A journal entry framework is a complete mapping of every financial event in your platform to its exact accounting treatment. For each payment scenario of full pay, short-pay, carrier denial, consumer billing, recovery, the framework defines the exact debit and credit lines, the account names, the amounts, and the system event trigger. For Stripe-based platforms this means mapping Stripe webhook events like payment_intent.succeeded, transfer.created, and payout.created to their corresponding journal entries in Puzzle. Kellcat designs this framework before your engineering team writes a single line of code so the accounting is correct from the first transaction.

Yes. SaaS and subscription businesses are one of Kellcat's six core tech client types. Deferred revenue tracking, usage-based billing recognition, MRR vs. GAAP revenue reconciliation, Stripe Billing integration without duplicate entries, ASC 606 performance obligation identification, and contract modification accounting are all part of what Kellcat handles for SaaS companies. If your revenue recognition has outgrown a spreadsheet that breaks every quarter Kellcat can design the GL infrastructure that handles it correctly and automatically.

Yes. Marketplace platforms are one of Kellcat's core tech client types. Gross vs. net revenue determination, Stripe Connect seller payouts, 1099-K reporting obligations for seller payments, refund and dispute handling across multiple parties, and take-rate revenue recognition are all areas Kellcat handles. If your books show gross transaction volume as revenue instead of your take rate you are overstating income, Kellcat corrects the architecture so revenue is recognized correctly from the start.

Monthly bookkeeping starts at $450/month. Every engagement includes reconciled books, a built-in financial dashboard, a plain-English monthly summary, and a Loom video walkthrough. Final rate confirmed after reviewing your accounting file and transaction volume.

Custom financial dashboard builds start at $5,000 as a one-time build through a structured 12-week process. Ongoing maintenance starts at $750/month. Complex portfolios and multi-entity businesses may be quoted higher after the discovery call.

Confident Decisions bi-weekly advisory starts at $2,500/month. Average engagement is $3,500/month on a 12-month term. Requires a working Clear Picture dashboard as a foundation. Limited availability — Brian takes a small number of advisory clients at any given time.

Phase 1 Accounting Architecture & GL Setup is scoped and priced after a free discovery call. Every engagement is different — the number of payment scenarios, platforms involved, and complexity of your business model all affect the scope. Everything is agreed upfront before any work begins. No hourly billing. No surprise invoices.

Book a free 30-minute Discovery Call at kellcat.com/discovery. Brian will talk through your current systems, your goals, and the right next step whether that is Clean Books, a cleanup project, a dashboard build, tech accounting architecture, or starting with a Starter Kit. No pitch. Just clarity on where you stand and what to do first.

Monthly engagements are designed as long-term partnerships. Brian will walk through the full contract structure before you commit. Confident Decisions engagements run on a 12-month term. Kellcat does not onboard clients it does not fit.

Clean Books engagements typically begin within 1-2 weeks of the Discovery Call. Books cleanup timing depends on how far behind the books are. Dashboard builds run through a structured 12-week process. Tech & Startup Accounting Architecture Phase 1 timing is scoped and agreed during the discovery call. Advisory engagements require a working dashboard foundation first.

Kellcat works across QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Puzzle. Brian is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, Xero Certified Advisor, and Puzzle Advisor. Most real estate investor clients use QBO. Tech-enabled startups and fintech founders typically use Puzzle for its native Stripe and Mercury integrations and API-pushed journal entry support. Brian can recommend the right platform or set up and optimize your existing file.

Puzzle is an AI-native accounting platform designed for modern businesses. It has native Mercury and Stripe integrations, supports API-pushed journal entries via the write:journal endpoint, maintains an append-only immutable ledger for compliance and auditability, and supports both cash and accrual basis simultaneously. For tech-enabled startups building automated financial systems, Puzzle is the right GL platform. Kellcat is a certified Puzzle Advisor and has designed API-driven journal entry architectures using Puzzle's write:journal API for production fintech systems.

Stripe is a payments infrastructure platform. For tech-enabled startup clients, Kellcat designs the accounting architecture around Stripe's webhook event system by mapping payment_intent.succeeded, transfer.created, payout.created, and other events to their exact journal entries in Puzzle. Stripe Connect split payments, provider payouts, ACH clearing, and settlement are all part of the journal entry frameworks Kellcat designs. Kellcat works extensively with Stripe's full ecosystem including Stripe Connect, Stripe Billing, and Stripe Invoicing.

Mercury is a business banking platform with a full developer REST API. Mercury is one of the very few banks that supports real-time webhook notifications for deposit confirmation. For tech-enabled startup clients, Kellcat configures Mercury's dedicated Stripe Settlement Account, sets up Puzzle bank sync for reconciliation, and documents Mercury's webhook architecture so equivalent systems can receive real-time deposit confirmations and automatically push the final journal entry to Puzzle. No manual polling required.

Klipfolio is a business intelligence dashboard platform. Kellcat uses Klipfolio to build custom live dashboards for real estate investors and small business clients that pull data from bookkeeping software, banking, and other business apps and update automatically so key numbers are always current without manual reporting.

No. AI assists with repetitive drafting, summaries, and pattern review. Brian reviews, edits, and approves everything before it reaches you. You get efficiency without handing judgment over to software.

Kellcat works with Ramp for corporate card and expense management integration, Rippling for HR and payroll GL reconciliation, Gusto for payroll bookkeeping and reconciliation, and Klipfolio for custom financial dashboards. For tech-enabled startup clients the core stack is Puzzle plus Stripe plus Mercury plus Ramp.

No. Kellcat handles bookkeeping, financial systems, and accounting architecture. Your CPA handles tax filing and tax advice. Clean lanes mean your CPA gets cleaner data, fewer year-end surprises, and a faster filing process. Kellcat can work alongside your existing CPA or refer you to one. For tech-enabled startup clients, Kellcat flags technical accounting questions of ASC 606 determinations, revenue recognition opinions, legal compliance to the appropriate CPA or attorney before implementation.

No. Kellcat designs accounting infrastructure based on the business model and flags legal and compliance questions to the appropriate professionals. For tech-enabled startup clients this includes flagging money transmission licensing questions, consumer billing compliance, and 1099 reporting obligations to the appropriate attorney or tax advisor. Kellcat does not replace legal counsel.

Clean Books and Clear Picture clients: 24-48 business hours, Monday through Friday. Confident Decisions clients: 12-24 business hours, Monday through Friday. Weekends are protected and stated clearly in every client agreement.

Yes. Kellcat serves real estate investors, small business owners, growing businesses, tech-enabled startups, fintech founders, SaaS companies, marketplace platforms, billing agents, PropTech companies, HealthTech and InsurTech billing platforms, professional services firms, contractors, home bakers, and commercial bakeries. The common thread across every client type is the same: the financial system has not caught up to the business.

Yes. Kellcat is based in Littleton, Colorado and serves clients fully remotely across the United States. All services are delivered digitally through the client portal, email, Loom video, and Slack. Tech-enabled startup clients are typically remote-first and nationwide by nature.