For growing businesses that are big enough to need dedicated business operations and not yet big enough to hire for it full-time. All of it remote — run inside your own systems.
On a retainer, the areas below are covered together — one operation, run whole, not picked from a menu. And if the whole operation is more than the business needs today, financial administration stands on its own as the place to start.
The books are behind, and month-end is a scramble.
Bookkeeping, payables, receivables, payroll and month-end, kept current in the program your business already uses. The cash position and what is owed stay visible, so the numbers stop being a guess.
Best fit: owners who need the finance pillar handled before anything else.
Everything runs through you — and it shows.
Priorities, recurring work, vendors and deadlines, tracked and followed through instead of carried in the owner’s head. Commitments get owners, dates get kept, and the week runs on a rhythm.
Best fit: growing businesses where the owner has become the bottleneck.
A renewal or filing date is always closer than it feels.
Contracts, subscriptions, records, filings and renewals held on one deadline calendar and met on time. Accountant and lawyer documents ready when they are asked for — nothing reconstructed at the last minute.
Best fit: businesses with licences, permits, remittances and renewals to keep straight.
The process lives in one person’s head.
Recurring work turned into documented procedures, checklists and a monthly reporting rhythm — then run that way every month. The operation stops depending on memory, including the owner’s.
Best fit: businesses ready to run on rails instead of reminders.
Invoices out, payroll run, paperwork filed.
The deepest bench we have — portfolios and properties, run whole.
Appointment-based businesses with a team to pay.
Client work out front; the operation handled behind it.
Small crews, steady work, no office manager yet.
Boards, filings and books, kept in order.
Where do all the business details live? In most businesses this size, in the owner’s head. With the back office, they live in The Register — and the business stops living in your head: every deadline, renewal and filing, the books, the payroll dates, the month-end, tracked ahead of time and refreshed as the work moves, behind your own sign-in.
Named for the original register — the office’s bound book, kept in ink: what was owed, what was due, what had been filed — the one place that was always right.
The RegisterAdd it to your home screen — it opens like an app. Verified sign-in, one Register per client, yours alone.
We walk through your business — how it runs, where it strains — and you get the action plan in writing. Two hours at the desk on your operation before anything is scoped: the state of the books, the deadlines and filings ahead, the systems in play, and what currently lives in the owner’s head. You get the findings and the action plan in writing, and the ongoing work — the books, a retainer, or both — scoped and priced in writing.
$300, once — credited in full — off the setup first, and anything left off the first month — if the work starts within 30 days. You do not pay twice.
A thirty-minute discovery call, or a few lines by message — the books, the payroll, the renewals, whatever lands on your desk at month-end. A written proposal with scope and pricing follows every call.
A one-time setup — $500: The Register configured, the deadline calendar built, access and systems set up. Books brought current inside the first month.
The operation runs — financials, systems and deadlines, kept current. You see everything, any time, on your Register.
Not every business needs the whole operation on day one — and not every business is sure what it needs yet. Financial administration is a complete engagement on its own: the finance pillar, run properly, scoped in writing like everything here. When the business outgrows it, it grows into a full fractional engagement, and nothing has to be rebuilt.
The books alone, run properly — bookkeeping, reconciliations, payables and receivables, payroll, monthly reporting.
The exact fee depends on the size and state of your books, and is scoped in writing before anything starts. A small, tidy set of books sits at the low end — the smallest engagements start at $1,250. No hour meter. Setup $250, one time — the books configured or connected, accounts linked, the opening position recorded, and the monthly rhythm set.
When the business needs more than the books — the systems, the deadlines and the follow-through around them — the whole operation runs on one of three retainers. The retainers are built for growing businesses — big enough to need the operation handled, not yet big enough to hire it in-house. Each engagement is scoped in writing in the agreement; if the work outgrows a tier, the answer is a move to the next tier — never surprise overage billing.
The place to start: bookkeeping, reconciliations, payables and receivables, payroll, monthly reporting — scoped in writing before anything starts. Setup $250, one time. The Priority Plan is $300, credited in full — off the setup first, and anything left off the first month — if the work starts within 30 days. The books, in full
About 20 hours a month
Best for: a business whose books and deadlines have outgrown the owner’s evenings.
About 35 hours a month
Best for: a growing team whose operation needs a rhythm, not a scramble.
About 50 hours a month
Best for: a business that needs its whole operation run, end to end.
The fractional desk opens the way the real estate desk did: small, and built properly. One founding engagement — one business, onboarded first, its operation and its Register built around how it runs. Founding terms: onboarding waived, and the published tier rates locked for the first twelve months.
A bookkeeper here, a payroll service there, the rest of it in the owner’s head at midnight — pieces, with nobody running the whole. A full-time hire costs the business roughly $7,500 a month, all-in — and still answers to you. A fractional business operations manager runs the back office whole, beautifully — senior, unsupervised, only the hours the operation needs — for less than the hire.
The Back Office Co. is founder-led by Geneva Bast, with 25 years in business operations and financial administration.
Good operations should make running a business easier, not give you another business to manage.
Not a staffing agency. Not a virtual-assistant marketplace. Operational structure and financial administration inside your existing systems, with your Register current through the day. One operation, one standard.
Straight answers, no fine print.
Yes — the Priority Plan. We walk through your business — how it runs, where it strains — and you get the action plan in writing: the findings, the priorities, and the ongoing work scoped and priced. It is $300 once, credited in full — off the setup first, and anything left off the first month — if the work starts within 30 days.
Tell us about your business and how we can help. A few lines is plenty — every message is read and answered by the back office itself. White-glove, start to finish — we will take it from there.