Meet Your Private Tutor
Hi. I'm Lake (short for Lake Girl)

I will be your tutor on this site so ... let me get the formalities out of the way before you get to know the real me! I am a ...

9 years Canadian small business experience in bookkeeping, management accounting/reporting, basic tax preparation - currently dba Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services

3 years financial caretaker experience for seniors providing assistance in managing their personal day-to-day monetary affairs

3 years estate executor experience settling estates and distributing the property to beneficiaries

20 years corporate head office experience in budgets, forecasting, financial planning, general accounting




Bachelor of Commerce, University of Calgary

CPB Certified Professional Bookkeeper Member, Institute of Professional Bookkeepers of Canada, Prince George Chapter (see Code of Conduct)

Senior Member, Canadian Bookkeepers Association (see Code of Ethics)

Member, American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers

Member, QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program - Canada

Self development - numerous economics and professional accounting courses through the University of Calgary, CGA Association of Alberta and H&R Block

In the media, 5 Tips to Manage Your Books Yourself, Mompreneur Magazine, January/February, 2010, p. 18-20 www.themompreneur.com

Whew! Now that's over with, we can have a chin-wag. ;-)



As long as we are chatting ... you should know that I dislike shopping ... I find it exhausting ... and I like to rearrange furniture a few times a year.

I'm telling you this because I don't want you to be upset when I continually move the navigation buttons around on you ... it's just what I do ... I can't help myself ;0)

Here's how I see it. The navigation buttons on the left hand side of this site are like store front windows or store displays. No store would leave the same display year after year, season after season. So during the summer, I will likely move "The Questions" button towards the top ... and towards the bottom during tax time or if I'm busy. The same goes for "The Tax" except in reverse. You get the idea, don't you?

You can also expect information to move around on different pages sometimes. Why? Two reasons.

First off, I really don't like sites that put just a small amount of information on a page and make me keep clicking to continue reading the article ... so many of my pages are long because I discuss what I have to say on the topic all on one page ... no clicking.

Second, I have grouped like information together on a page ... and add to it as I find information on the subject. After a while, there is too much information on one page ... even for me. When this happens, I pull a certain segment of information and give it its own page.

Right now I'm experimenting with new colors ... so I'm slowly converting the pages on the site to my new colors. :0( I apologize if you don't like change and tinkering. :0( ... but sometimes I just can't help myself. Just think of my quirky habit like the weather. It changes all the time ... and you can't control it! :0)

Why do I have pictures depicting lake life or teacups on this site ... instead of pictures that relate to the topic of money and bookkeeping?

An important website design concept is to have images that match your topic ... but here's the thing. We bookkeepers often have our noses buried in numbers.

We forget to lift our heads up and take in our surrounding environment.

We work from home so have less interruptions in a day ... and interaction with other people.

When you come to visit my website, I want you to feel like you've had a good chat, a cup of tea (or coffee) and a bit of break to boot ... Of course I want you leave with whatever information you dropped by for too!

I also want you to feel like you've actually met me ... as opposed to those web sites where you have no idea who is behind them.

Pictures of lake life help me to exhale and relax ... and keep my goal of semi-retirement and living at the lake alive.

Pictures of tea cups remind me to take a "Tea Break" ... because I actually use this website as my reference "goto" site too!

Submit pictures of your goals ... or your favorite tea cup

If you have a picture that helps you focus on your goal ... and you would like to see it published on this website ... so you can look at it often to keep you focused on your long term goal ... or a picture of your favorite tea or coffee cup ...

... just go to The Bookkeeping Resources Forum ... and submit it. I'll publish it.

You can bookmark it and visit it as many times as you want.

If the picture is of a place, it would be great to know where the picture was taken. If you want to put your goal in writing so you are more committed to it, submit that too.

Speaking of goals and breaks ...

Because I work from home, one of the things I try to do ... and I'm not always successful ... is to have what Julia Cameron calls "An Artist Date" ... an excursion. Julia's dates were meant to be solitary but I use them to have contact with other people.

I can do whatever ... as long as it gets me out of the office and my home. Here's what happened during my last excursion.

When I was a kid, we used to spend a lot of summer days strolling along the beach, skipping stones, going to look at all the fancy boats moored at the marina.

We also had to ... no ifs and or buts ... take Red Cross swimming lessons. It didn't matter if it was pouring rain, windy with the waves coming at you, cold ... you were not allowed to miss your swimming lesson. I often came out of the water with purple lips, the rest of me turning blue and shivering.

If the weather was cold and rainy ... and we weren't taking our swimming lesson ... all the kids on our block could make a monopoly game last a week if we had to! We also hung out reading the Hardy Boys ... as the boys outnumbered me, I didn't get to read Nancy Drew ... or the mounds of comic books stored in the old ice box.

Flash forward again to "Our Excellent Adventure". In addition to a few local stores, we also visited Fort St. James National Historic Site, an old Hudson Bay outpost.

My favorite parts were the penny candy that isn't a penny anymore, the old fashioned homemade lemon drop cookies made in the old wood stove, and the swing.

Sometimes as adults we take ourselves so seriously ... at least I do. ;0) Swinging made me remember what it was like to just take in the moment with not a care in the world ... and the biggest challenge was how high could you make your swing go. I used to swing for hours ... standing, sitting, doubles ... but my swing went a lot higher than this one. Loved it!

The only thing missing were the paper cut out dolls ... do you remember them? All in all, our excellent adventure was ... a perfect summer day.

The majority of the information on this site comes from my desire to gather all my own personal reference notes and place them all in one place for easy access.

Crossroads ... Choices ... Dreams

In December 2008, my life was at a bit of a crossroads. (This is the third set of crossroads in my life.)

I had a choice on where my life should go next ... so I opted for following a dream ... having my own website and virtual business so I could work from home.

I live on lake front property (I followed this dream at my second set of crossroads awhile back) ... less than an hour away from a city in one direction and a small town in the opposite direction. (You'll see pictures of the area around my home scattered throughout this website ... just in case you were wondering what the heck they had to do with bookkeeping!)

Living year round at the lake allows me ... to breathe and feel like ... I'm home ... I'm finally home. The tension my body feels when I'm in the city ... falls away when I turn off the highway and drive the long lake road to home.

This want ... this need to live at the lake only remains a reality if I have income (like everyone!)... and I wanted ... so wanted... to not drive to the city five days a week ... I wanted ... and the want slowly became a need over the years ... I needed ... to find a way to work close to home.

Okay, I'll admit there were some health issues driving this need as well. Sometimes when life throws some curves at you, you have to be creative in how you catch them!

I was doing a lot of thinking on how I could make this happen when ... I started toying with the idea that ...

... if I built a website ... I could work from home.

My original goal was to create my own website that I could access from anywhere ... and have a place to direct clients when they needed information or had questions. The idea was to create a "brochure" website for my business.

(I decided to start up my business again after my parents' deaths and more time became available ... instead of looking for employment. I had gotten used to having flexible hours after six years spent caring for my parents and wrapping up their estates.)

Once I decided to build a "brochure" website, I was faced with the problem of learning how to do that ...

I didn't want to pay someone thousands of dollars just to create and maintain a website

... when I found a free host that would enable me to put up a simple website ... actually, a neighbour across the lake had started using it.

While researching some aspect of how to get the site up and running, I stumbled onto Site Build It! (SBI!) as an affordable solution.

For $30 US per month (or $300 US per year), SBI! provided the guidance, tools, and support so I could become my own web master and run a profitable (eventually ... with some hard work) online business.

Once I made the decision to go the SBI! route, I deleted my "brochure" site and started over ... building my site following SBI!'s advice.

Working Towards The Dream

After reading (in pdf format) and watching (on video) the SBI! Step by Step Action Guide, I realized that ALL (not just some) of my notes and references may be useful to other work from home business owners who weren't clients or bookkeepers starting their own practice from home ... and that I could earn some money providing this information.

I took the leap and decided to make all my notes available on the internet for others to use and reference. It will take me some time to get everything up but I've got a good start at it.

(Update January 2010 - Actually this website has now taken on a life of its own.)

Prior to finding SBI!, I did not think of having an internet site as a business, in its own right, that I could earn money from.

After I discovered that gem of a possibility ... I decided to "make a curve in my pathway" ... setting my first goal to earning $200-$300 a month.

Once I realized the amount of work actually involved in building the site, I revised my initial goal to making this site pay for itself first ... then work on achieving supplemental income of $200-$300 per month.

(To be really truthful, SBI! testimonial ads and the SBI! forums are full of people who have been able to leave their jobs after having a website. That is my dream too! ... I can't say I really believed it at first

... you know the "if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't"!

But my site has been progressing just like Dr. Ken Evoy and SBI! said it would ... just slower than I originally anticipated ... I have always been a bit of a slow learner ... but once I catch on ... I've got it.

... All of the successful SBIers say all you need to do is plan for it to take two to five years and ... this is very important ... follow the Action Guide ... step by step ... no deviations.)

Building this site has been a learning curve ... but one I am enjoying.

It is taking longer to earn money than I planned ... I had trouble with a few of the concepts, still do ... so I'm a bit behind on my plan ... but I still think it is achievable.

I started a log of my progress on building this site so on the days I am a bit discouraged at my progress, I can check in with myself and see how much I have accomplished!

If you would like to read a bit more about my experience with SBI!, click here.

Wow ... I kind of got off topic (if I knew how to insert an embarrassed face, I would)... but as you can see, I really do love SBI! ... but back to making my notes available on this website.

While learning to get this site up and running, I do my best to ensure my "notes" are accurate, complete and do not infringe on others' copyrights ... but I am still learning.

I make these pages available for your use with the understanding that I cannot be held liable for errors and/or omissions. Please make yourself familiar with my site policies prior to relying on any of the information on this site.

It is my sincere hope that this site provides you with useful, practical information to assist you with your business.

Stay tuned .... there will be more to come ... at some point ... on a day when I feel like sharing / talking about myself.

So until I'm in a chatty mood, I'll share a picture of two of my best friends. They originally started working at Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services as bookkeepers-in-training. However, it soon became evident that their talents leaned more towards the people side of the business. Both are happy in their positions as Greeters. ;-)

The good news is ... you can ask your bookkeeping question ... for free or in private ... on another page on this site. Just click on The Questions tab on the left hand side of the navigation bar. :0)

Your email address will be kept private. I will never publish your email address. It will only be used for the purposes that you intended. It will never be sold, rented, or traded.