Entrepreneur thinks inside box
Pat Dutched had been a bookkeeper more than 25 years when she got a bright idea. Everything important to a small business should be in one place, easily reachable, and organized alphabetically and by dates. She started with her own 25 clients, filling for each a banker's box with receipts, invoices, payments, payroll, and insurance and lease documents.
In recent months, Ms. Dutched has expanded her idea into a business, Bookkeeping In A Box, and has an Internet site and displays in two Sylvania bank branches. She said she has put nearly $60,000 of her own money into the start-up, but it's starting to pay off.
It's getting rave reviews from some of her initial customers.
"It's a tremendously simple and yet efficient way of keeping track of every penny coming in and going out," said Jon Richardson, a downtown Toledo attorney.
Timothy Gilbert, a podiatrist in Maumee, said, "I guess from a bookkeeping standpoint it is what it says it is: plain old file folders in a box. It's a simple, 'old-school' tool, but it's economical and efficient, and it transports easily."
Ms. Dutched picks it up once a month, he said. The founder has a small-business background. In the late 1960s, she opened a wig boutique in Miracle Mile shopping center, and for a time she managed the former Garden Inn restaurant on Monroe Street.
A couple of decades into her bookkeeping career she built up a client list that included doctors' offices, construction companies, insurance agencies, and a restaurant chain.
"I have a very rigid schedule because of the deadlines," she said. "If I'm sitting in one client's office and get a call from another client, I need a system so I can explain where the [information] is at while I'm on the phone.
"If the question is about worker comp, I say, 'Go to the W file,' and if it's about a bank deposit last month, I say, 'It's in the December packet.' … And, when it's tax time, the box can go to the accountant."
Ms. Dutched, 61, of Round Lake, Mich., runs her business out of an office in Ottawa Lake, Mich. She said she has been promoting her concept at trade shows, and last year decided to get serious about making it a business.
She said she put together several dozen kits, including 15-page instruction manuals, and sold all of them for about $250 each. She's preparing an advertising campaign.
Contact Homer Brickey at:
homerbrickey@theblade.com
or 419-724-6129.Banner ads just don’t work … so they say!
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