About

A little about me…I am Stephanie Cross, Owner of Cross Professional Business Services, a Virtual Bookkeeping & Accounting Services Company. I am also a COVID widow whose life was turned upside down with the death of her husband of over 15 years. I am now a solo mom of a second year University of California, Merced student. As a widow and empty nester I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

I am also a native Californian and have lived in Los Angeles, San Diego & Orange Counties. I have worked in the food/event/hospitality industry for years, and for several years I had a Long Beach-based wedding planning company. I was a member of the Association of Bridal Consultants and earned their Professional Bridal Consultant Designation in 2011.

For the last few years, I have been a stay-at-home mom, while my late husband’s career blossomed as a Catering & Event Chef. He worked at several well know companies and was extremely happy at the place he was working at right before he succumbed to COVID. His work was his passion, and he worked hard for us, so I was able to stay home with our son, drive him wherever he needed, and volunteer at his different activities. I also went back to school when our son was in elementary school and earned a BA in Business Administration.

So why bookkeeping and not wedding planning? I love numbers, charts, and organizing. One of my favorite things to do when I was a wedding planner was put together the timeline. I’m old, well not that old, but running around during a wedding is not what I want to do at this stage of life. My poor body just can’t take walking around for a 10 to 12-hour day anymore.

Plus when I first started my business in 2021 I was recently widowed, and our son was still in high school. I was still his chauffeur,  so I needed to have my weekends free to drive him to all of his extracurricular activities. I also wanted to go to everything like I did when his father was alive. As a Wedding Planner, I would be booked on weekends, and I needed to be with my child. 

If you have been thinking, and I know you probably have, (if you have read this far) I would love for her to partner with me and take care of my financial record keeping. To take care of the one task that needs to be done, but I just don’t want to even think about it or take the time to do it. She is a midlife business owner and can relate to my circumstances. She is also a female entrepreneur and understands the complexities of the must do it all syndrome. How hard it is for you to outsource any part of your company that you have been nurturing, and growing, even if it frustrates the hell out of you to have someone take over.

I do know what it’s like, and so much more. Because the last thing an entrepreneur wants to worry about is their books, or if what they are doing is correct. There is a lot to learn, and lots of different tax deadlines. Learning about what goes where. How to figure out how to do this or that when it comes to recording expenses or revenue? Plus being totally confused when it comes to accounting jargon. Then having to set aside a chunk of precious free time to do them. How boring is that! Wouldn’t you rather be working on your passion, the reason you started a business in the first place than making sure everything is compliant? You would rather have a root canal than input numbers, right? If you’re nodding your head right now…