Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, working with businesses beyond it

You run your business.
We run the back office.

Payroll · Books · People · Operations

Payroll, reconciliations, federal filings, state filings, and HR paperwork, handled by one team, so you're not doing it all again after the kids are in bed.

See what's included

The Board All handled

Payroll

941 & 940 filings

ESD & PFML (WA unemployment and paid leave)

W2 · W4 · I9

Bank & card reconciliation

HR compliance

Workers' comp admin

What's eating your week right now

The stuff you're still doing at midnight

If you're the owner, and you're the one filing this, running this, and remembering this, across one or more businesses, this is what we take off your plate.

Payroll Processing

Every payroll cycle, employee changes, direct deposit, deductions and garnishments, all reconciled and accounted for.

Federal payroll filings

941 and 940 filings, on time, every quarter, without the reminder living in your head.

State filings, any state

Unemployment insurance and paid leave filings tracked and filed correctly wherever you're based, including ESD and PFML in Washington, Oregon Employment Department filings and Paid Leave Oregon in Oregon, and Idaho Department of Labor filings in Idaho.

Employee paperwork

W-2, W-4, and I-9 filing, onboarding paperwork, E-Verify, and the recordkeeping behind it.

Reconciliation

Bank and card accounts reconciled monthly, so your numbers are actually right, not just close.

Compliance tracking

Workers' comp administration and the compliance deadlines that are easy to miss when you're the one running the job site too.

Pricing

Three ways to hand it off

Every tier includes a set number of hours each month at a flat rate. Work beyond that is billed hourly, at a lower rate the higher the tier. Add-ons and project work are quoted separately.

Essentials

$350 / month, starting

Includes 5 hours / month · $65/hr after

Bookkeeping and financial administration.

Monthly bookkeeping and reconciliations
Accounts payable and receivable oversight
Monthly financial reports
Year end coordination with your CPA

Operations

$650 / month, starting

Includes 10 hours / month · $60/hr after

Bookkeeping, plus payroll.

Everything in Essentials
Payroll administration and employee changes
Payroll reconciliations and reporting
Payroll tax coordination, 941, 940, ESD, PFML

Back Office

$1,100 / month, starting

Includes 18 hours / month · $55/hr after

A fractional back office department.

Everything in Operations
HR compliance and employee paperwork
Benefits and workers' comp administration
Compliance tracking, SOPs, and operational support

Add-ons, any tier

New service line

HRIS Optimization & Implementation Consulting

Choosing, implementing, or cleaning up the system that runs your HR and payroll data. System selection, workflow automation, data migration, and getting your HRIS, payroll platform, and benefits systems actually talking to each other, instead of three spreadsheets pretending to.

How it works

Your systems, our hands

No migration, no new software to learn. You keep what you already use.

Free Discovery Call

We map what you're doing today, what it's costing you in hours, and where the risk actually sits.

You keep your systems

We get invited in as a user on your existing accounting software, and your existing payroll platform. Your systems, your control, updated or revoked any time.

We take it off your plate

Starting with whichever tier fits today, and moving up as the business grows past what you can carry alone.

Where we work

Rooted in the Columbia Basin

Based in Moses Lake and working across the Columbia Basin, with clients throughout Washington, the wider Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

We work with owners in Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, Othello, Warden, Soap Lake, Royal City, and George, along with businesses in Wenatchee, the Tri Cities, Yakima, and Spokane. If you're running a business anywhere in Grant County, Adams County, elsewhere in Washington and the Pacific Northwest, or somewhere else entirely, we can work with you, remotely, inside the tools you already use, with payroll tax and compliance knowledge that covers all 50 states, not just the ones nearby.

Keri Nuetzhorn

Founder, Desert Sage Back Office Solutions

I've spent more than a decade building and running payroll, benefits, and back office operations, including years inside PEO environments at Paychex and ProService Hawaii, and most recently overseeing payroll and retirement operations for more than 70 charter schools and nonprofits across multiple states. I've worked in union and benefits heavy environments, and I know payroll tax and compliance rules across all 50 states, not just the ones close to home. I'm a Certified Payroll Professional, and I built Desert Sage to bring that same level of operations to businesses that don't have that kind of support yet.

Built by someone who's actually done the job

Desert Sage Back Office Solutions started from a simple, familiar problem. An owner running payroll, filings, reconciliations, and compliance across multiple businesses, alone, at night, after everything else was done.

We're a family run firm headquartered in Moses Lake, Washington, rooted in the Pacific Northwest but not limited to it, that exists to be the one place you hand that work to, so you get your evenings back and your business gets it done right and on time.

We work inside the tools you already use. We coordinate directly with your CPA rather than replacing them. And we tell you plainly what's included at each tier, so there's no guessing what shows up on the invoice.

Desert Sage Back Office Solutions provides bookkeeping and payroll administration. We are not a CPA firm. Income tax preparation and CPA level advisory are coordinated with your accountant.

You run your business.We run the back office.