One Time Bookkeeping is a Canadian accounting firm with a clear focus: helping trades business owners — plumbers, HVAC technicians, electricians — turn their numbers into decisions they can act on.
Founder Kyle Stroshein started the firm in 2021 after years in private industry, including a stint running the books for a plumbing company. He found his calling working with blue-collar owners who need, as Kyle puts it: “good financial advice.”
Today, One Time Bookkeeping serves 42 clients across the trades, with Kyle acting as a fractional CFO for businesses ranging from just over $1 million to $16 million in revenue.
Through every stage of that growth, one partner has stayed in his corner: Rise. From a modern interface that won him over on day one to a support team he calls by first name, Rise has become the payroll backbone Kyle confidently recommends to his own clients.
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Meet Kyle: A fractional CFO passionate about the trades
After working in-house for a trades business, Kyle realized how much value he could add for owners who were brilliant at their craft but underserved on the financial side. "My career really skyrocketed when I picked that niche," he says.
He now specializes in plumbing, HVAC, and electrical, offering everything from tax and bookkeeping to outsourced accounting and advisory. "Fractional CFO is kind of a trendy term," Kyle laughs. "I was doing it before it was actually a thing, and then I thought, 'Oh, that's a great name for what I do.'"
The gap a fractional CFO fills
For trades businesses, Kyle says the biggest gap is on the bookkeeping side — getting clean data into the right systems so owners can actually see what's happening. "My superpower is being able to translate all those numbers into reports that a business owner can make decisions on," he explains. A close second is job costing, so owners know exactly how much money they're making on each job.
But the real value of a CFO, Kyle argues, is the ability to help a business plan into the future.
"The superpower of a CFO is to tell you in twelve months where you're going to be. Accountants look backwards and tell you what happened in the past — last month, last year. But they can't see six months, twelve months, five years down the road."
That future focus shapes Kyle’s very first conversation with a new owner. When he recently spoke with the founder of an HVAC company whose vision was to go Canada-wide, Kyle's response was grounded: have you captured the market in your own backyard first?
"You need a CFO to tell you when to get there, how to get there, and if it's even possible," Kyle tells us. "Your dreams of expansion get much easier once you've got the cash."
But dreams also need guidance. While Kyle doesn’t believe in crushing big dreams, he’s all about making them realistic. "It's not an either-or," Kyle says. "We can get there. It's just going to take time." With his clients, Kyle maps out their trajectory on a vision board: here's 2026, here's 2030, here's the path between them.
Why Kyle chose Rise
When Kyle first started out, he went looking for a better payroll provider than the one he was using at the time. A bit of searching led him to Rise, which sparked his interest because of our company’s Canadian roots and a leadership team that was active and attentive.
But what sealed the deal for Kyle was the software itself. "I’ve used other payroll software, and they were clunky," he recalls. "Rise was one of the first to take a more future-facing approach, where the interface was nice and easy to use. So I jumped on board and got started."
"Rise was one of the first products to take more of a future-forward approach. The user interface was nice. I jumped on board easily."
What Kyle needed from a payroll partner:
- A modern, intuitive interface his clients would actually enjoy using
- Reliable, human support he could reach whenever an issue came up
- Benefits administration he could lean on — a job he'd rather not do himself
- Time tracking and HR tools that suit trades and home-services teams
- A product he could confidently refer to his own clients
Partnership, not transaction: How Rise supports the work
Ask Kyle what keeps him with Rise, and the answer is immediate: the support.
"The biggest help from Rise is the support. The customer support is always there. The team is a phone call away anytime you need them.”
That support is personal. Kyle knows his rep, Christie, by name. "We have a conversation first about kids and family," he says. "Then we get into the deep stuff — what the problem is — and it's always been solved." Whether he needs an extra hour to input timesheets around a stat holiday or help adding benefits, the answer comes from a person who knows his business.
That reliability flows straight through to his clients. "It helps me give them the peace of mind that payroll is taken care of," he says. And it's made Rise genuinely sticky, especially the benefits piece, which Kyle handles for most of his clients and admits he doesn't love doing.
"Everything from onboarding to the technology to adding benefits… Rise is a game changer. It makes my job so much easier. I will never leave Rise."
The time tracking and HR tools matter too. For the trades and home-services teams Kyle supports, timesheets are a major selling factor: "payroll and HR in one place. Clients just love dealing with that.”
As a Rise partner, Kyle also benefits on the business side. The revenue share is, in his words, "a nice little add-on," but he's candid that it isn't what drives him to refer Rise — the product and the people are. What he values just as much is the sales support: "The whole team at Rise is there when I need them, helping to land any new clients I'm trying to get."
Kyle's advice for future Rise partners
For accountants and advisors weighing the Rise partner program, Kyle's advice is simple: get going.
"The revenue share is great, and the single sign-on makes it easy to refer the product and the full set of solutions to our clients."
But for Kyle, the deciding factor has never really been the features. It's the people behind them.
"It's an easy product to use, easy to implement and onboard. But the biggest factor for me — what keeps me around — is the customer support. From the CEO down to tech support, it's just great, great customer service."
Interested in becoming a Rise partner? Discover how a partnership with Rise can help you serve your clients better.
Learn more about the Rise partnership program today.
