MOSES LAKE — Three woman-owned businesses held a ribbon-cutting and grand opening at their new location in Moses Lake Thursday. The office at 815 W. Third Ave. holds an accounting firm, a massage service and a waxing room.

“We’re a one-stop shop,” Mandy Schuh said.

Schuh is the owner and founder of both Pillar Rock Accounting and Seventh Sense Serenity massage service. As Pillar Rock, she and her assistant Esmeralda Sanchez handle after-the-fact bookkeeping: general bookkeeping, payroll processing and bank and credit card reconciliation. That’s the business people see when they walk in the front door.

In a quiet, gently-lit room in the back of the office, Schuh offers massage services, including Swedish, intraoral massage, myofascial, reflexology and the Japanese technique called Reiki.

“Reiki is Japanese for universal life force,” Schuh said. “It’s an energy work. I tap into universal life force and channel it through myself into the person’s body.”

Schuh qualified in Reiki with a one-on-one online teacher, she said, in a process called attunement.

“Attunement is kind of like a frequency on the radio,” she said. “Any person can do Reiki. If your son or daughter falls down and they bonk their head, what do you do? You kiss it. That is innate Reiki. It’s just it’s unconditional love that you share through touch or you share through intention.”

Schuh holds both a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Western Governors University and her professional massage license earned through Sage Academy of Moses Lake, she said.

She didn’t actually set out to do either one, she said. In high school, she wanted to be a veterinarian, but she wasn’t able to get into Washington State University’s veterinary program. She did, however, have a knack for working with bookkeeping software.

“I always wanted to be in the health and wellness side, whether it was animals or people,” Schuh said. “I ended up doing massages for family … and that has always been on the back burner. But because I needed something that brought in income, I started working at the (South Columbia Basin) Irrigation District in Mesa.”

In the course of that job, she learned to use the accounting program QuickBooks, she said, and her ability with that program took her through several bookkeeping jobs. Eventually she and a coworker decided to hand out their own shingle as accountants. That partnership didn’t work out, so Schuh opened her own office.

Sanchez also has skills in QuickBooks, which she learned for fun, she said.

“Ever since I was little, I was like, oh, I want to learn how to use QuickBooks.” Sanchez said. “I started training, and I met (Schuh), and I knew she was an accountant. I kind of just threw myself at her.”

Sanchez does the lion’s share of the bookkeeping work, Schuh said.

The third business is Christine’s Waxing Room, located in a small room next to the accounting office. Owner Christine Villarreal offers lashes, facials, body waxing and face waxing Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

“I’m here 10 hours (a day) so that everyone gets the opportunity to come in,” Villarreal said. “I’ll stay open late for people who work. I even get people who come from out of town and they can’t be here till 6:30 or 7, so I’ll accommodate them.”

The abbreviated hours are because Villarreal has four children, two of whom – 3-year-old Roman and 2-year-old Belén – were at the opening on Thursday.

“Right out of high school, I went to esthetician school in Bellevue, and I really enjoyed it,” she said. “I have stayed in the industry on and off for a few years since then. And then about 10 years ago, I was given an opportunity at another salon to start waxing because they needed that. I filled that void, and it just grew.”

Sharing space with Schuh enables Villarreal to keep her overhead down, she said, which in turn means she can pass lower prices on to the client.

“One of my services is $55 and somewhere else it’s $80,” she said. “My eyebrows are $15, and in town there’s places it’s $25, $35. But then I get a group of five, two, three women … come and they all get it done together. And then there you made it up in volume. Because it’s so affordable, people can get a lot done in one sitting.”

More and more small businesses are making arrangements like Villarreal and Schuh have, Villarreal said, because the cost of business space is so high that sharing makes sense.

Small business owners are some of Schuh’s favorite clients, she said, and she enjoys helping them thread the bookkeeping maze.

“They have this amazing drive to provide the service that is so dear to their heart, but they don’t know what they don’t know,” she said. “So, we have a conversation and I lay it all out: “This is the expectation, this is what the IRS is going to look for, this is what Washington state’s going to look for in order to keep you in compliance. These are things that we need to do.’”

    Mandy Schuh, center, owner of Pillar Rock Accounting and Seventh Sense Serenity massage, Schuh’s assistant Esmeralda Sanchez, left, and Christine Villarreal, owner of Christine’s Waxing Room, right, at the grand opening of all three businesses at their new location at 815 W. Third Ave. in Moses Lake.
  

    A quiet, gently lit room in the back of the office at 815 W. Third Avenue is where Mandy Schuh does her massage and reiki treatments.
  

    Christine Villarreal, with her children 3-year-old Roman and 2-year-old Belén, in Christine’s Waxing Room.