If a business is a boat, accountants are the engine chugging below deck.  

The backbone of any company, accountants work behind the scenes to ensure payroll is processed, expenses are logged, taxes are paid, along with essentially anything else that keeps a business financially afloat.    

Loralee Dalton finds comfort in working in the background, and she enjoys the security that working with numbers provides.  

“Numbers are black and white. There’s no gray area with numbers. And accounting is generally black and white,” the soft-spoken Evergreen native said. To her, accounting is like solving a puzzle.  

For 30 years Dalton has been helping small businesses manage their finances, but she entered uncharted territory in February when opening her own accounting service.  

The new business: Dalton’s Accounting and Payroll Servies, offers bookkeeping, payroll processing, financial reporting, set up and clean up and forensic accounting. 

Diving into the uncertainty of a start-up was not exactly her idea of fun, but Dalton plans to bring her decades of experience to the table.   

She was first introduced to accounting while selling tobacco at Buttrey Food and Drug, now Smith’s grocery store in Kalispell, where she reconciled bills before moving onto the accounting software, QuickBooks.  

“I really loved that, that was so much fun,” she recalled.  

She then hopped around various businesses, which included accounting for construction, property management and real estate management companies. She even worked at a transmission shop at one point.  

“I’ve done all varieties of accounting,” she said. “And it’s for small businesses.” 

Dalton plans to carry that same value into her new operation, where she wants to provide services for small businesses and nonprofits in Montana and abroad.  

Dalton currently bookkeeps for her husband’s Evergreen-based business and has a client based in California, where she “had to go all the way back and start from his bank statement and go forward. It was fun putting all the little pieces in and figuring out where it goes,” she recalled.  

Word of mouth amongst small businesses has also helped expand her customer base. A client who originally hired her to get caught up on expenses to date and then decided to hire her once he saw her work and referred another client to her also.  

But Dalton is also willing to provide her service to those just looking to get their financials situated.  

“I want to be able to provide a good service to someone even if they just need to get on track and I don’t have to do their books on a monthly basis. I would love to help people out,” Dalton said.  

As Dalton moves into her role as a business owner, she is soaking up the freedom of escaping the 9-to-5 life, where she can now visit her grandkids more often and better tend to her flower garden. 

A self-proclaimed flower fanatic, Dalton has been researching flowers to put in her new flowerbed.  

Born in Helena Flats, she soon after moved east to Conrad for a stint before finding her way back to Evergreen, where she raised two sons with her husband. She also has three Havanese dogs named Otis, Charlie and Oliver, two of which are 3 years old and bundles of energy. 

The mountains and changing seasons brought her back, she said.  

Dalton hopes to continue being that engine for small businesses in need of one.    

“I can help someone further their business, their dreams and hopes, as well as mine. And I get to do the things that I like. I get to put the puzzle together,” she said.  

Dalton’s Accounting and Payroll Services can be reached at [email protected], 406-250-8110 or at daltonsaccounting.com.  

Reporter Jack Underhill may be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].