Author: Brianna Lane

Brianna Lane contributes to Thryve Digest on topics related to small business finance, bookkeeping, and operational accounting. She has spent more than 15 years inside the day-to-day financial work of small and mid-sized organizations, first as a bookkeeper and technical consultant, later as a controller and finance director, and now on the buying side as a procurement leader.

Location: Santa Barbara, California
Expertise: Small Business Bookkeeping, Cash Flow Management, Controller and Finance Operations, Nonprofit Finance, Vendor Negotiation and Procurement, Accounting Systems Implementation

Highlights
Brianna has 15+ years of experience in bookkeeping, controller, and finance leadership roles across consulting, nonprofit, and small business environments. She spent 12 years as a technical consultant and bookkeeper serving small business clients, co-founded a Santa Barbara accounting and business consulting firm, and served as Director of Finance and Technology at the Santa Barbara Humane Society. She currently serves as Directro of Procurement at STAX Engineering, the first company approved by the Port of Los Angeles to provide on-call at-berth emissions control services. Outside her professional work, she served for nearly seven years as President and Treasurer of the Harding School Foundation.

Experience
Brianna's career in small business finance began in the late 2000s with controller and bookkeeping roles at Permilia and Livingreen, where she managed payroll, human resources, and accounting across multiple retail locations. She later spent 12 years as a Technical Consultant and Bookkeeper at BlueIsle Bookkeeping, supporting a range of small business clients with accounting, technology, and day-to-day financial operations. That stretch is where most of what she writes about comes from: she has opened a lot of other people's books and seen what the first look tells you.

From 2019 to 2021, Brianna served as Director of Finance and Technology at the Santa Barbara Humane Society, where she implemented new accounting and POS systems and handled both finance and human resources for the campus. She subsequently took on controller work at Shaw HR Consulting, implementing new billing systems and maintaining all accounting records.

In 2017, Brianna co-founded Lane Business Consulting, a Santa Barbara firm providing business and accounting consulting to small businesses. She ran that practice through 2023.

Since 2023 she has served as Director of Procurement at STAX Engineering, a maritime emissions capture and control company operating across California ports. Procurement is the other side of the ledger from bookkeeping: evaluating vendors, negotiating terms, and deciding what a contract is actually worth before signing it. That work shows up directly in her writing on managing expenses, choosing tools, and pushing back on a price.

Editorial Perspective
Brianna writes about small business finance from the operator's chair, not the textbook. Her view is that the businesses that survive are the ones whose owners can read their own numbers, manage cash flow without panic, and make financial decisions without waiting for permission. At Thryve Digest she focuses on what to track, how to think about cash flow, and how to make money decisions with less stress and more clarity.

Brianna is not a CPA, an enrolled agent, or a licensed financial adviser. Her articles cover bookkeeping, cash flow, invoicing, expenses, and getting paid. They do not cover tax filing positions, tax strategy, or investment decisions, and where a question needs a credentialed professional the article says so.

Education
Brianna studied General Business at Santa Barbara City College.