Hi, I’m Kathy Woods, founder of Out of the Woods Bookkeeping.

After nearly 30 years in the veterinary field as a Registered Veterinary Technician, I’ve spent most of my career learning how to stay calm in chaos, solve problems on the fly, and function normally on very little predictability.

At some point, after years on the management side of vet med, I realized I was burned out on that side of things… but still not ready to give up the medicine, the people, or the animals. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I turned to relief veterinary work, added bookkeeping to my life, and called it balance. I now work as a relief technician in the Kansas City area—which means I haven’t fully left veterinary medicine, I’ve just added spreadsheets to the mix.

Surprisingly, it fits.

I’ve always had a head for numbers, systems, and figuring out what’s actually going on beneath the surface of a messy situation. Bookkeeping lets me use that part of my brain—the one that would rather fix the root problem than keep patching symptoms forever. I’m a big believer in being proactive instead of reactive, mostly because reactive tends to involve more stress, more caffeine, and fewer good outcomes.

At Out of the Woods Bookkeeping, my goal is to take financial chaos and turn it into something understandable, manageable, and far less intimidating than it looked at first glance. Clients often tell me I have a way of breaking things down until things finally make sense again. I’ll take that as a compliment.

I’m detail-focused, calm under pressure, and not easily rattled—veterinary medicine will do that to a person. I also tend to ask a lot of questions, not because I enjoy interrogation, but because the answer usually matters more than the assumption.

What I want for my clients is simple: less stress, more clarity, and the confidence that someone competent is keeping an eye on the details. I also want you to feel comfortable asking questions—because if something doesn’t make sense, it probably deserves a second look anyway.

Outside of work, I keep life pretty simple. I have a daughter in college majoring in Illustration and minoring in Themed Entertainment. I have two dogs who believe personal space is optional, I enjoy being outdoors when Kansas City weather allows it, and I like to travel and read when time permits. I also try not to take life too seriously—it’s usually doing a good job of that on its own anyway.

If there’s one consistent thread through everything I do, it’s this: I prefer to listen first, understand what’s really going on, and then figure out what actually needs to be done. That approach works well in exam rooms, in bookkeeping, and in life in general.