CPA FAQs

Frequently asked questions for CPAs

Accounting Frequently Asked Questions

How does insufficient accounting hurt my bottom line?

Many small and mid-sized businesses fail to adequately measure and manage their finances, even though poor financial management is a major cause of business failure. If you don’t have good financial practices in place, your business could suffer in a number of ways:

Lost revenue

Insufficient tax planning
Missed financial opportunities
Penalties and fines
Closing your doors

How does insufficient accounting hurt my bottom line?

Lost revenue
Insufficient tax planning

Missed financial opportunities
Penalties and fines
Closing your doors

What does the monthly accounting process look like?

Our monthly accounting process starts with receiving your source documents. Our staff compiles the information and reports back to you with the following to help you take back control of your finances:

Make monthly profit and loss statements
Make monthly balance sheets

Perform regular account reconciliation
Offer advice based on your financial statements, tax planning, and your business’s situation

We also include the following services:

Business tax work
Sales tax filings

What makes you different than other monthly accounting services?

Our customer service sets our firm apart. We make it our priority to reach out to clients on a consistent basis because we care about the success of your business. Our experienced team of accountants also provide proactive business advice and tax planning, allowing you to maximize your profits.

Why should I choose monthly accounting over annual accounting?

If you are looking for an outsourced accounting solution based on price alone, annual accounting may be enough for you. However, if your business is the right fit for monthly accounting services, they provide substantially more value than an annual service.

If an accountant only sees your numbers once a year, it’s too late to offer advice that would have helped to make that year more profitable – and definitely too late to lower your tax liability for a year that is already over with.

Please note that while we can handle your personal taxes as well if you are a business client of ours, many of our clients still choose to have an annual accountant do their personal taxes.

Why should I choose a local accounting firm over online accounting?

There are a variety of pros and cons for every accounting service, and we know that we aren’t the best solution for everybody. When you don’t know the differences between outsourced accounting options, it’s difficult to make the best decision for your business.

If you trust other local vendors to help with your operations, why not trust a local accounting firm? Don’t automatically go for a name you recognize or the lowest price without doing your research first.

When should I consider switching accounting solutions? How do I do it?

Trust your gut. If you’re already thinking about leaving your current accounting firm, then you’re ready to move on.

What if I’m making the wrong decision?
I’ve got too much going on right now.
I don’t want a new accountant to know that my books are a mess or my taxes have fallen behind.
I can’t afford a different level of service.

Don’t forget the necessary steps to move forward once you make your decision. If you’d like, we can help you with the process.

Find a new accounting firm.
Inform your current accounting firm.
Set goals with your new accounting firm.

Will you help me get caught up on my taxes? Can you file multiple prior years at once?

CSI will file multiple years of back taxes for you at once when you come on board. In fact, if you haven’t been filing your taxes, we require this.

If your taxes are not up-to-date, then your accounting won’t be accurate. We want to provide a quality accounting service for you, so we will need to start with a clean slate. After your accountant has the information that they requested from you in your initial strategy sessions, they are dedicated to getting your records caught up and accurate, as well as getting your financial statements and tax returns done.

We do back taxes for payroll too! You or your payroll specialist need to be paying taxes and filing payroll returns. If this hasn’t been done, you’ll need to get your payroll back taxes done. Our software helps us file your old payroll returns. Plus, when we make amendments to your W2s, we can print them and have the final product in your hands as soon as they’re done.

How much does monthly accounting cost? What factors go into the pricing?

Pricing for our monthly accounting services varies by your company’s needs. It is not based on the size of your company, rather your company’s accounting activity and the complexity of your financial statements.

What do your clients need to provide you with in order to do your job?

To efficiently help you with your business goals, we require access to your online accounts and source documents, either in electronic or hard copy form. Common documents include, but are not limited to:

Business bank and credit card statements
Sales systems (POS)
Accounting software

Inventory
Accounts payable and receivable

Can I do part of my accounting myself?

We recommend having you handle the day-to-day aspects of your business that need immediate attention, such as paying your bills, and we’ll handle the monthly accounting and bookkeeping.

Some owners want to continue to handle the bookkeeping portion internally. CSI allows this, although we don’t necessarily encourage it. Before we even consider this option, we would like you to have a professional bookkeeper on staff. Doing your own bookkeeping may hinder you more than it helps you if mistakes occur.

Will you help me if I ever get audited?

Yes. Audit representation is included in your monthly accounting fee. The only time that we would charge for audit representation is if the audit is for a time period during which you were not our client.

CSI offers agent-level support, meaning that we deal with the IRS agent directly in the case of income tax audits. Almost all of these issues are resolved at the agent level and never need to go to tax court. If we’re preparing your monthly sales tax returns, we will also represent you in a sales tax audit.