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Frequently Asked Questions
Check out answers to some of our most frequently received questions.
Bookkeeping Services
Pricing & Agreements
Most clients prefer a flat monthly fee. We customize the rate based on what you need done.
We also can bill hourly (by the minute), if you prefer or if your bookkeeping needs are difficult to estimate or unknown.
Our current hourly rates are:
- Bookkeeping - $45
- Bookkeeping Oversight - $75
- Procedure & Reporting Development - $95
- App Customization & Automation - $145
- Controller - $145
- CFO - $195
Although most clients stay with us for a long time, we make it easy if you need to make changes:
- Our agreements are month-to-month (with a 30-day notice)
- We'll help transition to your new approach
What We Can Do for You
Our "basic" bookkeeping services are focused on maintaining financials for (a) filing taxes and (b) monitoring how your business is doing:
- Record & categorize transactions for financial accounts owned by the business
- Reconcile these accounts against statements
- Record any other transactions that affect the business's taxes (e.g., items paid personally)
We can also provide any desired reporting (e.g., monthly financial reports) or show you how to get it directly.
Yes, we can:
- Create invoices and send them to clients
- Process customer payments
- Track customer payments and balances
- Help you get paid by customers with friendly payment reminder emails or calls
Yes, we can:
- Record vendor bills, track balances and due dates
- Establish approval criteria for you and follow it carefully
- Pay vendors bills when approved
Yes, we can take care of monthly or quarterly state sales tax filings and payments.
We are very familiar sales tax for Florida and some other states. If it's a state we're not familiar with, we can assist but may need to check some details with your accountant before getting started.
We've also assisted clients with other taxes, such as Communication Services and Solid Waste Tax.
Yes, we handle payroll for many clients.
For most of them, we partner with a national payroll services provider since it's cost-effective and provides helpful functionality, such as direct deposit, online paystubs and online onboarding for you.
Yes, we can:
- Help you efficiently double check which vendors may require a 1099
- Help you gather W-9s and any other information needed
- Process 1099s, email/mail them to your vendors, and report them to the IRS
We're happy to provide whatever reporting & analysis is most helpful for you, at whatever frequency you prefer.
In many cases, QuickBooks reporting can meet your needs effectively.
In other cases, we can transform or combine QuickBooks reports with other information in Excel or Google Sheets to make them much more useful to you.
We also assist clients with other bookkeeping and accounting-related items, such as:
- Commissions calculations
- Job/project profitability tracking
- Data warehousing
Yes, with our unique approach and team structure we can handle all of your accounting responsibilities effectively.
For example, we helped one client reach the Inc 500 in 3 years by supporting them with an agile team of 4 people (for less than the cost of a full-time accounting manager).
How It Works
Yes, we support one time projects and can hustle if you're in a "fire drill."
Need financials quickly to file taxes, a loan application or a company sale? Through our experience, we're able to execute catch-up and clean-up projects quickly.
The most efficient way for us to get your financial transactions and statements is via a read-only online banking account, which most banks support.
Alternatively, you can send us transaction exports or statements (ether a PDF file or paper). If there are a lot of transactions, most of the time we are able to use an in-house OCR tool to process statements efficiently.
For most clients, we update their books weekly or monthly.
For others, especially if we're handling your internal accounting, we may update all or some information more frequently (e.g., daily).
We have several options, depending on how often you would like to coordinate:
- A benefit of QuickBooks Online is that you'll always have access
- Or with QuickBooks desktop, we can coordinate through remote access or sync tools (e.g., qBox)
- If we're using shared file storage (e.g., Google Drive), we can save information there
- Or we can email you reports and information periodically
We customize a team so that your bookkeeping runs smoothly.
At a minimum, all clients have a primary bookkeeper, supported by:
- A bookkeeping lead, who performs periodic reviews and provides backup as needed
- On-demand operational, IT and business experts when needed
For clients with more time-sensitive and/or intensive tasks, we cross-train an agile team so that tasks are always done on time.
We're also fanatical about maintaining procedures for each client to ensure that things continue to run smoothly, even when there are staff changes.
You'll find working with us is very similar to your own onsite bookkeeper.
When you have a question or need to go over something, we're often available (or can call you back in a few minutes). Between phone calls, video conferencing, emails and screen sharing, the experience is quite similar to working with someone in the same room.
And with our unique team support, we're also able to handle many scenarios that a single bookkeeper can't.
We focus on what we do best: keeping the books clean, up-to-date, and helping you run your business.
Accountants tend to like working with us, since they get information early and don't have to waste time cleaning it up, so they can focus on what they do best -- minimize your taxes.
We like to collaborate with your accountant so we're all in sync, which helps minimize unnecessary work for everyone.
Consulting
Yes, we can help you:
- Clean up QuickBooks and/or help ensure your staff is using it efficiently and effectively
- Develop or refine effective procedures so your accounting department runs smoothly
- Lead a one-time analysis or develop impactful ongoing reports
- Implement new apps or automation, and show your staff how to get the most from it
Yes, we can provide important part-time skill sets to augment your existing staff for whatever duration you need:
- Accounting manager
- Controller
- CFO
- IT/operations expert
Most of our work tends to be performed remotely, with collaboration supported by phone calls, video conferencing and screen sharing.
For consulting projects, however, some onsite involvement can be important and effective. So we're available to meet with you onsite when appropriate, especially as we get started with a project.
And if your office is close to ours, we're able to support more onsite involvement if desired.
Yes, we can help figure out what's causing the issues, identify ways to fix them, and help you evolve a smooth-running accounting department.
The cause can be staff resources, app configurations/limitations, procedures, and/or overall coordination.
Our recommendations typically include a combination of:
- Near-term "quick wins"
- Short-term improvements that are easier to implement
- Longer-term improvement options that require more effort/investment to realize the benefits
Training for QuickBooks
Our training includes three key components:
1. Short, well-organized videos - The first challenge learning QuickBooks and bookkeeping is that there can be a lot of ground to cover. We're fanatical about helping you get to the right topics at the right time, so that you can get started with the basics quickly yet find detailed information and best practices when you're ready for it.
2. A unique quiz & hands-on exercise system - Since there is so much ground to cover, the second challenge for most bookkeepers is to remember key info & concepts. We use the Leitner system to make it easy for you to get them into long-term memory as efficiently as possible.
3. On-demand live assistance - Something not clear or have another question? Reach a QuickBooks expert quickly (typically in less than 15 minutes) and get answers right away when you need them.
Since both the training and QuickBooks are available online, all you need is a modern web browser (e.g., Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) and an Internet connection!
You can use a computer, tablet, or even your cell phone.
Our system is designed to help you get started as quickly as possible.
Someone with no bookkeeping or QuickBooks experience can get started in about half-a-day.
Our videos are so helpful since we're fanatical about how they're organized and having them explain things clearly and concisely.
Learn more by checking out our master video list and several free videos we've made available on Youtube.
Most videos are 7-10 minutes.
The Leitner System uses spaced repetition to help you learn & remember information as efficiently as possible.
For concepts that you appear to remember well, the system will automatically wait longer periods to confirm that you still "got it." But for concepts that aren't sticking as well, the system helpfully reviews them more often with you until you start to "sink in."
We provide live assistance during business hours (Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm Eastern Time) via a phone call or video conference, along with a screen share. We're typically available in less than 15-minutes, and often available immediately.
We understand that when you have questions, it's important to get answers quickly.
Most memberships include some live assistance time. Additional time, if needed, can be purchased as well.
You may cancel your membership at any point prior to your renewal.
Our Expertise
We're intimately familiar with both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop through our:
- 10+ years providing bookkeeping services
- Development of our training course for QuickBooks, since we're fanatical about it being correct and complete
We do support some clients with other accounting systems besides QuickBooks, when it makes sense for both of us.
If we're less familiar with your accounting system, we may need to spend more time up-front documenting procedures and verifying typical use-cases so that we're comfortable with ongoing support.
We've provide bookkeeping services for clients in a variety of industries and learned effective operational patterns that allow us to support any industry effectively.
That being said, we've had deeper experience with the following industries:
- Legal (including Trust accounting)
- Real Estate & Property Management
- Marketing & Advertising
- Distribution
- Medical
- Retail
- Professional Services
We're very familiar with both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
We're experts at designing and refining spreadsheets to effectively support your operations, reporting & analysis.
We've also significantly increased efficiency for many clients by using macros to automate repetitive tasks.
We're experienced with:
- ADP
- Gusto
- Intuit (QuickBooks)
- OnPay
- Paychex
- SurePayroll
- Zenefits
We're experienced with T-Sheets and Minute7.
We've also utilized spreadsheets for time tracking for some clients with custom requirements.
We're experienced with:
- Clio
- eBility
- FirmCentral
- Rocket Matter
We're experienced with:
- Fishbowl
- QuickBooks (for inventory)
- Shopify
We're experienced with SassAnt and ProperSoft.
We're experienced with:
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MySQL/MariaDB
- Oracle
- Postgres
