FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
Our firms believes that each & every customer is unique! We base our pricing on each customer’s needs upon initial assessment of what needs to be done, work-wise. Upon getting to know the client & the work task better & better, we start to offer some discounts. I prefer to work on hourly basis I, & I always during my initial free consultation tell you the hourly rate our firm charges. We can also, should the client desire to do so-do a flat work fee. Our Invoices are extremely detailed. Each line has a date, work performed, how long of a time it took as well as the agreed upon price. There are a lot of accounting firms that would just say “monthly bookkeeping” on their Invoice, then list the total price be t to it! I, personally, have always had the approach of being more detailed than that. I believe that a customer should see what work was performed, when & how long it took. This way, if there are any questions or even concerns it’s addressed much easier. When you have the date & how long a certain task took-you may have a question if you feel that it’s taken too long. I always welcome any abs all phone calls or emails to ask any question that a client has in reference to our Invoice. So that if next month, the same task took longer/shorter-a client may wonder why? That’s a completely logical & expected inquiry! Usually, I tend to explain on the line for the same task that took longer/shorter to complete this month than the mi the before as to the reasoning. This far in my career, I’ve only had a handful of these type of questions. Our firm & myself like to be as transparent as possible. I’m a believer that in being transparent, a client won’t think that you are over-charging them! I pride myself on this detailed Invoice Billing & the transparency. Each & every client deserves this. You are paying for the service- you are most definitely entitled to a detailed Invoice & know what you are paying for. Nobody enjoys overpaying for any service. I do provide each new client an Engagement Letter from our firm, where we lost our oryxes fir all things; from bookkeeping, Payroll, Payroll-related Quarterly Reports, special projects as well as Business & Personal Taxes filing. You are, obviously, not required to do your Business or Personal Taxes with our firm. However, most of our bookkeeping clients do ask us to prepare their Taxes. It’s helpful because throughout the year, our firm prepares monthly bookkeeping, so we are better or waited. & equipped to do the Taxes. We offer Payroll & all Payroll- related services, as I’ve mentioned earlier, however, we also offer Quarterly bookkeeping instead of a monthly. We do this for clients who have businesses that are not large & do not have an enourmous amount of transactions on their bank/credit card statements. So, if that works better for a client, I prefer to start off on a first month on a monthly bookkeeping basis. This would allow me to see the exact volume that a client’s business has. Then, if I’m in agreement that it would be in a client’s best interests to be on a Quarterly basis-we switch you the following month.
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
Our firm offers a free one hour initial consultation. During the consultation, we go over the client’s needs in a greater detail. The goal we have during our first meeting is to establish where the client is in their accounting process, knowledge & comfier level as well as their strengths & weaknesses. From there, I can establish a plan during the consultation that would explain our “attack” plan & letting a customer know just how I intend to proceed. Be it a late Payroll forms filings, Sales or Franchise Tax or just a late Business and/or personal Tax Return filings. If the client is behind on data entry into their accounting system (I work with a variety of different systems), or if they are behind or haven’t once reconciled bank & credit card statements-I can make a plan to catch them up while still, working on their past due entries. I’m able to multitask, so that while I’m catching up a new client in reconciliations or ant late filing, the client doesn’t get further behind in their current accounting. That would be extremely counter-productive, in my opinion.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
Our firm is Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisors in both QuickBooks Online as well as QuickBooks Desktop. We also participate in annual QuickBooks training seminars & take semi annual QuickBooks Certification classes in order to keep up with the most up-to-date QuickBooks features. We are also Certified in Wolfepack - which is an Oil & Gas Software. I have completed the CPE courses for this software & continue to do so on an annual basis. The fact that I’ve worked for various Public Accounting firms & being Controller for a metal Corporation has given me an understanding on how to deal with a variety of people. That, combined with the Accounting, Auditing & people dealing skills I’ve learned have made me a better, well-rounded person. I believe it makes me more equipped & prepared with my customers as I can understand them, even on their bad days & not take it personally! I can also work in a vast number of industries due to my Public Accounting years. I can work with a veterinary clinic & know that specific industry accounting standard just as east as I could work for a restaurant franchise & have knowledge of their accounting needs & requirements.