Are we a good fit for each other?
It’s All About being the right fit! Here are some examples of the kinds of clients that we love to work with.
What are you?
Client Type One: Sole Proprietor
We work with many clients who are sole proprietors. Sole proprietors may or may not have employees and may also work with independent contractors. We encourage every business owner to establish a business checking account and to only use the account for business income and expenses. Sole proprietors typically report on a cash basis. Since most sole proprietors also invoice customers and purchase assets for the business, it is important to understand how to correctly record transactions for tax purposes. Our sole proprietor clients have included realtors, interior designers, professional organizers, hair dressers and cleaning services. Many private practice physicians, accountants and bookkeepers are also sole proprietors.
Case Study One: Interior Design Sole Proprietor Client One is a female-owned and operated business. The owner has been in business for several years and has her books in QuickBooks Online. She works with a CPA, but has realized that her bookkeeping is more complex than she thought when she started out. She sells products in addition to charging for her services, so she collects sales tax in various California cities (at multiple rates) and has monthly sales tax deposits and quarterly sales tax returns. She charges a markup on the products that she sells and wants to track her cost of goods sold. She has a busy, growing business and has started hiring sub-contractors to help her (1099’s, W9’s). At some point, she is considering hiring some office help (payroll, W2’s, workers comp, etc.). She definitely needed help when she contacted us!
What we do for her The owner creates her own invoices and pays her own bills. We manage the bank feeds, reconcile the accounts, straighten out problems with invoices and job costing, collect W9’s from her sub contractors and file 1099-Misc returns, prepare her books and work with her CPA at tax time, and produce financial statements. We also review and file sales tax returns for this type of client. We are there when she needs to customize anything in QuickBooks or needs troubleshooting help. And when she is ready to hire an employee, we will be there to help her evaluate payroll services, get payroll set up, collect and turn in all appropriate paperwork, and even run payroll if she wishes.
Client Type Two: Corporations (C Corp, S Corp) LLC’s, LLP’s
As part of our client intake process, we will ask you about your business entity type as well as your accounting method (cash versus accrual). Most of our clients are some variety of corporation, partnership or a Limited Liability Company. The overall business size is still relatively small, with the largest payroll being just over a hundred on-call employees plus staff. These businesses vary a lot in what services they would like. Some already have staff that handle accounts receivable and accounts payable and mainly want records maintained for tax compliance. They may need QuickBooks or Xero consulting help or set up services, or help finding specialized third party applications to work with their accounting program. This could include scheduling apps (Qexpress), billing and invoicing apps (Bill.com), sales tax software (Avelara), and on and on. There are now literally hundreds of apps that you can use with Xero or QuickBooks to customize your accounting system. Our client corporations, LLC’s and LLP’s have included businesses such as a forensic engineering corporation, event planning and catering, couples counseling, non profits, dog day care and hiking, various consultants, and retirement planning.
Case Study Two: Retirement Planning C Corp Client Two does retirement administration and planning for other businesses. They have a single business location and staff of about 15 employees. They had their books in QuickBooks desktop and wanted to update and streamline their accounting system and processes. They send out quarterly billings of over 200 invoices, as well as many other more intermittent invoices and were looking for ways to handle these more efficiently. They were interested in speeding up the payment cycle and in creating more payment options for their clients.
What we do for them After evaluating the various needs of the business, we decided together on converting the accounting system to QuickBooks Online and signing up for the Intuit Payment Network for credit card processing. The new invoices can be emailed out with a payment link for the client to pay either by bank-to-bank transfer or by credit card. Electronic payments are automatically matched by the system to the client invoice and the system also detects when the payment has actually been deposited. Unlike QuickBooks desktop, QuickBooks Online does not have batch invoicing, so we are using a third party tool, Transaction Importer Pro, in import the quarterly batch of 200 plus invoices. We continue to work closely with this client to provide their daily accounting needs, including running payroll, tracking and file 1099-misc returns, and many other tasks including continue to strategize on further efficiency improvements.
Client Type Three: Start Ups
What about businesses that are in the early stages? Here in Silicon Valley, we have many start ups and we are proud to count some of them as our clients. Start ups don’t come in one particular business entity type. They vary a lot in size, too. What they do have in common is that they tend to think big, embrace innovation, and be fast moving.
Case Study Three: Online Counseling LLC Client Three is on the brink of being acquired by a national corporation. They have a payroll of about 20 employees plus another 30 or so independent contractors. They offer an innovative service and offer their employees many of the same benefits and perks as a much larger business. They are using QuickBooks Online for their accounting system and needed help with some complex payroll entries from their third party payroll provider.
What we do for them We work directly with the Vice President to record payroll, make Balance Sheet adjustments, file 1099-misc returns, and provide QuickBooks consultation and training.