Questions
The Questions People Ask First
Six of them, answered plainly. Each links to the page that carries the detail, so nothing here is the only place an answer lives.
Before You Call
Do you do our taxes?
No. We keep the books your tax preparer works from, and we work directly with whoever that is — their questions come to us rather than to you, and the year-end file is ready when they ask for it.
If you do not have a preparer yet, we will say so rather than quietly becoming one. It is a different profession with a different licence.
Are you a CPA firm? Can you audit us?
We are an accounting and advisory practice, not a CPA firm: we hold no licence or designation, and we do not perform audits, reviews or compilations — those are attest engagements and come from your independent accountants. Everything before one and beside one is ours, and getting you ready for it and supporting you through it is one of the main reasons clients hire us.
That means the schedules built and tied, the evidence filed, the request list answered, and one point of contact for the audit team. If what you need is the audit itself, we will say so plainly rather than take the work.
Do we have to move our books onto your software?
No. You can engage us and keep your books exactly where they are, and if moving them makes sense we will tell you why rather than require it.
One thing to know before you read anything else on this site: the software we run our own practice on is built by a separate company under shared ownership with ours. Neither is a condition of the other — you can license it and never speak to us, and you can hire us without it. We say so first.
What does it cost?
Every figure we charge is published, in full, on one page — each of the five categories on the unit that tracks its work, and each under the three ways of engaging us. You can work out roughly what an engagement costs before you speak to anybody.
There is no setup fee if your books are current. If they are behind, bringing them current is its own priced work rather than a surprise on the first invoice.
Who signs off on the numbers?
Your management does, on every engagement and at every posture. We never hold the final sign-off: no entry reaches your books, and nothing leaves the building, without one of your people putting their name on it.
That is not modesty about our work. Signing off on books is what an attest engagement does, and we do not perform those — we prepare companies for them and support them through them. An auditor or a lender who asks will hear the same answer from us.
What happens to our records if we stop working with you?
You leave with them: your ledger, your documents and your history. The arrangement between the two companies does not change who owns your records, and nothing we do makes them harder to take somewhere else.
Every engagement also names, in writing and before it starts, how either side ends it and what happens to your records when they do. You should not have to ask that question at the point you want to leave.
Something Else
If your question is not here, it is a better question than these — ask it. And “no” is a normal outcome of the first conversation.
Or ask the assistant, which answers accounting questions at any depth →
The first conversation is a look at your books and an honest answer about whether we are the right firm.