What's the most effective way to create and manage a simple workflow system/process inside of a CPA firm?

I'm going to answer you with my own experience. The way you mentioned to divide the expenses makes total sense and it's consider the "rational" thing to do. I have seen it work many times and it's what many would consider "fair". The problem (and this is counterintuitive) is that we are humans with emotions and we can't separate us from them. Once someone starts buying nicer things the "ego" hits in, also the "jealousy" and the competitive nature. This brings bad culture and a worst environment. I know you think "we are different", "it won't happen to us" but it actually does and it's not your fault, it's just our nature. My solution is the following. Treat the company as a separate entity from the three of you. So the company (not you) have revenue and costs. THE company can have expenses and they should be as little as possible to run efficient and lean. THE company has to create the most profits as long as it's in the same direction of creating value for their clients. Now, because the company has shareholders (you guys/gals) the profits it generates will go into your pockets 50/30/20. This is after your salaries, that depends on your place in the company and that is money totally entitled to each of you. The profits can be expended as whatever you want because it's like part of your salaries. You will think this makes no sense due that is just a "technical" step. But it's important to separate you from your company. Keep personal and professional in each side of the table. Hope this helped :) If you want to reach out I would be happy to talk. I have helped many family companies to also deal with this kind of issues. Have a great day

Hi, I'm not in Oregon so you'll need to speak to a local tax expert to verify the details but here is how it works: When you issue points you're creating a liability. You owe something to someone. It's like a gym which sells a one-year membership, they're only supposed to recognize 1/12 of the sale in the month it was sold. 11/12 of the money actually is a liability called 'deferred revenue.' As each month goes by, they reduce their liability by 1/12 and credit that money to income because now it is 'earned.' In your case you sell points to merchants (who give them to consumers) but most of the money collected is now owed to consumers to redeem their points. This is not income, you're just holding money owed to someone else. A small portion of the money, your gross margin on points sales, would be recognized as revenue and would have to cover your overheads and give you your profit, if any. So your balance sheet will keep growing in cash and an offsetting liability. Your income statement will only recognize the small margin which is your profit from selling the points to the merchants. I hope this helps make it more clear. With this type of business you may wish to investigate whether it makes sense from a liability point of view to hold the funds owed to consumers in a trust account rather than just 'floating' the points. I could see problems arising if you ever dipped into this cash pool to cover your own expenses while trying to argue to tax authorities that you're holding the cash for someone else. If you'd like to learn more about how merchants account for their own proprietary point systems, just book a call with me. I worked in the loyalty field for a few years. Cheers Dave

I don't think it is what you are looking for, but MailChimp.com was created by mistake from a services agency. They were sending emails for their clients and the next thing you know, they were making most of their money from send costs and the rest is history. Sorry I can't be more help.

Generally, the transfer of tangible personal property is the trigger for a sales tax event. In this case, it may be necessary to review the various aspects of a typical transaction to determine if any portion thereof would be subject to sales tax. However, generally speaking, receipts from the sale “Marketing”, "Media Placement Services" and "Web Site Networks" are not subject to State or local sales and compensating use taxes provided your organization does not sell or otherwise transfer any tangible personal property to its clients in conjunction with these activities or perform any services otherwise taxable under Section 1105(c) of the Tax Law in conjunction with these activities. (See, Advertising Agencies, Technical Services Bureau Memorandum, June 10, 1983, TSB-M-83(16)S. For additional guidance, you may also want to refer to Publication 750, A Guide to Sales Tax in New York State http://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/sales/pub750.pdf. I hope that you find this information useful. Shawn Powell Joseph Reference TSB-A-97(43)s

Recently launched Subleger http://subledger.com/ is trying to do some or all of what you describe. It doesn't mean that there isn't room for others but consider that many early-stage companies don't have complex revenue in-flow so the core of what you're describing (converting or merging income into other operational metrics) might not have a wide appeal especially for startups. Hopefully you get some good answers here but really whatever anyone (myself included) says here is far less valuable than asking startup CEOs what their financial painpoints are with respect to reconciling their app's internal metrics with revenue and expenses. Finally, the question "is the market big enough" is too open-ended to answer for you. Big enough for what? To attract significant outside funding? Maybe not big enough. But to build a great income for you and a few others? Perhaps! Happy to discuss this with you further to help you in your evaluation of the opportunity but as I say, best thing to do is canvass the potential market first.