Looking for a CPA to prepare and file Tax Returns for 2020.

NIcole is right. When I first started my business I thought I was saving money by doing my own bookkeeping. It took me much longer than it would take a bookkeeper - all time that I was not spending on marketing or billable activities. And in the end I made errors which made the initial work of the bookkeeper longer. I now have a consistent routine. My bookkeeper picks up all my material monthly and does my books in less than 2 hours. Very worthwhile.

If your concern is from an ethical standpoint or a concern over a segregation of duties, there is no problem at all having your tax person handling your bookkeeping. The bigger issue is something that few people understand about accountants. There are different specialties within accounting, and you should go to the right specialist for the right task. Tax accountants are experts in tax law, filling out tax returns and finding ways to minimize taxes. They must immerse themselves in the field to maintain their expertise. Financial accountants (which include bookkeeping) are experts in debits and credits and keeping all your transaction straight in your accounting software so that you can get good financials each month. Financial accountants have to immerse themselves in your day-to-day accounting so that they can keep it accurate and up to date. Full disclosure, this is the work that my firm specializes in, we don’t do any taxes. Because each type of accountant must immerse themselves in their individual fields of expertise, they don’t have the time to focus on the other expertise. Not that they are both not great accountants, they just have a different specialty. Here’s a good analogy. If you developed a heart condition, would you go see a neurologist? No, you’d go see a cardiologist. They are both outstanding physicians and know a lot about the human body, but the cardiologist spends all their time thinking about, studying, and treating heart conditions and is going to be the best equipped and most knowledgeable about treatments for your heart condition. The last point I’ll make is that tax work is very seasonal and requires incredible focus and incredibly long hours leading up to major tax deadlines. This is not only during the period from January to April 15th, but also leading up to major deadlines on August, September and October 15th. Companies I have worked with that used tax accountants in the past for their bookkeeping find during these periods their tax accountants are forced to put all other work besides taxes on hold until their tax work is complete. What often happens in these situations is that these company’s bookkeeping falls three or four months behind. This can be devastating for a small business that needs to know if they are making money or losing money on a very up to date basis. So my suggestion is to find yourself a good bookkeeper that can handle your books. Your tax person may even be able to suggest a good resource, and deep down may be glad to do so because her first love is taxes, not bookkeeping. My firm could likely handle the work as well. Hope my thoughts above are helpful and addressed your question, but feel free to reach out to me if you have any follow up questions.

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

Bookkeeping and Admin roles are completely different, if a person knows debita and credits doesn't mean that he/she is a good bookkeeper, sometimes there are situations where you need expert advise which an experienced bookkeeper can provide because they are experienced and skilled. Sitting on two hourses very rarely makes sense. If you hire somebody to manage both roles you are going to feel stress over a time because in this situation you have to invest more of your time along with that person to manage things in organised way. I would suggest to hire seperate individuals for these roles because of the price variation, time required to manage specific tasks, expertise etc

This is a great question. The world of accounting/bookkeeping can be a confusing array of options for non accountants. Let's address the software question first. Let me start by saying that my firm is relatively agnostic to software, we work with dozens. I'm familiar with Xero and my firm has worked with it, and if someone comes to us already on it, we stay with it. It's a solid piece of software, certainly works. And it's a very fashionable choice right now due to inroads their marketing has made with the startup community. The big dog in the market is QuickBooks On-Line (QBO), and when I say big dog, various version of QuickBooks have easily 10x the number of current customers that Xero has. Why does this matter? The usability of the software from a user experience is about the same, but Xero is still trying to play catch up to QuickBooks On-Line in terms of features. For instance, they have payroll rolled out for "a few states and are adding more each month". Anything innovative that Xero comes out with QuickBooks is going to quickly copy and add to their product, because they are huge and have the resources to quickly adapt. This is not a situation of the iPhone putting Blackberry out of business, QuickBooks isn't going anywhere. Likely end game is that at some point QuickBooks acquires Xero and moves everyone over to QBO. Lastly, every bookkeeper knows QuickBooks, some know Xero, and there are hundreds of developers developing software that integrates with QuickBooks. So, while Xero is a perfectly adequate piece of software, we’re talking the platform for your accounting, go with QuickBooks On-line. The subject of a bookkeeper is tricker. Do you go with a person or a process solution? Full disclosure here, my firm does outsourced bookkeeping for a living, so you have to take that into account when viewing my answer. I haven’t worked with Bench.co, but it looks very intriguing, and pricing is quite aggressive. They also look very easy to engage with. The down side is that is appears to be a person based solution. You get assigned a bookkeeper, and then good luck. The skill of individual bookkeepers varies widely from damn good to truly awful. They often hook up with several services like this, so their loyalties are divided. Additionally, they are often working with up to a dozen clients, and what typically happens is one of their clients starts growing quickly. All other clients get pushed aside while they focus on their largest client because they can’t afford to lose them. A couple of other disadvantages are that, because they are on their own, you are limited to just their skill set, they have no one else to check with in sticky situations, and when they go on vacation, your accounting goes on vacation, too. These are all things that may be fine for you if you’ve got a relatively small business that doesn’t need daily attention to its accounting. The other alternative is a firm that specialized in outsourced accounting. There are several firms out there, you can find them (and us of course) with a simple search of the internet. The advantage to the better firms in this space is that they typically will assign you a team of bookkeepers/accountants so that you have backup in case one member of the team is on vacation or leaves to take a full time job somewhere. These solutions also will typically come wrapped with software they would suggest for your business. Finally, you aren’t limited to knowledge base of the one person working on your account. You have a team, and really the knowledge base of the entire firm at your fingertips. Of course you pay a little more for this, but the hourly rates are often not that much more than individual bookkeepers. And in the long run you may end up spending a lot less by not having to come behind a bookkeeper that maybe wasn’t so good and clean up the mess. So if you plan on scaling your business beyond a few $200k a year, it may be best to start out with a firm based solution rather than an individual solution. Side note on Bench.co: I can’t tell what software platform they are on. If they are using a proprietary platform, you will find it very hard to move your accounting to another solution if you’re not satisfied with their solution. Something to ask if you go with them. So, I think that about covers it. I’ve probably told you way more than you wanted to know, but I’m always available to schedule a call if you want to dive in a little deeper. Just let me know.