Frequently Asked Questions

Thirty minutes with a CPA, credited against your first engagement if you go ahead with us. It is a working session, not a sales call: you leave with a straight read on where you stand and what it would cost to fix or maintain it, whether or not you engage us. If we are the wrong firm for what you need, we say so in the meeting.

Have your last filed return available for reference, and a rough picture of your books. Do not email it or upload it through this website. If we need to review it, we will send you a secure link.

Work is quoted as a fixed price before it starts — a project fee where the work has an end date, a fixed monthly or weekly fee where it is ongoing. We don't bill hourly. The price follows the scope: transaction volume, how many entities and states are involved, how clean the records are, and what you need at the end. You know the number before you commit and it does not change unless the scope does. Representation is the one exception, and it is priced differently.

Because a bookkeeping engagement for a single-member LLC with one bank account and a multi-entity real estate group with twelve properties are not the same job, and pricing them the same would mean overcharging one of them. What we can tell you upfront: the fee is fixed, you approve it before work begins, and there are no hourly surprises.

When the IRS or a state opens an examination. Everything else is quoted as a fixed price up front because the scope can be seen. In an examination the other side sets the pace and the scope, so a fixed fee quoted before anyone knows what is being asked for would be a number we could not stand behind. That work is agreed in stages, in writing, and you approve each stage before it starts.

Answering a routine notice is not an examination. That is usually a defined piece of work with a fixed price like anything else.

Book a 30-minute consultation on our contact page, or call (201) 822-1653. If you would rather ask a question first, use the form on that page and we will come back to you.

A licensed CPA. Every return we file is read and signed by a CPA before it goes out — not checked by software and signed by whoever was free.

Transaction-level bookkeeping runs on software. It categorizes what it can, and a person reviews what it could not and corrects what it got wrong. Everything above that line — the close, the reconciliations, the statements, the planning and the advice — is done by a CPA. Access to your file is limited to the people working on it.

No. The work stays in the United States and it stays with our own team — the people we employ and US-based contractors we engage and supervise directly. Nothing is sent to an offshore preparation service. Your records stay inside our practice systems rather than being copied onto personal devices or third-party tools.

Yes, and most of our clients work with us entirely remotely. We file federal and state returns in all fifty states. Documents move through your client portal, questions go by phone or email, and where a walkthrough is easier than a written explanation we record a short video instead of booking a meeting. Being in New Jersey matters for our license, not for where you are.

Yes, on recurring work. It is the same CPA each period rather than whoever picks up the ticket, which is most of what a small firm is for: the person reading your file this month read it last month, and remembers why last month looked the way it did.

No. It's most of what we take on. Tell us how far behind and we'll quote the clean-up as its own fixed-price piece of work, separate from the ongoing bookkeeping. Catching up is a project with an end date; keeping current is a monthly service. Pricing them together is how people end up surprised. Unfiled returns are the same. A known problem with a defined path out is far better than an unknown one.

Yes, and it's routine. We ask for your last filed return, access to your accounting file, and any correspondence with the IRS or the state. You don't need to have a difficult conversation with anyone before talking to us.

Four things, for small businesses and the people who own them.

Accounting and bookkeeping, including payroll. Monthly close, reconciliations, financial statements you can actually read, pay runs and payroll filings, year-end forms, and contractor 1099s.

Tax preparation and filing. Federal and state returns for S corporations, partnerships, LLCs, C corporations, sole proprietors and individuals.

Advisory and planning. Entity structure, owner compensation, and planning done while the year is still open, when it can still change the outcome.

Fractional CFO and controller work. A close that lands on a date, reporting you will actually read, cash forecasting, margin and unit economics, budget and variance, and lender or investor packages.

Most clients use more than one. Some only need the return.

Yes. A bookkeeper records what happened; a controller owns whether it is right — the close, the reconciliations, the reporting; a CFO owns the decisions that follow from it.

A controller engagement covers the close, review of the transaction record, reporting you will actually read, cash forecasting, receivables and payables, margin and unit economics, budget and variance, lender and investor packages, and owner compensation. It is ongoing work, so it is a fixed monthly fee.

Yes. Personal returns — Form 1040, including Schedule C and Schedule E — and entity returns: 1120-S for S corporations, 1065 for partnerships, 1120 for C corporations. In practice they usually travel together. An S corporation return and its owner's 1040 are the same conversation, and preparing one without the other is how basis and distribution problems get missed.

Yes. Plenty of clients keep the bookkeeper or the payroll provider they already have and bring us in above that line — for the close, the review, the statements, the planning and the return.

If the records arriving from your side need rebuilding before the ongoing work can start, we say so and price that separately rather than burying it in a monthly fee.

QuickBooks Online for the books and Gusto for payroll are what we work in most.

If you do not have an accounting system, you do not need to buy one. We can run the accounting on our own systems and give you the statements.

If you are on something else, tell us what it is at the consultation and we will tell you plainly whether we can work in it or whether moving is the better answer.

Yes, and it is a common situation. A resident of one state with income sourced to another generally files a nonresident return in the state where the income was earned and claims a credit on the resident return for tax paid there. The forms, the credit mechanics and the treatment of days worked from home all differ by state pair, and the home-office question in particular is genuinely fact-dependent. We work through it with you rather than guessing, because getting it wrong in either direction costs real money.

Send it to us through the portal — all of it, including the pages that look like boilerplate. Most notices are matching issues, a missed estimated payment, or a registration problem, and most are answerable with a letter. We'll tell you plainly which it is, whether it needs a payment, and whether it needs someone with authority to represent you. What you shouldn't do is ignore it, or pay it without knowing why.

Through your client portal, which we set up when you come on board. Not by email attachment, and not through the form on this website — there is no upload field on it for exactly that reason. Your return, your W-2s and your bank statements carry your Social Security number, EIN and account numbers, and a website form is the wrong pipe for that. If you are not a client yet, don't send documents at all. Book the consultation first and we'll give you a secure link afterwards.

Client documents live in the client portal, not in an inbox. Records stay inside our practice systems rather than being copied onto personal devices or third-party tools. We would rather a task take longer than move your data somewhere we don't control. If you ever get a request that looks like it came from us asking you to email something sensitive or click through to a payment page, call the office number on this site before you act on it.

Yes. The homepage carries three of our Google reviews, quoted in full, and you can read all of them on our Google profile.