When you’re searching for an accounting or payroll service for your small business, you don’t have the time to sit through consultations from services that aren’t a good fit for your business. After all, isn’t wanting more time back in your day a big reason why you wanted to outsource in the first place?
On that same note, CSI Accounting & Payroll consultants would also love to get some time back instead of meeting with small business owners who aren’t a good fit for our services. We’re not going to be a perfect match with everybody!
Continue reading to learn about the technical components and values that it takes for us to be a bad match.
Technical Components of a Bad Fit
There are technical components to who we work with, of course. In fact, that might be the only thing most people think of when trying to figure out a match.
For the most part, the only technical aspects of people who may not be a good fit to work with CSI include:
- Large businesses
- If you have a “large” operation, usually meaning having more than $5M in annual revenue and thousands of employees, it doesn’t make much sense to outsource monthly accounting. Seriously - at that point, you might as well hire your own accounting department.
- Foreign operations
- If you operate in other countries, we’re not a good fit. (If you’re based in the U.S. and ship things to other countries, we’re not talking about you.)
- Accounting and payroll just aren’t universal. It’s safe to say that an accountant from the Midwest USA isn’t going to have the tools necessary to help a business in the middle of another continent. Plus, our payroll software doesn’t support international payroll. If you somehow landed on our website from somewhere else - cool! But unfortunately, we’re not a match.
- Failing businesses
- We like to describe our services as protein powder, not a Band-Aid. We can help you amplify the effects of a successful business, but we probably can’t save your business from going under if it’s already on its way down.
- NSF fees in your bank account are a red flag for us. If that’s the case, looking to outsource your accounting or payroll is actually a step in the wrong direction.
- Needing services that we do not provide
- If we’re being specific, this is mostly referring to bill paying, invoicing, and job costing. Read about the services CSI doesn’t provide.
Values of a Bad Fit
Just like finding a life partner or making new friends, there needs to be some alignment on values to be a good match.
The values of people who may not be a good fit to work with CSI include:
- Cutting corners instead of investing
- If you’re reluctant to invest money in an outsourced service, then you shouldn’t be outsourcing. Ultimately, you can have more earning potential by outsourcing.
- Not wanting a full service
- If you’re only looking for an annual tax return preparer or a bookkeeper, you’re not fully on board with monthly accounting. You need to understand the value of monthly financial statements, monthly meetings, and year-round tax strategy. Asking for - and implementing - your accountant’s advice is another important aspect of monthly accounting.
- Wanting things to stay the same, always
- If you don’t trust a professional to handle your accounting, we’re not sure what to tell you. Believe it or not, some businesses want to continue doing things their way - whether they have a professional accounting background or not. If you’re scared of change, you shouldn’t be passing the torch to someone else who might handle things a little differently than you do. Trust us - we know what we’re doing.
- Doing your own thing instead of communicating
- Our least successful clients are the ones who make it difficult to schedule strategy sessions with their accountant or who don’t respond to their payroll specialist via email or phone call. We call this the “fitness center mentality,” where people sign up for something and continue to pay for it but aren’t really using it. If you don’t put in the effort here, then you’re not going to get much value out of monthly accounting.
- Wanting exceptions to be made for you
- Sometimes exceptions are reasonable, and sometimes they aren’t. While great customer service is the name of the game, if more and more people ask for exceptions, productivity gets lower and lower. We try to be accommodating and easy to work with, but we have to keep a process!
- Actively committing crime
- Now, we know that most people feel that they pay too much in taxes. However, if you’re evading your taxes or committing fraud, we’ll be able to see this when we look at your financial information.
- If anything is occurring by accident, it won’t continue to happen with us - but if you want to actively continue to break the law, we’re not a service that will look the other way.
Could We Still Be a Match?
Chances are, if you’re a bad fit to work with CSI Accounting & Payroll, you’ve already stopped reading. Our staff at CSI Accounting & Payroll doesn’t know if we’re a good match or not - because we have no idea who you are! Luckily, you now have the information to decide that for yourself.
If you don’t align with the technical components and values listed above, we welcome you to get a free payroll proposal or schedule a free consultation by clicking the button below:
If you’re not ready to, we understand! Now is a good time to either walk away or continue to learn about:
