Our monthly accounting clients tend to be hands-on and can worry that even monthly advice won't be enough. Since certain questions are time-sensitive and other accountants charge by the minute for their time, we're often asked, “Can I contact my monthly accountant with any questions that come up... for no extra fee?”
Yes! You will not be charged extra for reaching out with a question, provided it's one-off. Large consulting projects will require an additional contract.
After many decades of working with other small business owners with the same concerns, we’ve branded CSI Accounting & Payroll as the firm of experts who prioritize communication. Let's touch on some guidelines of contact, as well as what it typically looks like when our clients contact us.
We don’t have an official policy on clients contacting our accountants, but when you sign a service agreement with CSI, it specifically mentions unlimited one-off communication at no additional charge. It's covered under your monthly accounting fee.
What’s with our enthusiasm to answer your questions for free? It makes things easier for us at the end of the day if you’re doing things correctly and efficiently. We want you to use our experts as a sounding board because if we don’t know what you’re trying to do, we can’t help guide you!
You can email, call, or text us at any time, and we’ll get back to you during regular business hours. If you contact us in the morning, we'll reply by the end of the day. If it's the afternoon, we’ll reply early the next business day. We want to get back to you within half of a business day, even if it’s just to let you know that we received your question and will work on getting an answer shortly.
Aside from making suggestions based on your situation, we can use the financial statements that we make for you each month to dig even deeper. We may give you advice based on your profit trends, your bank accounts and loans, or leveraging your business.
Typical advice could include having a large asset base and using it to leverage good loan rates to expand, or having a large amount of cash and putting it back into your business so you can use it to grow. Your profit and loss statement can tell you if your revenue is up, down, or flat, and we can then offer advice to help you smooth out any inconsistencies throughout the year. Your balance sheet can also show your business’s cash flow, and we can tell you if you’re taking the right amount of money out of your business.
Want to learn more about these statements? Check out our free Small Business Accounting Kit:
Do many clients reach out to us outside of regular meetings? Not often. There’s no right or wrong way to ask questions, but a majority wait until meetings to ask about what’s come up in the previous month. Other clients reach out periodically with questions, and that’s also fine!
When our clients do call us between meetings, it’s usually with questions that are deadline-driven. For example, you get a letter from the IRS and need to respond within 30 days, or you're wondering about the status of a tax return. Maybe you're wondering what to document when buying a vehicle, and you need to purchase it as soon as possible. Sometimes, waiting for a meeting is not ideal.
There are some things that fall outside of the scope of regular accounting advice and more into consulting. While we do offer consulting services, they require additional time and resources. Therefore, our consulting services do cost an additional fee. We will always let you know when your questions are getting into consulting territory and sign a proposal so there is total cost transparency.
If you were concerned that monthly meetings wouldn’t answer all of your questions in one go, that time-sensitive questions will come up, or that some accountants charge too much for a phone call, you now know that CSI Accounting & Payroll offers unlimited communication with your accountant at no additional charge!
Communication is vital in your accounting processes because, at the end of the day, the things you want advice on will make your accountant’s job easier. We understand that not everything can be covered in monthly meetings, and that’s why we prioritize getting back to you quickly and allow for multiple forms of contact.
If this hands-on approach sounds good to you, it’s time to schedule a free consultation!
Otherwise, take a look at who CSI is a good fit for.