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Have Multiple Businesses? Here’s Why You DON’T Want Multiple Accounting Firms

December 16th, 2024 | 4 min. read

By Brian Paulson

Some small business owners think that if they own multiple growing operations, one accounting firm can’t handle all of them properly. They may choose to use a different accounting firm for each business… which is a huge mistake.

Regardless of whether you have multiple locations of the same business or different businesses with different entities, there are a few key reasons why you only want to work with one accounting firm. Let’s talk about them!

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve worked with small business accounting for nearly 60 years. That means we’ve answered a bunch of questions about multi-business accounting, including:

  • Why is it a bad tax strategy to use multiple accounting firms?
  • How can I save money by working with just one accounting firm?
  • Can one accounting firm really handle accounting for multiple growing businesses?

Multiple Firms = Poor Tax Strategy

We love to talk about tax strategy because a complete, year-round tax strategy is one of the best benefits a monthly accounting service (like ours) can provide when our clients work with us for their business and personal taxes. 

That’s why it’s important to make this clear… When you work with multiple accounting services, you get NO tax strategy.

Why is that? A disjointed accounting experience means that neither service can offer any tax strategy because neither one knows the big picture throughout the year. You can’t get tax projections or make any moves to legally minimize your tax liability.

Fortunately, this can all be avoided by working with one year-round accounting service.

Save Money With One Accounting Firm

Let’s get to the part that everyone wants to know about. When you use just one accounting firm, can you save money? Of course you can!

Aside from the significant potential tax savings (since we once saved a client $66,000 in year-end taxes alone), if you work with us as your accounting service, you can get instant savings – because we’ll only charge a setup fee for one of your businesses!

On the other hand, if you worked with multiple services for multiple businesses, each of them would likely charge you their own setup fee.

Work Capacity of One Accounting Firm

When you partner with us at CSI Accounting & Payroll, you’re getting a dedicated point of contact for your accounting – but that doesn’t mean they’re handling everything on their own! 

We have a lot of depth on our team, so we can easily service multiple small businesses at the same time. After all, each accountant already works with multiple clients! If you’re worried that one accounting service will not be able to handle your workload, you may want to consider hiring an internal accounting team.

If you came on board with multiple businesses, we would set up all of your businesses with the same Account Manager (point of contact) and the same Staff Accountant. Whether you have multiple locations of the same business or multiple business entities, they would be treated the same.

One Accounting Firm Means Strategy, Savings, & Service

Now that you know why it’s a bad tax strategy to use multiple accounting firms, how using one firm saves you money, and how you’ll have the service you need with CSI, are you ready to check out our monthly accounting services?

To see if we can be a good fit for your business, click the button below for a free consultation:

Not ready to talk? That’s okay! First, learn more about how much a monthly accounting service costs.

Brian Paulson

Brian began working at CSI in 1996, and he purchased the business in 2002. As Owner, his primary role is in the management and growth of the firm. Since 2002, the firm has more than quadrupled in size. In 2009, Brian started CSI’s payroll service to complement CSI’s accounting and tax services. Brian received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota, with a double major in Accounting and Financial Management. He’s a member of both the National Society for Tax Professionals and the National Society for Accountants, and he serves on the board of directors for the Professional Association of Small Business Accountants, where he was once president. Brian also serves on the business advisory council for Opportunity Partners, an organization that helps people with disabilities find employment. He’s also contributed to several business books, including Six Steps to Small Business Success and The Lean Mean Business Machine. Fun Fact: To help put himself through college, he used student loans, delivered pizzas, and worked summers in a salmon processing plant in Alaska.