When small business owners are looking for new outsourced solutions, they want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve welcomed client feedback for over 50 years. We especially welcome negative feedback because we’re skeptical of any business that has a perfect 5-star rating. We believe you should be skeptical, too.
We’re going to put it all out there… in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. What don’t some clients like about us, and why do these complaints come up?
Issues With CSI
We offer a range of services. However, not all clients use all of our services, so we wanted to include all issues in one place.
Issue: My neighbor told me I could get a specific tax deduction, but CSI won’t let me claim it. They don’t want to see me succeed.
Reason: Quite the opposite! If you’re trying to claim a deduction that doesn’t apply to your business, of course we’ll stop you. By stopping you, we save you the time and stress that your inevitable audit would cause if we let you break the law.
If you need to break the law, fine - but do it with a different accounting service!
Issue: CSI isn’t dropping everything to help me with something that has a deadline quickly approaching! I thought they offered great customer service.
Reason: We do offer great customer service, but we can’t put other clients on the back burner just because you procrastinated. We believe in treating all of our clients equally, regardless of size or profits.
However, other accountants might be willing to drop their other clients to help you now - and then drop you to help their other clients later. That doesn’t sound like it benefits anybody, though.
Issue: I got a letter from the IRS saying I’m going to be audited. CSI messed up my books, and now I’m in trouble.
Reason: Don’t jump to conclusions quite yet! Sales tax audits are randomly performed and can affect anyone regardless of accounting accuracy. The same can also sometimes be true of income tax audits.
Luckily, CSI offers audit support to our accounting clients. We’ll cover you and double check to make sure your books are solid - but we’re pretty sure they are. Everyone makes mistakes - except CSI.
Issue: I worked with CSI, and now I owe money on my taxes. I didn’t owe this much before.
Reason: Owing taxes means one thing: your business is profitable. Increased tax liability won’t exceed increased profits. Sorry for making you more money - we won’t do that anymore if it’s a problem for you!
Issue: CSI wants to charge me more than the investment we agreed on.
Reason: If this is referring to inflation, any service is going to increase in price over time. We re-evaluate your investment with us every six months to one year. If this is about added services, we’re going to charge extra if you want to add on extra services that were not included in the agreement. We’d advise that you do the same in both cases - otherwise, you’ll soon be out of business.
Issue: CSI calls me, but I don’t have time to talk to them. My last accounting and payroll service never called me.
Reason: We’re not just calling to chat (depending on who’s calling, we guess). Your accountant or payroll specialist will proactively reach out to you if we see anything wrong with your books or payroll.
If you can’t talk on the phone, just email or text us, “New phone, who dis?”
Issue: CSI makes me verify my payroll before they run it. Why can’t they do everything for me?
Reason: We want to make sure there are no mistakes. It doesn’t take long for you to confirm your payroll numbers, and your employees will be happy you checked for them.
If you want to have mistakes in your payroll, then leave any errors in place. Do it for the drama!
Issue: CSI overexplains things to me. Do they think I’m stupid?
Reason: We’d rather explain everything than assume you know things that you don’t. Your area of expertise is your business, not accounting or payroll! We’re trying to be helpful - not to insult your big, beautiful brain.
Issue: CSI makes me commit to a full year of their accounting service. I only wanted to try it for a month. What if they don’t do anything?
Reason: If you only worked with us for a month, you wouldn’t begin to see any of the benefits of year-round accounting or get much of a return on your investment.
If you don’t care about seeing what an accounting investment can do for your business, we recommend sticking to basic number crunching on an Excel file.
Issue: CSI costs too much. They cost more than my last accountant.
Reason: Why did you leave your last accountant? Did they ignore you? Did they mess up your books? Did they not do all of the services you wanted them to do?
We do it all and do it well - for a deserved higher cost. As your ex-girlfriend might have once said, “If we’re too much for you, go find less!”
Issue: CSI said they’d take care of everything for me, but they still ask me to do things like grant authorizations.
Reason: We know you’re pressed for time and doing this takes critical seconds out of your day, but we can’t access your data if you don’t authorize us! Everything we ask of you is necessary to save you time and headaches in the long run.
Issue: CSI has a long startup time. It can take months to be fully onboarded.
Reason: We’re checking your financial data to ensure the accuracy of your prior accountant’s work. By doing this, we can guarantee audit-proofed books. Or maybe we’re just always gone on company outings!
Talk to an Expert Before You Judge!
Now that you know about issues some clients have while working with us, as well as our acknowledgments and explanations of them. No outsourced business service is perfect, and we welcome feedback from our clients to always improve their satisfaction.
If you’ve decided that these points aren’t dealbreakers, are you ready to check out monthly accounting services?
If so, please consider CSI Accounting & Payroll! 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 what it’s like to be a client of CSI by clicking the image below:
