If you’re looking into working with a monthly accounting service like CSI for your small business, you can expect many things to be taken off your plate. However, since a service isn’t in-house, they will need some insight from you.
You need to know how things will be handled. What can you expect a monthly accountant to cover, and what will you need to help them with?
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve worked with small businesses for over 50 years. That means we’ve talked to thousands of clients about how we handle monthly accounting services. They’ve often wanted to know:
- Who handles the onboarding and setup of CSI’s monthly accounting service?
- Who is responsible for monthly tasks?
- Who is involved with tax strategy and filing?
- Who manages other quarterly, annual, or one-off tasks?
Onboarding & Setup of a Monthly Accounting Service
When you sign up with any monthly accounting service, they can’t just start managing your books. First, they need to gather all of the information they need to get your account set up.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we will always let you know when we need something from you that is inhibiting us from getting the work done.
What You Need to Do
To get started, you need to grant us online access to all of your source documents. These may include:
- Bank statements
- Credit card statements
- Loan statements
- Potentially other information that we will need to produce accurate financial statements each month
We may also ask for your POS system information and your payroll information (if you don’t bundle your payroll with us). Remember, we will let you know exactly what we need from you, as this can vary by client.
What a Monthly Accountant Does
While our service is monthly, the onboarding process includes more frequent ISS meetings (Initial Strategy Sessions). There are generally three sessions, but there may be subsequent sessions for unique situations or larger operations.
Aside from getting access to your data, your accountant will also typically:
- Session 1: Focus on fact-finding to get a deeper understanding of your situation and answer some of your burning questions.
- Session 2: Offer accounting education so you can properly document income and expenses, pay bills, and handle reimbursements.
- Session 3: Offer tax education and some preliminary tax planning.
Managing Monthly Tasks
Next, let’s look at the core of our monthly accounting service – what it looks like after onboarding is completed.
What You Need to Do
Because you followed your accountant’s instructions during onboarding and granted them online access to your source documents, this will save everybody a considerable amount of time! The only exception is if your password or our access changes; then you would need to re-authorize us.
There’s only one other thing that you need to do: participate in meetings. You will have the opportunity to meet with your accountant as needed. You may receive advice based on monthly financial statements, discuss your current situation, and get answers to any questions you have.
(Of course, you can also always reach out with one-off questions between meetings at no extra cost!)
What a Monthly Accountant Does
Each month, your accountant will:
- Prepare your profit & loss statement and balance sheet.
- Reconcile all of your accounts and credit cards.
- Host a meeting to offer you advice based on your current situation and financial data (as mentioned above)
Optionally, if we handle your sales tax, this may be on either a monthly or quarterly basis.
Tax Strategy & Filing
If you’ve only worked with an annual tax accountant before, you may think that taxes only need one annual meeting. However, with monthly accounting, there’s a lot more that goes into it. We focus on a complete tax strategy instead of just recording the financial history of your year.
What You Need to Do
Before it’s even time to file your taxes, your accountant will invite you to tax planning meetings. It’s in your best interest to participate in tax planning meetings.
What’s even better? Implementing your accountant’s tax planning advice to minimize your taxes.
Finally, at your accountant’s request, you will need to provide all source tax documents, just like an annual tax accountant would ask you to do.
What a Monthly Accountant Does
Your monthly accountant works year-round to ensure your taxes are minimized and you have a good idea of what you’ll owe – meaning no more surprise tax bills from the government. To do this, your accountant will:
- Host tax planning meetings (as mentioned above)
- Perform tax projections
- Offer tax-saving advice
- Prepare and file your business taxes
Some clients prefer to have all of their taxes handled in one place. Optionally, if we handle your business taxes, we can also handle your personal taxes, although this would be an additional charge.
Managing Other Quarterly, Annual, or One-Off Tasks
When we talk about “other” tasks, we mean situational tasks that don’t apply to all of our clients. These can include things like:
- Sales tax
- Annual business registrations
- Personal property tax (PPT) returns
- Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting
What You Need to Do
Just follow your accountant’s directions! We will always ask you for any information we need upfront and any changes we would need you to notify us about.
What a Monthly Accountant Does
Your accountant will let you know what they need from you, and then they will handle the rest.
Get Accounting off of Your Plate!
Now that you know who handles onboarding, who’s responsible for monthly tasks, who’s involved with tax strategy and filing, and who manages other tasks, 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 monthly accounting costs.
