Insights / How we work
Hiring an accountant is oddly opaque for something so consequential. You have a couple of conversations, sign something, and then either it works or it doesn't. Here's the whole process written down, so you know what you're agreeing to before you agree to it.
Thirty minutes, free, and not a sales call. We'll ask what your business does, what's currently painful, who handles the books now, and what software you're in.
You should ask us things too. What happens when I have a question? Who actually does the work? What's not included? How do you charge? Any firm that gets vague on those is telling you something.
You don't need to prepare. If you have financials handy, great. If you don't, the fact that you can't easily produce them is itself useful information.
If it seems like a fit, we'll ask for read-only access to your accounting file and a look at recent returns. This is us doing our homework, not us starting work — and it's how we find out what's actually there rather than what you've been told is there.
Two things come out of this: an honest picture of the state of your books, and enough information to quote you accurately instead of optimistically.
Sometimes what we find is that the books are in decent shape and you need less than you thought. We'll tell you that.
You get a flat monthly figure, in writing, before anything starts. It covers a defined scope, and the scope is written down too — including what's not in it, because that's the part that causes arguments later.
If your prior-year books need cleanup, that's quoted separately as a one-time project. We won't bury it in the monthly fee, and we won't quote it until we've looked at the file — anyone who quotes cleanup sight-unseen is guessing.
The fee doesn't move unless the scope moves. If your business changes shape — new entity, new state, acquisition — we'll talk about it before anything changes, not after.
The unglamorous part. Access to the accounting file, the bank and card feeds, payroll, and whatever else touches the numbers. We document what we find, and we'll usually restructure the chart of accounts so it reflects how you actually operate rather than how the software's default template assumed you would.
If there's a cleanup project, this is when it runs. It takes as long as it takes, and we'd rather tell you a real timeline than a comfortable one.
The first month we close for you is the real milestone. You get financials on a date we told you in advance, and — more importantly — a conversation about what's in them.
The first close is often where things surface. Margins that aren't what anyone assumed. A customer whose profitability looks different once the costs are allocated properly. A line item nobody could explain. This is normal. It's not a sign anything was wrong before; it's a sign nobody was looking.
After that it's a cadence, not an event:
The point of the rhythm: nothing on that list is impressive individually. It works because it's boring and it happens on time. Most of what goes wrong in small business finance goes wrong because something obvious didn't happen for four months.
Honest answers, reasonably promptly. Tell us about the new state you're hiring in before the first paycheck, not at year-end. Tell us if cash is tight — we're considerably more useful before a crisis than during one. And if you don't understand something we've said, say so. That's our failure, not yours.
Worth saying out loud: if it isn't working, you can leave. Your data is yours, your accounting file is yours, and we'll hand over everything without making it difficult. Nobody should stay with a firm because leaving is a hassle.
Thirty minutes, no pitch, no invoice. Worst case, you get a free second opinion.
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