cpas committed to empowering entrepreneurs | top
CPA MOMS™ is committed to empowering entrepreneurship for both business owners and CPAs. By hand-selecting qualified financial service professionals, the Agency can manage the quality of the CPA MOMS™ professionals we represent. All CPAs in the community operate inside of 3 core Agency PRINCIPLES in serving business owners:
- produce the highest QUALITY accounting product
- provide extraordinary PERSONALIZED CARE and SERVICE
- always ADD VALUE
cpa moms™ an entrepreneur's solution
Our way… designed by an entrepreneur for the entrepreneur. CPA MOMS™ is an Accounting Agency. We are not an accounting firm. Instead, CPA MOMS™ relies on the expertise of the CPA MOMS™ system designed to carefully screen and select CPAs. This network of professionals are then invited to join the community of licensed service professionals in CPA MOMS™. The Agency matches these select CPAs with business owners seeking high quality accounting professionals.
- CPAs are independent contractors not employees:
CPA MOMS™ takes the most talented accounting professionals (all CPAs) and gives them independent contracts with their own clients. Because they don't think like employees, and understand the needs of entrepreneurs, they are the best type of professional to work with a fast moving entrepreneurial company. Why hire an employee, when you can have CPA level professional independent contractors?
- Personalized and customized care and attention:
Because CPA MOMS™ is not a consulting firm, the CPAs that we match are able to negotiate their own terms individually so they can price themselves more competitively than other professionals of the same caliber and still get paid what they feel they are worth. CPA firms in the marketplace often delegate to bookkeepers and don't even review it. The CPA MOM that our clients hire ARE the ones who do the work. Why hire a consulting company when you can have "CPA services at bookkeeper prices."
- We handle placements:
CPA MOMS™ developed a proprietary system to screen, test, and profile CPAs. CPA MOMS™ has a proprietary system designed to match their select CPAs with business owners. Unlike most placement services, the business owner does not pay for the matching service. The CPAs pay for the service. Business owners don't need to worry about the process of selecting or re-selecting the best talent, especially as they expand their enterprise or shift into different business ventures. CPA MOMS™ Agents stay connected with the CPA and business owners throughout the entire term of the relationship. Why hire and pay a placement company 20-30% of first year salary, when you can have a professional placement Agency find your accounting talent without having to pay direct, upfront placement fees for consultants.
we are a local service provider | top
In many markets, CPAs work in the same local area as their clients. Though much of the work can be done remotely (e.g. from the CPA MOMS™ home or office,) CPAs aren't located in another country. Part of our commitment is to become part of the solution to support employment in the Unites States. Though our solution is to create mompreneurs vs. employees, we still feel that creating income for working, tax paying Americans gets us to the same end goal. CPA MOMS™ will do our very best to find solutions within your own state. The CPA MOMS™ community is expanding rapidly nationwide and intend to provide a local solution to those who require on-site work. Though some CPAs prefer to work remotely, you do have the option to meet face-to-face with your CPA on a monthly basis in certain markets.
cpas are not all tax preparers | top
The CPA (Certified Public Accountant) credential is long associated with tax preparers. What most business owners don't know is that the CPA designation is a meaningful way to identify how much technical accounting skills/education and real world experience an accountant has. It does not identify what that CPA specializes in. Though earning a CPA distinction varies by state, most common requirements are that a CPA obtain a 4 year degree in accounting, work as a public accountant for a minimum of 2-3 years, and successfully pass a comprehensive 4 part exam, much like the legal bar exam. (For example: an attorney can focus on civil, corporate, or criminal law. They are all licensed JDs.)
CPAs can have one of 3 primary focuses:
- TAX
- AUDIT
- FINANCIAL
Tax CPAs prepare tax returns, Audit CPAs review the work of other accounting professionals, and Financial CPAs focus more on operational business accounting and work most commonly as Controllers. Most of the CPAs are Financial CPAs with experience as Audit CPAs. Though we don't do audit, reviews, or attestations, it is important to work with someone who has had experience as an auditor and can more efficiently help the business owner prepare for an audit. There are few CPA MOMS that are both Financial and Tax CPAs.
{common solutions for entrepreneurs}
The most common options to entrepreneurs are either: 1) hire a bookkeeper, 2) hire an accounting consulting firm, 3) hire an employee, 4) do it themselves, or 5) hire a placement company to find you an employee. Here is a simple break-down showing the pros/cons of each option:
|
|
Pros |
Cons |
|
Hire a Bookkeeper? |
Cheap |
Inadequate technical knowledge |
|
Hire a Consulting Firm? |
Lots of Talent to choose from No employees to manage Variety of engagement terms |
Expensive May not always get who you paid for |
|
Hire an Employee? |
Works only for your company |
HR, employee tax, insurance & benefits burden Lack of flexibility in salary or hours Employee mindset in entrepreneur's playground |
|
Do it Yourself? |
Free (only if it is correct) |
Distraction from business building focus Most likely not accurate Missed opportunity for tax savings, profit improvements |
|
Hire a Placement Company? |
Utilize experts to find Talent |
Pay (at once) full year of fees upon placement Usually place full-time salaried employees |
Hire a bookkeeper?
Owners of Fortune 500 companies use international public accounting firms and in-house full-time CFOs to help them make financial decisions. The costs are usually prohibitive for entrepreneurs, with outside billing rates usually starting at $150/hr and ranging in the $300-500/hr level for seasoned financial experts. A seasoned tax CPA in a tax firm usually charges $100-$300/hr for their tax services. As a result, most entrepreneurs use bookkeepers. Though keeping books is critical to the financial foundation of a company, it is only the beginning of what an entrepreneur needs to maintain and grow a profitable enterprise. If you were fortunate to find a good bookkeeper, we recommend and can offer CPA supervision/or and review. Some bookkeepers are insufficiently trained on technical accounting, or are self-taught and lack the big picture business perspective that a business owner needs. Because there is no formal certification process for bookkeepers in the financial industry, there is a high percentage of incompetent bookkeepers who have been given sole responsible for a company's books. The cost of correcting bad bookkeeping can be tens of thousands of dollars, time, and tax implications. This can be financially catastrophic for an entrepreneur just getting started.
Do it yourself?
Well I don’t have much to say about this, except… pray. Hope the IRS doesn't pick you. Bottomline, if you are going to be a legitimate business, you have to have good financial records to make business decisions. If you know how to do your own accounting (i.e. you are a professionally trained accountant), that is fine for a little bit in the beginning, but beyond that it isn’t a smart business decision to allocate time that could be used to build your business on tasks that are designed to maintain your business. Build it into the cost of running your business and then decide (if you can’t afford a professional accountant) if the business is really worth it.
Hire an employee?
If you are someone who can spot a good accountant from a bad, has the desire to manage the HR component of having employees, like paying worker's comp insurance, and don't mind not being able to fire someone without worry about a lawsuit then an employee might be the best option. Employees are dedicated to the company (meaning – not working for any other company), but also have that dreaded employee mindset. Most entrepreneurs we work with need people to think like them, act like them, and understand what it is to have your own business, even if it is a consulting service. Employees are limited in what they know. If they don’t know something, there isn't anyone else on the "team" to ask. If the company outgrows them, there is no place for them to contribute and the hiring and knowledge transfer has to start over from scratch. It makes sense for companies of a certain size to have accountants on staff, but for most entrepreneurs, it is too limiting to what they need and they simply can’t afford to make the wrong choice, usually can’t pay the employee desired benefits, and don’t have an HR team that can manage the hiring process. Business owners should not be saddled with this time consuming process. In terms of risk management, accountants that are comfortable in their stable, steady position (where no one else really understands what they are doing) are in a place of trust and have a higher opportunity to commit fraud. It happens and there are ways to mitigate the risk of it happening to you.
Hire a consulting firm?
Consulting firms are in a word…expensive. Yes, you can get talent without having to hire an employee or worry about the quality of the work, but you pay for it. If the accountants are employees to the firm, this is a less expensive model for you as the client, but you are now having your books managed by someone who has an employee mindset, probably not getting paid what their worth, and waiting for the opportunity to go consult on their own. Expect turnover. The other non-employee consulting company model has a typical mark-up of 50-60% if they work with independents. This is reasonable if you consider the amount of HR/people administration, legal & insurance risk, and client management that is involved in running an accounting consulting firm (think Enron.) The better the talent, expect to pay double. If you hire a CPA firm, in most cases (not all), the person who actually performs the work is in fact a bookkeeper whose work is reviewed by the CPA. In our business model, the CPA does the work, not a bookkeeper. How can you tell? If the consulting firm is inexpensive, the primary reason for this is usually because the person you are working with isn’t performing the work. This is very common in CPA firms. The CPA doesn’t do the work, they just review the work a bookkeeper they have on staff completed. A CPA typically charges $100-$300/hr, so if you aren't sure…ask. This model is fine because the bookkeeper's work is being reviewed by a professional. However, it simply isn’t what most people think they are paying for.
Hire a placement company?
If hiring an employee makes sense for your business, and you don’t have an HR person on your team, I wouldn’t recommend winging it. Placement companies are not taking responsibility for the quality of work that employee produces, but they are taking responsibility for the quality of the person you hire. There are lots of upsides of using a placement company. The biggest downside is that you usually have to pay for the placement at the time of hire. This fee is usually 20-30% of first year salary which is payable up front. It is worth it if you consider the cost of employee turnover when you hire the wrong person for your team, but again this is not usually the best option for an entrepreneur. And, all of the downsides of having an employee still exist, except the process of finding and hiring that person which you leverage the placement company for. The employee you hire is still just one person, they have a limit to their skills and abilities, and have an employee mindset. Also, the placement company/client relationship ends when the placement happens. Who is there to make sure your needs are met after that? Again, it may make sense for some businesses, but there is an even better way.
{pulling back the curtain}
It is important for entrepreneurs to know who they hiring and what they are responsible for providing. Too often there is an unrealistic expectation of business owners when working with their accounting professional team. By pulling back the curtain, it is our intention to bridge the gap of understanding so that an entrepreneur understands what they are paying for and what they can expect to receive. It is also important to educate the business owner of the accounting service options and to disclose how it really works.
tax cpas do not review your books | top
Some business owners are relieved because they have a qualified tax CPA filing their returns. Well, I hate to break more bad news, but by design a tax CPA is there to help business owners reduce their tax liability. Tax CPAs generally don't review the books for accuracy. So, a business owner believes that their tax CPA is reviewing their books for accuracy, and often this is not the case. This doesn't mean you should fire your tax CPA. It is not their role or strength in business to review books. Tax CPAs are also not reponsbile for supporting business owners around their needs to increase profitability, sales growth, cashflow management, or business operations. Often times, a tax CPA left alone can complicate a company's accounting and legal structure with such one-sided perspective. Even though we have accounting talent that can both keep the books and file tax returns, we still recommend that the bookkeeping/accounting function and tax preparer function be performed by two separate professionals.
bookkeepers do the work at most cpa firms | top
If you hire a CPA firm to perform your accounting functions, read your agreements. In most cases, the work is performed by a bookkeeper on staff and REVIEWED by a CPA. What I like about this is that bookkeepers are being supervised by a licensed professional. Why I am pulling back this curtain is because many entrepreneurs come to us frustrated because they didn't know the work they were paying for wasn't being performed by the person they hired.
the cheaper the labor the more it costs | top
When we started, we were an accounting firm that believed that there was a way to include low cost data entry and bookkeeping professionals in the accounting service delivery and save our clients even more money. For those that have never gone through the process of replacing their bookkeeper or have never worked with a professional accountant, let us share some of the lessons we learned the hard way. In our commitment to keep prices low, we hired, trained, and supervised bookkeepers in the early stages of our business. We had CPAs review the work prior to delivering the work to the business owner. We charged $15 an hour for data entry, $30 an hour for the bookkeeping work and double for CPA review. We discovered that after the review, clean-up, and correction, it always cost more no matter how well trained the lower skilled accountant was. Our conclusion was universal (no matter how small or large the scope of work is,) it is less expensive to our clients to have a CPA provide the bookkeeping services than have a CPA clean-up, follow-up, train, and manage the work of a well trained bookkeeper. Depending on your volume of accounting activity, and the complexity or inherent risk of your business, we have found that the efficiencies of one accounting expert at $100 per hour cost the company about the same amount for a less proficient bookkeeper at $30 per hour. It seems counter intuitive, but after a year of measuring the results, we understood why entrepreneurs have such poor accounting records. Instead of asking the accounting professional "how much can you save me or make me"…enterpreneurs often ask "how much do you cost?"
deliverables ala carte | top
CPAs in the CPA MOMS™ community deliver services in an "ala carte" fashion. Business owners choose which deliverables they need/don't need, and timeline of delivery. Based on the recommendations of the CPA, business owners and CPAs can mutually choose to have the service delivered as a one-time project or as a recurring service. CPAs work on retainers; however, as a courtesy offer complimentary auto-recurring payment options. Major credit cards and eChecks are also accepted. As you probably can tell, there is a great deal of flexibility and commitment to a customized, personalized service.
Here is an outline of the some of the most popular deliverables you might request of the CPA MOMS™ accounting service professionals.
- Accounting/Electronic system - includes setup/(re)design of financial architecture (e.g. chart of accounts, lists, customer/vendor centers, 1099 maps, report design), data clean-up, correction, inputting, importing, reconciling, and efficiency improvements to systematize your electronic data processing in your existing or new accounting system
- Cashflow - takes all bank and credit card activity and inputs/imports/reconciles in the accounting system in order to generate a cashflow analysis report in excel used to help you manage cashflow on a monthly basis
- Financial Plan - takes historical cashflow and values-based plan and goals to create a financial plan
- Paper organization - takes all paper, statements, receipts, etc.. in any form and organizes in a systematic self-purging filing system
- AR/AP - focuses on improving collection (invoicing, cash receipts & collection) and payables (cash disbursements controls)
- Employee payroll - ensures proper employee/payroll accounting and tax reporting
- Financial Reporting - producing a Balance Sheet and P&L for tax filing purposes, outside financing, monthly close, or just a clear picture of your personal or business finances
- Taxes/Licenses - we help with any and all tax requirements including state and federal income tax, 1099s, payroll, sales tax, property and other licensing & filing requirements, including catch-up on back taxes
- Co-mingling - we help clients with the right structure and $ flow to avoid co-mingling which has critical legal and tax implications if not followed
- Profit Analysis & Revenue Models - for clients that have a need to analyze their profitability by product line, property, or business line, we produce sophisticated profitability analysis that is easy to read and easy to use
…and much, much more…
accounting process at a glance | top
Entrepreneurs can ask for many of the following services for their personal and business financial needs:
- review and evaluate the quality of any existing accounting system & financial reports (if any)
- accounting system setup for both business and personal records and process improvement – setup includes complete architecture (e.g. chart of accounts, vendors, customers, memorized entries) as well as policies & procedures
- financial report design customizing Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cashflow Analysis
- accounting data entry in the appropriate accounting system
- debt reduction/elimination plan
- managing a comprehensive cashflow analysis
- creating a values-based financial plan, as well as specially designed reports and strategies to successfully realize your wealth creation plan
- customizing the paper organization system and training on how to use the system
- training on all of the created systems, processes and reports, personal financial education, and financial coaching
- working with the tax CPA in preparation of the books for current and back tax years, and ensuring compliance with all tax and legal entities
- industry specific needs like job costing for construction, managed distributions for investors, accounting for real estate investors, and many other industries
- helping with pre-funding, pre-sale, pre-borrowing financial preparation
- and many, many more services…
