Small Business CPA Austin AlternativeOne practice answers the month.

It is for an owner with one company who wants the month closed, the payroll set up, and the return prepared from those months. It is not a booth you visit once a year with a shoebox. If that is all you want, we will say so and we will not dress a one time rush up as a monthly practice.

The person on the call is the person who does the work. You are not handed to a rotating room after you have explained the company once. Notes from the call stay with the file. Whatever we learned on that call is what the following month is built from.

A Tax CFO keeps the controller work and the tax work in one place. The controller work is the close, the reconciliations, the statements, and the look ahead at cash. The tax work is the return, the estimates, and the decisions you can still make before the year ends. Splitting those across two vendors is how April surprises people.

Steven Palmieri carries that combination. The Entrepreneur's CFO is the name owners use when they mean the same thing. What actually changes hands is a closed month, a payroll setup the owner keeps running, statements, and a return. The esteem is in the close being finished, not in a title on a door.

You send access when the scope is signed, not before. We close the open history first if there is any. Then each month has a day. On that day you get statements and a short note about what changed and what is still open. The conversation is for the decisions, not for us to read the statements out loud.

Questions between closes are normal. A hire, a truck, a partner draw, a notice. Bring them when they happen. A decision made in October is cheaper than the same decision reconstructed in March.

Eeyore's Birthday Party has filled Pease Park with costumes and drums on a Saturday in April since the early 1960s. Every Texan who has heard of it understands a crowd where you cannot tell who is who until someone takes the mask off.

Books can feel like that crowd. Deposits, transfers, and card charges all wear the same gray until someone who knows the company names them. We are the ones who take the mask off the odd item. You should always be able to tell who answered, and the answer should be this practice, not a nameless queue.

We will ask how many months are open, whether anyone is paid, and whether a lender is asking for a signed report. If the signed report is the thing you need, we point you to a firm that can sign an audit, a review, or a compilation. If the thing you need is a monthly close and a return, we say what the first month of work would include.

A mismatch gets said out loud on that same call. A company that wants only a once a year filing, or a company whose books are a project we cannot honestly finish, gets a no. A no on the first call saves both of us a bad quarter.

Your records stay yours. When an engagement ends, the file comes back. We do not hold the books hostage over a fee conversation. Fees already earned stay due, and the scope of anything new is written before it is done.

The first call creates no engagement. Nothing is hired until a written scope and a written fee are both signed. Before that paper exists, you can walk away and so can we, and neither exit needs a speech.

The footer number reaches this practice. The calendar on the book page is the same practice. Use whichever is easier. A note on the form should say whether you want to talk about an open month, payroll setup, or the return, so the first reply is about that and not about a generic hello.

We do not publish a street or a map pin. Every Texan knows a company can be run from a kitchen table and the statements still have to match the bank. We are all Texans in that way. The close day is the same kind of day wherever the owner is sitting, and the statements do not care which mug is on the table.

We would rather know one company well than skim twenty. That is why a company that was told it was too small is often the company we want. The year has the same shape either way. Months close. Payroll is set up. The return is prepared. Decisions get made while they can still change the year.

If you want to see the work before you see the person, read the close and the taxes. If you want the person first, the form on this page is enough. Say who you are and what the last month looks like.