3-Step Quoting Process | Next Steps

Our 3-step quoting process:

High quality quotes that identify and detail how we intend to solve your problems are the result of asking high quality questions and gathering high quality information. It’s that simple. For additional information, please see our Engagements Page.

1. It’s starts with a phone conversation:

We ask –

• Questions about how your business operates – The types of activities required to deliver your products and services and the types of Clients/Customers that you deliver to and service.
• How your business is structured – Both at the State level (DBA, LLC, LLP, Corporation, for example) and for Federal Tax purposes (Proprietorship, Partnership, C-Corporation, S-Corporation, are the most common constructs).
• About your business’s financials – Balance Sheet, Cash Flow and Profit & Loss Statements – Are your records up to date, are your tax filings and obligations current?
• Do you have any outstanding tax debt or have you been contacted by the IRS or State Taxing authority about an impending audit or examination?
• Did you have a prior Accountant, Advisor, Tax Pro?
• Your immediate pressing concerns and issues.
• And, most importantly, your long-term goals and mission, and how well you’re aligned to achieve these.
• Finally, we’ll take your questions to understand if this is the right fit for our Firm and yours.

2. We ask to review your records: 

• We’ll ask for access (an invite) to your QuickBooks Company file to validate what was discussed in our phone call.
• If you don’t use QuickBooks or any type of Accounting platform, for example – Excel spreadsheets that you use to track your financial data, we’ll ask for that.
• If it’s relevant, we’ll want to review your previous (business) tax filings.
• If necessary, we’ll follow-up for additional information as required.

3. We’ll give you a detailed Proposal / Quote:

• We’ll state our findings in clear English.
• Provide you with an overview/plan as to how we intend to resolve your issues/problems.
• Depending on what we find, we’ll address and provide sections in our proposal/quote to address Accounting, Advisory, Bookkeeping and Tax-related issues, separately.
• We’ll also quote (separately) Bookkeeping proposals (for example) in two ways – A “Clean-up” Phase and an Ongoing “Monthly Maintenance” Phase.
• Our proposal will be quoted as a flat fee – You’ll understand the complete price, upfront, unless it’s an ongoing Engagement with a yet-to-be determined completion of the work-product.
• Our terms – Fees, billing method and others, will be included.

Disclaimer / Important:

We DON’T use Bots or AI Agents to request, gather or work with your confidential Client information, because most AI models cannot be entrusted to protect or safeguard your data.

Think I’m misinformed? Many AI companies are (openly) warning Accountants, Advisors and Tax Pros against using their own models because their models cannot be guaranteed to protect confidential data. AI models retain (and share) data as part of how the models train themselves and learn to become more proficient. This makes AI models inherently risky.

AI tools that assist with improving efficiency or perform rudimentary tasks are great, but if it involves confidential information, it’s not worth the expense or risk of having that data inadvertently “shared.”

Business Owners, if other Accounting Firms are bragging about their superior AI Tech Stacks, ask them a simple question – How do they ensure safeguarding confidential and sensitive data?