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Accounting Firms

Need help finding the right firm? Read our Accounting Services Hiring Guide

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833 Providers
LedgerFi
Cupertino, CA
A full-service bookkeeping and tax strategy firm
GNESIST LLC
Richardson, TX
Comprehensive Accounting Services, Nationwide - Tax, Bookkeeping, CFO Solutions.
Brainy Advisors
Houston, TX
Business bookkeeping managed by licensed CPAs, starting at just $195/mo
MBS Accountancy Corporation
Fresno, CA
Accounting and taxation agency headquartered in California
Beaverton, OR
Staffing agency based in Mexico that assists with hiring roles for graphic design and accounting/bookkeeping specialists.
Hammond, LA
Accounting and bookkeeping services in Hammond, LA
Vancouver, Canada
Full-service boutique chartered professional accounting firm
Liberty, MO
Accounting and tax services for small and medium businesses
Dallas, TX
Expert bookkeeping, payroll, and financial management services
Vancouver, Canada
Accounting, bookkeeping, and tax management solution
Resultant

Resultant

Indianapolis, IN
Digital agency offering data transformation services
Ottawa, Canada
Accounting and payroll processing agency in Ottawa
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Accounting and bookkeeping agency in England
New York, NY
New York-based bookkeeping and payroll solutions agency
Fairfax, VA
Bookkeeping and tax services for small businesses
Tracy, CA
Web development, UX design, and accounting services provider
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Business process outsourcing company based in Florida
NSKT Global

NSKT Global

Charlotte, NC
Consulting firm for the healthcare and education sectors
Vancouver, Canada
Bookkeeping, payroll and accounting services provider
New York, NY
Accounting and bookkeeping company based in New York
Grand Rapids, MI
Award-winning staffing agency headquartered in Michigan
Rainham, United Kingdom
London-based bookkeeping agency
Edmonton, Canada
Full-service accounting, bookkeeping and tax firm
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Consulting & outsourcing firm for cloud accounting
Hialeah, FL
Accounting and tax planning agency headquartered in Florida
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Frequently Asked Questions in Accounting Firms

Accounting firms assist businesses with various financial tasks, such as bookkeeping, taxes, financial reports, and payroll. Some accounting firms may also help businesses prepare for financial audits, and advise how to deal with pre-existing discrepancies. Many businesses work with an external accounting expert to ensure they're paying the correct tax amounts, as well as adhering to local and national tax laws.
  • Do you charge by the hour, per task, or on a subscription basis?

  • Can you provide case studies or testimonials?

  • Have you worked with companies in our industry before?

  • What specific services do you provide

  • How can your accounting firm save us more time and money than your competitors?

    The most common service accounting firms offer is financial accounting. This is the compilation and documentation of financial transactions, and is vital for satisfying tax and audit requirements. Some accounting firms may also offer managerial accounting, which helps present trends, budgets, and margin analysis to executives or other stakeholders. Other services might include cost accounting, tax accounting, and forensic accounting which focuses on suspicious transactions.

    List your company's accounting goals, and then shortlist accounting firms you think have the most experience to best handle your needs. Check customer reviews and testimonials. Talk to peers in your industry that have used services from the shortlisted firms, if possible. Assess the firms' data security policies and ensure they're appropriate. Finally, get quotes for the accounting companies on your shortlist to check if their services fall within your business budget.

    What are the common services offered by an accounting firm?

    Accounting firms offer a variety of services for businesses looking to streamline their financial processes. Here’s a list of the common services most agencies provide:

    • Financial strategy and reporting: Accounting service providers record revenue, profits, expenses, and overall performance to offer an accurate picture of a business’s financial health. Based on this reporting, businesses can create a financial strategy and set viable goals. Financial reporting also helps businesses forecast potential challenges such as inconsistent cash flow, increased liability, and poor tax compliance. In addition, it helps organize accounting data, track cash flow, evaluate assets and liabilities, determine shareholder equity, and analyze future profitability.

    • Bookkeeping and expense tracking: Accounting companies track and record their clients’ financial transactions using three main bookkeeping methods: single-entry, double-entry, and cash-based or accrual-based. Bookkeeping services help create periodic reconciliation reports, allowing accounting teams to conduct easier audits. Accounting firms also review and record daily expenditure and reimbursements to create comprehensive expense reports that help businesses monitor their cash flow.

    • Business valuation: Accounting firms study historical revenue reports and business growth patterns to determine an accurate business value for potential investors, buyers, initial fundings, and mergers. Most service providers also recommend development strategies and help create a tailor-made financial plan that supports business growth.

    • Reconciliation and risk management: Accounting agencies compare and match bank statements with bookkeeping records to find discrepancies or missing entries. They also monitor the financial market to check if their clients’ business has incurred losses and ensure they have a backup plan to mitigate financial risk. Agencies define risk management goals and generate financial reports to help clients create an effective financial risk management plan.

    • Tax filing and planning: Accounting service providersprepare year-end reports and file taxes while ensuring a business’s financial reporting practices comply with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations. They also analyze financial records to predict their impact on the client’s business and create an effective tax strategy. Accounting firms define a long-term tax strategy to reduce income tax liability, grow wealth, and identify tax-saving opportunities.

    • Profitability ratio analysis: Accounting firmsdetermine and analyze the profitability ratio, which is a financial metric that evaluates a business’s ability to generate profits from its operations relative to its expenses. They help increase the profitability ratio by analyzing expenses, reducing bad debts, eliminating nonprofitable products, and revamping the existing financial strategy.

    • Payroll processing: Accounting firmscalculate employee salaries, wages, bonuses, tax obligations, and deductions to process payroll. They track staff time off, vacation accruals, and benefits for accurate payroll processing.

    What are the types of accounting services?

    There are different types of accounting services such as financial, cost, and tax accounting. Let’s discuss the most common types in detail:

    • Financial accounting: The process of compiling, documenting, and reporting business transactions through financial statements, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, is called financial accounting. It helps tax authorities, investors, and creditors get insights into a business's financial performance and health.

    • Managerial accounting: This accounting process involves recording financial data and communicating it to management, helping them with financial planning. Managerial accounting includes margin analysis, constraint analysis, capital budgeting, and trend analysis. Managerial accountants examine the historical performance of a business and compare it with the current financial position to forecast future performance.

    • Cost accounting: A type of managerial accounting, cost accounting captures a business’s total production costs by recording and analyzing its variable and fixed costs. It offers insights into how much money a business is making, where it’s spending the money, and where it’s losing it. Cost accounting also helps improve internal cost controls.

    • Tax accounting: This accounting service helps businesses ensure compliance with the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) when filing taxes. Tax accountants also assist in developing effective strategies, specifying avoidable tax burdens, and identifying the most profitable investment avenues.

    • Audit accounting: Audit accountants scrutinize a business’s finances and review its financial records to ensure accuracy as well as compliance with applicable laws and regulations. They help identify cost-saving areas and focus on mitigating risks. Audits are mainly of two types: internal and external.

    • Forensic accounting: In forensic accounting, service providers audit, examine, and investigate accounting data and reports to determine the cause of any suspicious financial activity. Forensic accounting assists consulting firms, law firms, law enforcement agencies, and insurance companies in deriving an accounting analysis report suitable to be used in legal proceedings.

    • Cloud accounting: This is an online accounting servicethat uses cloud-based software to automate various accounting activities such as accounts reconciliation, accounts payable and receivables management, and balancing of books. Cloud accounting applications can be accessed via the internet. They help lower overhead expenses by eliminating the need to purchase hardware and install in-house tech stacks.

    • Project accounting: In project accounting, different accounting attributes for a client-facing project, such as incurred costs, expenses, billable hours, and client payments, are tracked to understand the financial implications of completing a specific type of project and to develop a project plan as per contractual requirements.

    What are the benefits of hiring an accounting firm?

    Accounting firms help businesses create accurate cash flow reports, identify business-growth opportunities, and manage taxes. Let’s discuss some of the benefits of hiring an accounting agency:

    • Access agency expertise: Accounting firms employ specialists with years of experience in various accounting processes. This gives you access to expert services and advice that you can apply to your financial strategy.

    • Manage tax and liability: Accounting agencies help your business stay on top of any kind of changes in the legal landscape. They take care of complex legal responsibilities through accounting controls and external audits to detect discrepancies and ensure your business is compliant with applicable tax laws and regulations. They employ tax experts to reduce your tax liability and free up additional funds. They also offer chief financial officer (CFO) services to oversee financial planning and analysis, make recommendations on expansion opportunities, and perform risk management for your investments and liabilities.

    • Get financial consulting services: Accounting firms evaluate your business’s financial situation, including current assets and liabilities, profitability ratio, income, and expenses, to devise an elaborate strategy that helps achieve your financial goals. They also provide investment recommendations such as estate and business expansion plans that align with your business objectives. 

    • Automate day-to-day accounting: Hiring an accounting service provider saves you from hours of day-to-day accounting activities, such as bookkeeping, expense reporting, payroll processing, and billing. Accounting agencies use experts to facilitate financial accounting, including expense and financial reporting, and help formulate an effective financial strategy that allows you to plan your finances wisely. 

    • Mitigate financial risk: You need to protect yourbusiness from fraud, embezzlement, loss of money, and other financial risks. Audit services assist in overcoming these challenges by keeping a track of your business expenses, revenue, and profit and loss. Accounting firms conduct periodic audits to identify discrepancies (such as budgeting errors and inaccurate reporting of transactions), rectify them, and implement risk management policies to prevent similar inaccuracies in the future.

    • Grow your business: Hiring an accounting firm helps set long-term growth goals and develop a financial strategy to reach those objectives. Accounting agencies also analyze historical and current financial data for strategic forecasting and identifying business growth opportunities.

    How much does it cost to hire an accounting firm?

    The cost of hiring an accounting firm depends on the scope of work and the services you require. Most firms have varied pricing structures depending on the following factors:

    • Services required: The charges of an accounting firm vary depending on the services you require. If you need assistance with quick day-to-day accounting activities such as bookkeeping or cash flow management, you’ll have to pay less than what you would pay for complex accounting procedures such as tax filing, liability management, and revenue forecasting.

    • Project length: Depending on the length of a project, accounting firms may follow an hourly or a monthly pricing model. Under the hourly model, agencies charge a specific amount for every hour of work. In the monthly pricing model, they charge a flat monthly rate for recurring work such as bookkeeping and cash flow management.

    • Accountant’s experience: The cost of hiring an accounting firm also depends on the location, market, and expertise of accountants. Generally, the more experience an accounting service provider has, the more they charge. 

    • Additional services: Many accounting firms offer additional services such as accounting consulting and advisory services, analytics, and reporting. These are typically included in the service package; however, some firms levy additional charges for such services.

    What to look for when hiring an accounting firm

    Given below are some considerations to keep in mind when selecting an accounting agency for your business:

    • Check the pricing structure. Agency prices vary depending on your required services, the project length, the scope of work, etc. Before making a choice, analyze your shortlisted agency’s pricing model and discuss the cost beforehand. Keeping your budget and project complexity in mind, make sure you choose an agency that offers the services you need within the budget you have. 

    • Assess the data security and protection policies. Accounting firms handle financial reports and data that are highly confidential, so it’s crucial to review your shortlisted vendor’s data security policies and infrastructure. ISO certification, SOC compliance, data encryption, and access control are some common security standards you should look for.

    • Determine if the agency’s specialization aligns with your accounting goals. While most agencies claim to offer the full range of accounting services, it’s prudent to check what kind of services they have expertise in. Assessing an agency's area of expertise will help you save money and time and receive better quality work, as you would already know what to expect.

    • Read customer reviews. Merely finding an accounting agency that understands your industry isn't enough. You should also take feedback from other businesses, and check the agency’s historical performance. Read online reviews, and make inquiries with previous or existing clients to understand how well your shortlisted agency will be able to perform.