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Question for Accountants about Costs and hours


blacklab

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We need someone to do our end of year stuff for a small business. Bank account has been open a few months, all transactions are entered into quickbooks online, only about 5-10 transactions a month.

We got a proposal from an accountant for this:

General Ledger:

  • General Ledger set-up review – accrual basis accounting
  • Revenue and Expenses by type/division – Companies, Food & Beverage, Retail
  • Reconcile General Ledger Accounts
  • Cash
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Accounts Payable
  • Review income statement entries for accuracy
  • Determine if any expenses can be capitalized
  • Accrue for any expenses incurred not yet received
  • Close 2019 and produce financial statements

Federal and State Returns:

1099s – due January 31, 2020

  • Contract labor
  • Attorney Fees
  • Rents

• 1096 – Summary of 1099s due February 28, 2020
• 1120 – Federal Corporate Tax Return due March 15, 2020
• 05-158-A Texas Franchise Tax Return due May 15, 2020

I can't see this being more than a few hours of work, maybe 10 hours at the most.

How many hours should this take? 

What's a reasonable rate per hour or total bill for this?

Anyone want to do this for us?

 

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Does your 5-10 transactions include cash transactions?  Like 2 or 3 monthly deposits and less than 10 checks/ach payments?

If so, then yes the GL work would not take more than 4 or 5 hours, the 1099's should take less than an hour and the tax returns maybe a couple of hours.

I'm not sure what the going hourly rate is these days as I am in industry but it sounds like you have a pretty easy job as long as you have everything recorded like you say you do. 

 

 

 

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Depends on the size of the firm and whether you have an existing relationship. If you have the transactions entered, then you need to skip the first entire section assuming you coded the things correctly and just get your 1099’s and tax return completed. Assuming everything is in correctly, you could probably get that done for $500-$750 as it is realistically 3-4 hours or less total of a manager’s time.

If you want someone local, ask around and find someone reasonable. A lot of firms aren’t doing work under certain dollar values any more. If local isn’t an issue, PM me.

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Once this small matter is cleared up you'll have some actionable advice.

For real though, why bother with accrual accounting?  Sounds like a low volume operation.  Why add unnecessary complexity?

If the business is profitable everything can/should be expensed instead of capitalized.

And the answer to your question is tree fiddy.

Edited by orange dream
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16 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

If you approach someone, and he does NOT quote you an estimate of tree fiddy, you should look elsewhere for services.

This is actually how much Deloitte quotes for hourly tax advice.  On top of the 1500 they charge for an individual tax return.  Fuck them

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my business partner went and had a beer with him last night armed with the knowledge from this thread.

Got him down to 1/3 of his original asking price and he threw in a couple of hours of advice a month for the next 6 months which I thought brought it into a completely reasonable price range so were going to use him.

Thank you to all that posted here.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/3/2019 at 4:43 PM, blacklab said:

We need someone to do our end of year stuff for a small business. Bank account has been open a few months, all transactions are entered into quickbooks online, only about 5-10 transactions a month.

We got a proposal from an accountant for this:

General Ledger:

  • General Ledger set-up review – accrual basis accounting
  • Revenue and Expenses by type/division – Companies, Food & Beverage, Retail
  • Reconcile General Ledger Accounts
  • Cash
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Accounts Payable
  • Review income statement entries for accuracy
  • Determine if any expenses can be capitalized
  • Accrue for any expenses incurred not yet received
  • Close 2019 and produce financial statements

Federal and State Returns:

1099s – due January 31, 2020

  • Contract labor
  • Attorney Fees
  • Rents

• 1096 – Summary of 1099s due February 28, 2020
• 1120 – Federal Corporate Tax Return due March 15, 2020
• 05-158-A Texas Franchise Tax Return due May 15, 2020

I can't see this being more than a few hours of work, maybe 10 hours at the most.

How many hours should this take? 

What's a reasonable rate per hour or total bill for this?

Anyone want to do this for us?

 

GL stuff is where all the profit is.  Most try and get a base price for a review of $105/month if you already have software.  (approx 1 hour per month charged, actual work 1/2 hour at best)    

$25 base fee +$5-7 per 1099, if you file electronically the 1096 is not needed

1120s start at $725 more risk than work

Tx Franchise $350 assuming 0 due

All based upon work you described.  Tell me what you paid.

 

Edited by RollLeft
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