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The following are a sampling of
the questions we receive from our clients. Please keep in mind
that these questions and answers only briefly address the many
diverse and complex financial issues our firm can resolve for
you.
What will your firm do for me?
What can I expect?
How do you charge fees?
What is “personal financial
planning”?
How can you help with my estate?
I am a new tax client. What do I need to bring?
Do you offer e-file services for individual income
tax returns?
How long does it take to get the
work done?
Why should you take care of my
payroll operation?
Can you help me with my accounting
software?
What is a Business Performance
Measure Consulting Engagement?
I am a startup company. What can
you do for me?
What other consulting services
can you provide for my company?
What will your firm do for me?
Our role is to assist and support our clients' success. Utilizing
this philosophy means we provide you with the resources and services
that you cannot or do not wish to provide for yourself. We will
teach you how to do tasks and operations or we will perform them
if you do not have the staff to do it in-house. Our concept is
to be part of your team to achieve your goals.
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What can I expect?
At the initial interview, we will explore with you your needs,
wants, and capabilities and how these will interface with our
firm. As long as the initial interview only covers the what and
how of our relationship, there is no charge. Once we begin to
provide information relative to your situation or solving problems,
then it becomes a chargeable event.
Every business client is assigned to a Client Service Manager
(CSM). This is based on a match between the clients' service
need and the skills of the CSM. The CSM is the client's primary
contact with the firm and is responsible for all service delivery
to the client. They will often use the skills of others in the
firm to bring the appropriate resolution to the client issue.
Individual tax clients are typically not assigned to any one
person, but we try to have the same staff member work with them
each year. If an individual requests additional services such
as estate or personal financial planning, they will be assigned
to the staff member with those special skills.
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How do you charge fees?
Every individual in the firm has a billing rate based on their
education and skills. The project may require only one or several
members of the staff. Every project is reviewed by someone who
was not involved in the engagement. Then the final product is
copied and bound for the client. Since technology is such an
integral part of what we do, we add a technology charge. The
sum of these inputs and a review for value to the client is the
basis for determining the bill. Payment is expected upon completion
of the service.
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What is “personal financial
planning”?
Our service can either be an overall look at your goals, assets,
liabilities, income and development of strategies and tactics
or we can address a specific goal such as retirement, college
funding or cash flow and debt management. We do not sell any
products and will work with your investment, insurance and banking
advisors or refer you to advisors if you do not have a working
relationship with anyone.
The basic input for this service is development of an accurate
personal balance sheet and commitment to the achievement of goals.
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How can you help with my estate?
Pre death: We can assist in organizing your estate to accomplish
your wishes while minimizing taxes. This process requires an
accurate assessment of your assets and a projection of the future
as well as a clear articulation of your wishes. Strategies can
then be developed through gifting, the use of trusts, family
partnerships and other timely and appropriate transfers of assets.
We will work with your attorney in the drafting of your documents.
Post death: We can assist your executor or trustee in the
identification and valuation of assets. The organizing and maintaining
of records during the period of administration is another important
task we can do. Or, we can assist your executor in setting up
a system. We can also provide the summary financial information
for the court to close the estate. We prepare the Form 706 Federal
Estate Tax Return, the Form IH 6 Indiana Inheritance Tax Return,
as well as the 1041 and IT41 Federal and State Income tax returns.
We will also prepare returns for out-of-state residents or where
there is an ancillary estate requiring returns.
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I am a new tax client. What do I need to
bring?
• A copy of your prior years tax return.
• A copy of any carry forward schedule, the most common of which
are:
ooo• Depreciation schedules
ooo• Amortization schedules
ooo• Suspended loss carryovers
• The originals of W-2's, 1099's, K-1's etc. that are input documents
for this years return. These will all be returned to you.
• Birth dates and social security numbers for you, your spouse and
all dependents.
• A list of any questions you might have.
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Do you offer e-file services for individual income
tax returns?
Yes, we do. Due to the size of our business, we are required to e-file
all individual tax returns.
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How long does it take to get
the work done?
Our internal standard for turnaround is two weeks for a personal
return and three weeks for a business return. Our ability to
maintain this standard is dependent on two things we cannot control.
The first is your complete answers to our questions so we can
finish the return. The second situation that we cannot control
is when clients bring the work in. Certain times of the season
are more hectic than others.
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Why should you take care of
my payroll operation?
The primary reasons businesses use our payroll services include:
• You don't want to keep up with the changing payroll tax
laws.
• It is a job that must be done on a timely basis and your
staff cannot ensure it will get done in a timely manner.
• You have a need to keep payroll information confidential.
• It is a job a small business owner can outsource easily
and still maintain control.
• It is cost-effective.
• We can provide services such as direct deposit that are
too expensive for you to provide by yourself.
• You won't be inconvenienced by your payroll clerk's vacations
or sick days.
We also provide a unique payroll service to the elderly who
have in-home nursing care.
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Can you help me with my accounting
software?
Our firm is registered both as a Peachtree Account Care Member and a Quickbooks
Pro Advisor. We can assist you in all aspects of setting up, designing
the system, developing reports and maintaining data integrity. In addition,
we will work with you to ensure the quality of the information going into
the system as well as reports coming out of the system.
We are knowledgeable in many other brands of software and
all aspects of information systems.
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What is a Business Performance
Measure Consulting Engagement?
We can help you develop a system of indicators (measures) to
provide you an early warning system when areas that are critical
to the success of the company are not performing at the expected
level of performance. This requires a clear definition of what
the company wants to accomplish and identification of performance
areas such as finance, operations, marketing and people. The
next step is to identify Critical Success Factors related to
each performance area. Then Key Performance Indicators or Outcome
Measures must be linked to the CSF's. The last step is to identify
activities that have an impact on KPI's. At this level we develop
measures to quantify performance and build a hierarchy of performance
measures that serve as warning lights to management.
We can also provide consulting services to help you develop
the information systems to get accurate information for these
measures and ongoing advice on the utilization of this information
for better management of your company.
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I am a startup company. What
can you do for me?
Again, our role is to teach you, or perform for you, the typical
activities of a startup business. These include:
• Assisting with the business plan.
• Preparing financial projections for loan applications.
• Applying to governmental agencies for identification numbers
and registrations.
• Choosing appropriate accounting software and teaching
you how to run it.
• Designing your chart of accounts and reporting system.
• Being a resource for answers to many questions regarding
Wage and Hour Laws, personnel policies, office operations, employee
benefits, etc.
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What other consulting services
can you provide for my company?
The schematic below details the range of services a company may
require depending on its state of maturity, we can assist with
all of these.
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