Tax and compliance Services
Maintenance and Tax Services
We want to help our clients save money and grow their businesses. In order to provide the best opportunities for tax savings, action needs to be taken during the tax year, not after. We need to be in contact with our clients throughout the year to ensure they have the chance to take advantage of opportunities in a timely manner. Our clients reach out to us with questions as they arise knowing we will respond quickly, and they will not receive an additional bill for a phone call or email to explore options.
Most of our engagements run for 12 month cycles beginning July 1st and going to June 30th of the following year. We quote an up-front fee for our services which are billed in monthly installments over the course of the engagement. Our clients enjoy an even, predictable cash outflow for services as opposed to the traditional billing model where clients will pay a single bill after tax return delivery, without necessarily knowing what that bill will be before receiving it if they are with an accountant still billing at hourly rates.
Our clients who sign up for 12 month engagements also are not surprised by any tax they may owe with their tax returns. We provide estimated tax calculations throughout the year to help our clients determine the minimum they should pay periodically to avoid estimated tax penalties and what tax liability may remain outstanding with their tax return filings if they only pay this minimum. We also help our S Corporation clients find an appropriate balance between what they should pay themselves through W-2 wages compared to S Corporation distributions. S Corporation owners who pay themselves too low of a W-2 wage may face IRS scrutiny and reclassification of distributions to wages along with hefty fines for unpaid payroll taxes.
We offer two levels of service for helping clients fulfill their basic filing obligations and understanding their financial positions and options:
Basic Maintenance Package
-Business Tax Returns
-Individual Tax Returns for the Business owners and immediate family
-Estimated Tax calculations for payments due September 15th, January 15th, April 15th, June 15th
-Year-end Tax Planning
-Assistance with Officer payroll calculations as needed
Maintenance Plus Package
-All services from the Basic Maintenance Package
-Quarterly review and adjustments (as needed) to client business financial statements
-ProfitCents analysis including industry comparisons and Key Performance Indicators
-Up to four meetings annually with ClearPath Fort Collins discussing the results of the financials analysis and any other questions you may have
Advisory Services
Annual Advisory/On-call CFO Services
Among the responsibilities of a Chief Financial Officer are tracking the company cash flow, financial planning, analyzing the financial strengths and weaknesses of the company and proposing actions the company should take. The work of a CFO is important for every business, but most businesses are not large enough to hire an expert to work for them full-time in this role. The gap between when you need a CFO but are not yet large enough to hire one and when you have grown large enough to hire someone for this role is what we cover with our On-call CFO Services
-Why do you do what you do?
-What challenges do you face in your business?
-What are your goals?
These are among the questions we ask our clients for their Annual Advisory/On-Call CFO Services. Once a year (or more often as needed), we will meet with our clients to help them determine what goals they want to accomplish in the next 12 months. We will provide a proposed “game plan” to assist the client in achieving those goals with periodic meetings and check-ins that are in line with meeting those goals. We can be as involved as sitting in on monthly board meetings or just act as a sounding board depending on what the client needs from us. You are the boss on this one!
Project Advisory and Support Services
Sometimes you need assistance on a single project. We saw this a lot with the PPP loan applications, PPP forgiveness applications, and Employee Retention Credit applications during COVID, which would fall under this category of Project Advisory Services.
More commonly and ongoing, the services we offer under this category include, but are not limited to –
- Business Succession Planning
- Minority Shareholder/Partner Buyout
- Due diligence for business sale/purchase
- S Corp vs C Corp Analysis
- S Corporation Elections
- Business formation/setup
- IRS and state notice/audit resolution
- Offers in Compromise
- Litigation support
- Forensic accounting
- Quickbooks Setup
- Quickbooks Cleanup
- Assistance in Setup with Payroll Company
- Business Coaching
- Quick Calculation of Business Value
- Buy/Build/Lease Analysis
- Household Budgeting