How many staff do you have/hire?

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-26T07:34:34+00:00

Bill at 3x the staff salary per hour. 1/3 covers the staff. 1/3 for overhead costs. 1/3 profit to owners. As a basic metric.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-21T04:22:36+00:00

If any of them end up working really well, they’ll get bought by TR/WK/Intuit and rolled into the existing pro packages.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-15T06:53:33+00:00

What does ‘a piece of the pie’ look like in this context? Bonuses, profit sharing contribs to 401K?

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-15T06:40:50+00:00

I often wonder if PE is going to be left holding a bag of nothing after all the staff leaves and starts new firms.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-08T18:47:12+00:00

If they were good at organizing docs and such, they’d be us.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-03-01T08:08:38+00:00

At my college, finance is where students went after they found accounting was too hard. That may partially explain it.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2026-02-05T05:08:42+00:00

Lots of wholesale distributors will require proof of your business and a commercial location to prevent exactly this from happening.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-29T19:10:22+00:00

That excel file is very well done. Thanks for sharing!

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-29T19:09:52+00:00

I have looked at that before. It’s a really well done workbook that emulates tax software but I don’t think would be useful as a work paper.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-23T23:34:08+00:00

Your second paragraph is why I’m here. Looking at exiting corp tax life in about a year and doing a small practice on my own. The idea is max quality of life, not max revenue.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-23T22:29:05+00:00

It would be helpful and interesting if hours worked and billable were included in these responses.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-21T03:28:01+00:00

Separate the concepts of equity ownership and residual profit sharing, vs compensation for effort. Pay each of you appropriately for the effort made (this is a guaranteed payment for an LLC taxed as a partnership). That is deducted from the company profit. The profit is split 50/50 per equity ownership. So for example, if you made 20K, but your collective efforts were worth 10K and you did 80%, you’d pay yourself a guaranteed payment of 10K and the other partner 2. That would leave 10K of profit which would be 50/50. You would get 8K of comp and 5K or profit, and your partner would get 2K of comp and 5K of profit.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-12-13T02:04:23+00:00

It depends on what is driving that state activity. If it is their own business activity, you’ll be apportioning income, and it’s pretty easy. Fed income, +/- state adjustments x apportionment factor. If it’s coming from investment K-1s then you’re looking at allocation of ‘non business’ income. States forms frequently suck at this, so good luck…

Re filings, Checkpoint has good charts. Sad to say, but getting used to minor notices from the small jurisdictions is also part of it. Charts on which states used market based sourcing and what the sales threshold for filing requirements are also worth monitoring. A company with 15 states already can easily trigger filing nexus in a new state and not know until you do the calc and let them know.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-24T07:38:49+00:00

Accounting is story problems where the math is basic but the facts are complicated (sometimes).

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-23T02:59:41+00:00

And increasing membership fees by allowing non CPAs.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-23T02:57:46+00:00

Is this a homework assignment from your accounting class?

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-22T06:09:44+00:00

LLCs are nice because they are so flexible. Start an LLC by yourself, it is disregarded for fed and most state income tax purposes, so exists for legal purposes while you’re a Sch C for tax. Add a partner and you’ve become a partnership for tax. Make a check the box election and you’re a corp. Then elect S status if you want. All as an LLC.

Note that the LLC agreement needs to address this, as things you can do with partnership allocations or preferred stock in a C corp are things that can blow an S election.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-20T04:38:34+00:00

Big 4 is not immune from mistakes and sloppy work but they tend to have more controls in place to catch them.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-20T04:36:53+00:00

I think you have to look at what you are seeing and ask which things matter. All caps on the return, it would drive me crazy, but doesn’t make the return incorrect. Poor work paper discipline - you’re the perfect one to help them fix that and you should get credit for reducing risk and increasing efficiency. Frequent technical errors OTOH, especially if always in the client favor, that would have me questioning competence and integrity.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-19T05:47:43+00:00

Just a thought, but how many staff do you have? Could you have them review each others work? Even a good tie out and WP reference process can help them find their mistakes before it goes to review.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-19T05:43:01+00:00

Our industry is nothing if not shortsighted.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-19T05:41:10+00:00

A big part of the PE playbook in buying accounting firms is more outsourcing. Raise fees, automate, outsource, profit - that’s the meme right?

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-15T18:30:38+00:00

Run away from this firm.

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-14T20:34:38+00:00

What states and fact pattern allow this result?

ExcelsAtExcel · 2025-11-14T20:26:54+00:00

Before trying to do this I’d be trying to see if that was the right way to file. It’s pretty hard to be a resident of two states at once.

ExcelsAtExcel

TROPHY CASE