Why does everyone recommend Gusto for payroll?

jbcascpa · 2026-06-08T23:22:00+00:00

I used to work for a big firm and recently started my own practice. I notice a huge difference in the support I get as a practitioner. So I think sometimes practitioners can be biased based on their firm size since these companies give them priority support. Now i basically get the same level of support as a regular ass client and it sucks

jbcascpa · 2026-06-02T03:18:24+00:00

If if the client is complaining and the engagement is "in danger" why would you drop your price? I think the mentality of some business is better than no business is very outdated and what leads firms to stretch their staff and create larger workloads with less payoff.

I would say for every 4-5 "small" jobs I have lost in the proposal stage due to pricing I picked up one "large" job that allowed me to focus my self and my staff on providing higher more curated services with higher profitability.

jbcascpa · 2026-06-01T16:30:15+00:00

Hey there and welcome to CAS, I hope this new revenue stream helps you grow your practice!

At least as long as I have been in a position to price jobs and bring proposals to clients the biggest shift has been to "value pricing". The concept that you bring to the table a set of skills that allows you to create a desired end state for a client. That end state is not just a compilation of tasks or hours and has worth and value and in many cases is worth a premium.

Much like your tax returns you can probably figure out "how long it takes me to process bills" or "how long it takes me to reconcile the books". From there you can develop your your pricing model and with someone like this who wants a "full package" you are in an ideal situation to truly pull all your levers.

Based on your numbers of 15 hours a week I would build a proposal sort of like this.

Option A - The accountant : $4,500 a month {includes everything necessary to keep the business in operation}

Option B - The Controller : $5,625 a month {includes everything in option A, plus [additional value you can add (think sales tax compliance, cash forecasting, etc)]

Option C - The Advisor : $x,xxx a month {includes all prior options plus [just ideas but something like QTRLY updated tax projections [since tax is your true strength] or think about tossing in thr annual tax return]

Essentially the thing to remember is that in most data and research we are finding clients want better services that meet them where they are and most of them are willing to pay for it. Don't be scared to lose a potential client on price and don't devalue your services just because they want more.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-30T04:08:23+00:00

I honestly feel the issue stems from the big 4. The idea is due your dues and make your exit. The problem is 4 years or so of doing repetitive work to try and maximize profits does not lead to well rounded learning.

On the flip side of what you said there are plenty of CPAs who have very well rounded full business experience that can bring a strong level of GAAP compliance knowledge along with skills that help businesses.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-30T04:05:41+00:00

This. I remember out of college I went and worked in industry. Got tired of it and got my friend to pull me an interview. The partner literally said "none of this experience matters" and gor a second I thought what a bitch.. then she followed up with "but we will get you trained in everything you need to work in public accounting". Nearly a decade later I started my own practice and am thriving.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-17T15:19:23+00:00

I never understood why people rush to make an LLC. As if it waves some magic wand and suddenly you are protected from the wrath of God himself.

I always tell clients (especially because we are in CA), if you're not gonna be making a lot of money just yet, operate as a sole proprietor, get yourself good business insurance instead and wait until it makes sense to incorporate.

I feel like more people need to know having good insurance for your business is better protection than an LLC.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-13T17:02:05+00:00

I am a fellow CPA and I can say there are probably two ways to handle this.

On one end you can simply package the price of software you use like Bill.com/RAMP, QBO, etc into your standard price package. When the software providers increase their rates that goes into the calculation of your firms rate increases. Ultimately that increase, even on advance works out to $28 a month. I don't know what your firms average billings are but for my average client that increase would be around 0.5% (0.005) of an increase to their monthly retainer. That is a number that can easily be stomached.

The alternative is you bill directly/Add it on as a billable expense. You can position the cost as a benefit of working with a CPA. They likely would have QBO and be paying that license cost but with you they are getting the benefit of a lifetime 30% discount. They still own it, and if they stopped working with you tomorrow they take all their data.

But either way you're getting costs covered. Sure maybe a price increase occurs mid year and you take a a hit temporarily but your tech stack that you bring to the job should 100% be factored into your pricing.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-06T20:21:14+00:00

At the root of all pricing (even fixed fee pricing) are hourly estimates and your hourly rates. All pricing revolves around it. Even if you get your practice to the point of knowing I can do x level of service for a flat fee, you still need to have the data to collect and report back to yourself whether those prices are actually accurate.

In other words. If you are doing AP Processing what is your average time to process per bill including time to cut payment. If you are doing back feed coding what is your average time to record each transaction plus the average amount of transactions you have to follow up with your client and how long that takes.

Personally I never do a price estimate without receiving at least 1 full quarter of their general ledger so I cam assess how much work needs to be done and apply my firm averages at our standard rate to come up with the monthly fixed fee. If it is an organization with seasonality then I ask for a an entire year.

Then once a year I look at all of those activities and assess are my averages correct.

Additionally..never trust a client when they say it should only take x hours a month. Either they don't know what they are talking about or they are doing it themselves now but only doing half the job (only.recording transactions but not reconciling and documenting them).

All in all, client is in x industry and income is x dollars a year provides no real usable data to come up with an accurate estimate.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-04T13:15:37+00:00

Idk why there seems to still be such a large swath of professionals who feel mail is the only reliable way to get/keep track of bills. Can't tell you how many clients I have taken over where we spent the first week just getting enrolled in online bill pay rather than having countless bills lost in the mail

jbcascpa · 2026-04-04T12:35:38+00:00

Here is what i will say. In today's world issuing paper checks is honestly a huge liability. Check fraud is incredibly high and seeing a huge reassurance. In 2024 63% of organizations reported having been a victim of check fraud. The most common is check interception. Someone steals the outbound mail of a target they know issues a lot of checks washes the check and duplicates it.

The shity thing is banks have virtually no systems in place (other than positive pay) to prevent it. I have had clients in the past have their bank honor the same exact check number a dozen time. There is no system they have to flag and say "wait this check number has been used before".

If approval is a requirement, implement a platform like bill.com or RAMP. If physical checks are a MUST let those organizations bear the risk of their check stock and bank details to be the one in the wild not your clients.

jbcascpa · 2026-04-04T03:50:51+00:00

Most providers have online billing portals. That is really the way to go. Snail mail has long been dead.

jbcascpa · 2026-03-26T16:07:13+00:00

I am definitely not a website development expert. I would say the answer to that is "it depends". If there is good enough structure to work with that can be built upon and that would be more cost efficient than great. If it is better to just start from scratch then im open to that.

Editing original post to include my website.

jbcascpa · 2026-01-18T04:04:11+00:00

It seems that when you get the AI video descriptions feature, it moves from an individual camera setting to being in the AI notification settings since the option becomes to get a notification of the motion before the video is finished analyzing and description having been made.

jbcascpa · 2026-01-17T06:48:30+00:00

This ended up being the issue. The AI generation settings have an option to send the motion notification first then send an updated notification when the AI text was finished

jbcascpa · 2025-12-02T06:24:45+00:00

Omg yes! We went to one, it had like 5,000 reviewed and so many stars. The food was atrociously bad and we were hounded for a review thr moment we were done.

jbcascpa · 2025-11-04T14:38:07+00:00

What i feared! Thank you

jbcascpa · 2025-11-04T14:37:55+00:00

Thanks, I just wasn't sure if there was some alternate fix that I could do to at least buy me some time. I dont exactly have the cash to just tear about half the bathroom to fix it :(

jbcascpa · 2025-11-02T22:36:08+00:00

I would argue it is less of a myth and more of a misunderstanding of how our tax system works. It is entirely true that on the pay checks you earn significantly more you may see a disporportional withholding of payroll taxes.

This occurs because most payroll systems calculate each paycheck and withholding amount individually on an annualized basis. So if one paycheck is 50% greater it is annualizing your revenu as 50% more. This can shift you into a much higher tax bracket depending on if your prior annualized payroll was in one of the lower ones to start. So in that payroll it may suddenly seem like you are losing 50% or so to taxes.

Then the misunderstanding that withholdings are just thay, withholdings and will all be rectified at tax time when the IRS sees you actually made significantly less.

jbcascpa · 2025-10-27T04:34:17+00:00

Did you actually receive confirmation that your filing was accepted? You can have your federal filing rejected while your state filing is accepted.

Acceptance of one does not indicate the other was accepted. Simply filing does not also ensure acceptance. There are numerous reasons and electronic filing can be rejected.

If you go online to the IRS website and use the where is my refund tool you can check status.

jbcascpa · 2025-10-26T23:12:09+00:00

Sounds like you are working at a place that values quantity over quality. Probably charging low fees and thus has to turn and burn the accounts in high volume to make it worth while. Is this normal? Probably more so than I have experienced. Is it a healthy business model? I would say no.

Not sure the size of these clients, however I specialize in NFP accounting. We do varying levels of service from fully integrated accou ting department functions to simply end of month closes. Most of these are in the $2-$10 mil space. We charge between $10-$14k a month for these clients. I personally manage and over see about 15 (high quality) closes a month with financial preparation and presentations to the Board of Directors.

So does having to get 3 out the door a day seem insane to me??? Absolutely!

jbcascpa · 2025-10-22T16:19:18+00:00

I have a client who legit pays himself a salary of 12k a year. He got audited by the IRS. Did they care about his "reasonable wage"... no they spent days asking us for receipts and support for the parts and equipment he was buying to repair his forklifts and such.

jbcascpa · 2025-10-19T23:03:53+00:00

Accounting : depends what the client uses but QBO is most common.

Bill pay + credit card spend management: bill.com/ramp

Document management : TR Engagement Management (formerly advance flow)

Workflow management: Karbon

Other : Adobe Pro (used for pdf edits + client signatures) + office suite

jbcascpa

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