Thank you for your business, patience and work, using my Sole Practitioner Services. I appreciate that you give me a reason to persist in my mission to maximize your income and minimize your expenses, especially taxes.

I have found that my operating style is different than many people are accustomed to, especially in the "proper" south. To give everyone an understanding of the reasons for my procedures, avoid some misunderstandings, and save us all money, I have compiled this short guide.

If you are reading this, then, we are both getting the privilege of working with eachother, and you are deemed to be "special" by me. I get to choose my clients, and try to be selective about this career forming task. I always have some spare capacity, but it is generally reserved for clients for whom I will be able to provide services beyond tax season. Thank you all very much for your past client referrals, and keep them coming, but keep in mind that I greatly prefer jobs with year-round potential.

My billing rates for 2007 and beyond will be $250, $125, $96, $90 and $60 per hour for my time, representing the first increase in 3 years. Subcontractor rates will remain between $90 and $45 per hour for work entering data and solving internet and computer related problems. [Quantity Discounts begin at 4, 8, and 16 hour marks]

Time Is Money

More specifically... "My time is Your money". Some professionals can charge a contingency fee based on a percentage of a transaction (such as attorneys), but CPA's generally cannot; therefore, most charges are for time spent, or "fee per task". This includes such things as preparing tax returns, processing tax returns, telephone consulting, time authoring letters and authoring faxes and e-mails. Unless, out in the field, I use computerized timekeeping for the exact time spent, and while is time almost always rounded downward, I do not guess at these amounts.

When I am in my home office, there is no need to bill for travel time. What you are paying for is supposed voluminous knowledge & specialized experience accumulated over 21 years of work as a professional tax preparer and advisor. While $125 or more per hour may seem high in comparison with such firms as H&R Block, it is usually a bargain. Shopping for hourly rates alone is a very shortsighted approach. What’s paramount to YOU is your ending net cost. EXAMPLE: Which would you prefer?... paying H&R Block $100 to prepare your return, or paying a CPA $300-$500 and having $2,000-$3,000 less tax than on a Block prepared return?

You get what you pay for in this profession. If free is what you want, the IRS will answer your questions @1-800-829-1040, however, in recent years, by their own admission, they were only able to give out correct answers about one third of the time. If you are lucky enough to have the right person answer your call, you may receive a correct answer. Up to two out of three calls do not.

Please Pay Me...

Like a standard employee, I have a need to get paid. If you don't pay me upon job completion, the terms are net 30 days. Please don't make me beg. I will not discuss here what further actions I may take to pursue collection, because the issue shouldn't even get that far. Sorry you for have to read this, but you can probably guess why by now.

My policy for new clients is to require a prepayment of a dictated fee to reserve job performance time. It is not the amount that's important to me, it's the follow-through. My single greatest client selection criteria is YOUR motivation. I cannot possibly do accounting jobs on my own, and promptly fulfilling my requests shows me that you are serious about getting your work done. After this many years, I find it hard to "push-through" one-sided deals. If you are a new client, please demonstrate your resolve by providing a check for any agreed-upon retainer, and any bills that follow.

Appointments

My time is my stock in trade exactly as merchandise is with a retailer. During busy times, information flows into this office from very many sources... please be aware that I must bill for any and all types of information exchange. Note: There is no such thing as a “quick question,” so please do not ask questions one at a time... accumulate lists of questions. I forego charges for less than 15 minutes phone calls only. Authoring "back-and-forth" emails is the least convenient [and least effective] form of available communication, it takes up the most time, and is billed at a higher rate than telephone support or other correspondences; normally $30 per email received or sent. I can ask way more questions using the telephone, I don't have to spell check a phone call. I worry less about anyone using my phone call in court, etc. Our best work will get done on the phone.

Please make telephone appointments, especiall well before "just showing up". Telephone appointments [especially conference calls] will be treated with the same professional regard as an in-person appointment. If I cannot receive a call "on-the-fly", please prepare yourself to receive a return call at the agreed upon time or call ahead to cancel or reschedule.

Organization Is Essential

I have simply become too busy to handle work for clients whose information is not well organized. I generally can no longer justify unorganized "Shoe-Box" clients to work directly with me. For those clients who do not do keep a set of books, or organize their work, a subcontractor, or an outside service (including some recommended by me) can be used to help compile your transactions.

For business returns (Forms 1120, 1120S & 1065), transactions should be recorded in a balanced bookkeeping form, for example, in QuickBooks.

Payroll

Any and all payroll clients that want me to support "live payroll" problems must be on a BI-WEEKLY cycle; and on the SAME bi-weekly cycle as all my other clients. This has been my long-standing policy, especially for those that have been "weekly", because then, the person(s) that prepare and sign payroll checks could never take vacation, or even be sick for a week at a time. Also, there are half as many checks, half as many transactions, etc. etc.

Warning !

For those people with more than a few [ and that means 3 ] stock market transactions, we need proper matching of the sale and purchase parts of each transaction. Please contact your broker about providing you with year-end 1099 detail in a format that coincides with IRS Schedule D. This simple step will dramatically reduce the time we spend on your tax return, and save you huge amounts of money in CPA and data entry fees.

Minimizing Costs

At $125 or more per hour, I am too expensive to be doing clerical tasks in quantity, such as separating receipts into categories, or adding up columns of numbers. It is a cost saving strategy to either do those things yourself, hire my Subcontractor, or another outside service. Quickbooks is the easiest and most powerful bookkeeping software on the market today for small business people. Please get on a record-keeping program if you're not already on one. This is almost always the most rewarding multi-purpose financial improvement a taxpayer make. And always my #1 piece of advice.

Hours Of Operation / Vacation

Due to my Sole Practitioner status and my personal priority set; my shedule can be erratic. Especially until the drop-off and pick-up of my school age children starts to coincide. My children come first with me, so please be aware that my schedule is frequently subject to change. Please accept my express apologies for this inconvenience, but I come from a working family that couldn't give me much attention growing up. I consider myself to be a person, a father, and a husband, etc, before I consider myself to be an accountant. If my personal life is not in order, I will not be of quality service to anyone.

And, while I have also been known to leave for up to a week at a time, I do warn my regular clients, and those who have impending due dates when i will be gone. [SECURITY: Because both myself and my spouse maintain confidential records, our home is never vacant. We have bars on the windows, and security service. Also, for the security of our clients, we maintain a fire-proof cabinet and Data Archives off-site.]

The End

I hope this clarifies some of my client policies. These systems, which evolved over the past 21 or more years, are some of my chosen working conditions, and what I consider the most appropriate business environment to maximize client benefits. I realize these may not be the best working arrangements for everyone. If you can tolerate my idiosyncracies, then I look forward to a mutually rewarding relationship. If my services are not for you, I still wish you all the best in your life and business pursuits.

Sincerely,