Rocky Mountain Accounting and Tax Services

Our pricing is competitive with all of our industry competitors.

Our typical process for new clients it to have either a phone call or a face to face meeting that can last as little as 15 minutes or as long as an hour. We do not charge for this introductory meeting. What I like to focus on is what is currently being done, where the client wants us to focus our efforts, timelines and estimated pricing. We do not have a one size fits all accounting process. We tailor each engagement to the work the client wants us to perform. We can do as little as file a tax return or as much as full accounting including payroll, bill payment, bookkeeping bank reconciliations and tax returns. We can use both online and desktop QuickBooks. Last year Liberty Tax partnered with Xero.com and Gusto.com for some fantastic pricing. The more we have used these low cost vendors the more we like what they have to offer.

I have a degree in accounting with a CPA. I also attend numerous CE training every year to keep current with topical issues.

I started doing tax returns in 1982. I was taking a tax class and the professor who was teaching the class also operated a tax business. He used students as seasonal help to run his tax business. I worked for him for two years. I then worked for another small CPA firm the following year. I then went into the insurance business where I spent 35 years working mostly for two companies. During that time I did work on and off in the tax business as a seasonal tax employee. The latest was for Jackson Hewlett. In 2011, after being released as the CFO with my last insurance company, I used my severance to buy my first Liberty Tax franchise. I have since grown that into 5 franchise locations. Along the way I started my CPA firm, Rocky Mountain Accounting and Tax Services to handle my non-Liberty Tax business.

I have almost 100 business clients, that operate in a number of niche industries. We do a lot of work with truckers, construction, landscape, medical providers, livery, retailors, wholesalers and food service. I also work with Insurance captives.

I had a gentleman come in a couple of weeks ago. He does rock landscapes. He had not filed a tax return for the last three years and had not done any bookkeeping either. We were able to download his bank data and get him three income statements and file his return. He had not done any previous tax planning with a tax professional and should have made the election to file as a subchapter S corporation. We made a late election and filed the three tax returns plus his three personal returns. He had not made any estimated tax payments so he did have a large tax bill but he was pleased because he was expecting much worse. We were able to get this done within a week during tax season.

My first piece of advise figure out what you want to do and what you need the accounting professional to do. Talk to your accounting and or tax professional to make sure your accounting process make sense. DO SOME TAX PLANNING! Why pay any more then you need to pay. I hear people that come in at the end of the year asking what they can do to save taxes last year, well at that point you are a little to late. Tax planning should be done at the start of the year not when the year is over. You would also be surprised of how many people do not have a plan for filing and paying taxes, let alone the bookkeeping and other accounting activities. So many people start working on putting their accounting together at the end of the year. I think most successful business owners know there numbers, understand the costs and that knowledge can be very powerful in running your business.

What is my accounting tasks and or process. Lay it out. Put some transactional numbers and cost together. Then you need to decide: What do you want to do. What do you want the accounting professional to do.