Our firm is unlike any traditional smaller CPA firm. We’re trying to revolutionize our industry (see our founding story). While there are pages upon pages of differences between us and other small CPA firms, we’ll start with five:

1) We Favor Our Clients

Yes, granted, every CPA firm likes their clients and generally tries to make them succeed, but we go a step further. We do not see our clients’ problems as revenue and their persistent needs as recurring revenue; we see their problems as a way we can help them overcome an obstacle.

If our clients have a recurring problem and don’t want to incur recurring professional fees, we advise them on how to fix their systems so our assistance is not needed. Some of our clients want us to take over certain procedures entirely, and for them, we can and do.

Rather than kicking the problem down the road in order to earn recurring revenue, we fix the issue. While on the surface, this may seem to shoot us in the foot, we believe everyone wins in the long run. We’re here to help our clients long-term, and we believe your money is better spent on growing your business than on accounting services.

For example, one client of ours had consistent and persistent issues paying their payroll tax in a timely manner. We taught an employee of our client how to do payroll, and everything went well. Once their administrative assistant position became subject to frequent turnover, it was plain that we needed a better system than just teaching employees how to process payroll.

This client was hesitant to purchase payroll services because they had competent administrative professionals. Because this client used QuickBooks to maintain their books, we set up and migrated their current payroll process to the QuickBooks Payroll module. This resulted in a significant decrease in IRS notices, frustrated employees, and our service fees. This made our client’s employees feel more positive and our client to be more loyal,

In this way, we favor our clients and help teach them how to do things independently, should they choose.

 

2) We Are Transparent

We are very transparent in everything we do. When we send our clients an invoice, let them know the detail is always available. We keep time logs of all of our professional time, including times, dates, activity, and description.

We serve our clients for a very reasonable fee, but once, a long-time client asked for time detail because one of the lines in his invoice was merely labeled “Consulting.”

We sent him the time detail, as requested. It was 30 rows of an Excel document consisting of several very small projects that were too immaterial to list separately on the invoice. However, our client wanted to know, and we thought it was important to demonstrate our integrity and transparency. The client was very happy to learn exactly what they were paying for, and they still engage our services regularly.

 

3) We Are Very Capable

Our firm is very capable. Our founder and primary consultant, Justin Sundberg, has his master’s degree in business taxation from the Carlson School of Management, which enables him to find the answer to any tax question.

Additionally, with so much experience in the small-business environment, we can work with our clients to guide them through the various parts of running a small business.

Often, clients present us with peculiar matters concerning their business. They come to us because they know that with our years of experience and our creativity, we will most likely have an excellent solution or two. Occasionally, their problem is beyond our normal scope and experience, we maintain qualityties with professionals who specialize in precisely the matter in which we do not.

For instance, we had a client who wanted to open a new club and was curious about how to proceed. In addition to recommending a couple of fine small business attorneys (there are a lot of local regulations for opening a food, liquor, and entertainment establishment), we also gave him a reasonable description of his business and all of its moving pieces, as requested.

However, we also suggested some outside-the-box ideas, such as negotiating revenue-based rent, a couple of incentives for employees to spread word of the club, plus some other ways his venue could differentiate itself from its competition.

Experience, networking, creativity, and a little bit of intuition make us very capable of helping our clients in almost all matters.

 

4) We Deliver Exceptionally High Value

The mighty dollar is obviously the first thing our clients are concerned about. As accountants, we tend to understand that. On the competitive side of the equation, our rates are typically at or below those of our competitors. While a tax return is simple, its corresponding invoice will also be simple.

When complexities arise, our clients are very thankful that we are able to handle them efficiently.

One client switched CPA firms to use us and commented that we asked a lot more questions than his prior CPA. We explained that small CPA firms generally skip a lot of details to finish the return more quickly, but overlooking those details put him at a higher risk for getting a letter from the IRS and a subsequent tax adjustment to pay. If they adjust him one year, the IRS may be more likely to question his return in another year, and his risk will generally increase.

We ask our clients for specific information in order to prepare their tax returns in a way that demonstrates completeness and careful consideration of the rules in case the IRS looks at it.

TurboTax can’t do that and other CPA firms won’t do that, and that is why we deliver exceptionally high value.

5) We Are Relentless

While we take no risks because, like you, we are very risk-adverse when dealing with the IRS, we do believe that favorable rules in the Tax Code should be used by everyone who can benefit from them. We continually think about our clients’ situations and constantly churn out new opportunities for them, such as an accounting plan manual for their company, something that will allow for certain favorable tax methods.

This is not something every small CPA firm will do. For instance, we spoke with the president of a service company that engaged the University of Minnesota to conduct research on their behalf. The amounts paid to the university may qualify for the Research and Development Credit.

This was something his current tax practitioner never discussed, either because they didn’t know that the tax opportunity existed due to unawareness of the rules or because they simply did not uncover this opportunity while serving the client for two years, even though it only took us approximately twenty minutes of conversation.

Because we are constantly thinking, constantly learning, and constantly considering our clients, we are relentless in giving them every possible advantage.

 

These are just five of many ways in which Sundberg Tax & Consulting provides medium and small business with superior services, and in which SundbergTC is starkly different from its competitors.