CSA Newsflash: Update on Services and Pricing
Phew, has it been a whirlwind few years or what? Though I would like to use stronger language, I believe the word "quagmire" adequately describes the accounting industry of late.
It seems that since COVID so much has changed in the accounting and business landscapes that we barely had time to make adjustments along the way. As Accountants, we were being bombarded with SBA Programs, PPP, stimulus after stimulus, and mid-season changes in tax code, all while trying to determine how best to apply all of these things to our clients. I know the client experience during that time wasn't the best, and I would like to thank you for sticking with us. Now that we're getting used to the "new normal," I am excited to announce some changes that I am making to CSA Accounting and our operations.
My goal in making these changes is to significantly enhance our working relationship with our clients, save our clients money where possible, and create new efficiencies to streamline our services. In order to do that, there are a few things that you should expect as we continue to work together. All changes will be effective 11/1/2022.
Pricing - To provide as much value and savings to our clients as possible, we will be moving to a variable pricing method, where the services will be provided to you by whichever member of our team we believe can complete the work the most efficiently and competently. This may mean that several different people on our team will interact with your account at different times.
Our fee schedule effective 11/1/2022 will be as follows:
Hourly Rates
Junior Associate: $85/hr
Associate: $125/hr
Senior Associate: $175/hr
Kaleigh Canavan, EA: $375/hr
Rush Services are billed at 1.5x standard rate.
Flat Rate Services
Notary Services: $5/document
Document Digitization (Tax Documents Only): $75 per Tax Year
Printed Returns: $30 per Tax Return Copy
Payroll Implementation: $250
I anticipate that our average hourly rate will be somewhere in the $225 per hour range, depending on the complexity of the project. For many of our clients, I believe this new pricing structure will yield substantial savings on our invoices.
We're Going Paperless - We've begun implementing our new Client Portal, which will make it much easier for you to communicate with our team. In order to maximize the efficiency that this will create, we're moving to an entirely paperless system for remitting information to and from our office. We expect that there will be an adjustment period. Still, we're really excited for you to experience how much better our services will be with our various integrations to our portal. To that end:
We will only be accepting document submissions that are digital. Should you choose to have our team digitize your documents for you, a $75 fee will be charged at the time of drop off and your original documents will be returned to you immediately, so please budget time to wait on the scanning process to be completed. If you mail in documents, they will be scanned the same day and returned via FedEx at a $5+ shipping charge.
All tax services include PDF copies of your completed returns, but our fee for printing and binding your returns is now $30 per copy if you would still like a physical copy.
Invoicing - Clients with ongoing monthly services will continue to be billed at the beginning of every month for time spent on their account in the prior month. This invoice will be available within your profile in our client portal, where you can also make payments, but we will also continue our policy of auto-billing 10 days after the issuance of any open invoice for any account with a saved credit card on file. Detailed time tracking data is available upon request.
Our new portal will allow you to pay your invoices directly within your account. Please note the following in relation to our Tax Invoices:
Every tax return will be subject to a Deposit of $250 at the time of intake. This covers our 1-hour minimum, with a balance to be billed at the time of completion.
Once the first draft of your return is complete, your invoice will be made available to you for the time spent preparing that current draft of your return (less your deposit). The draft will automatically unlock and become available to you for review at the time you pay that invoice. If you have no requests for change, that draft will become your complete tax return to be filed.
Tax services will continue to be billed in 6-minute increments.
Appointments - Meetings can now be booked through our new Client Portal!
All meetings for the foreseeable future will be held virtually. Currently, we are using Microsoft Teams to facilitate our online meetings.
Tax Meetings are entirely optional but are available to you as a "Prep Kickoff" meeting at the beginning of the process or a "Results Review" meeting at the end. Please note that availability is limited.
You can begin booking those meetings right now through our new portal by clicking the "Book Appointment" button. (If you do not currently have a login to our new portal, please reach out so we can get you set up!)
I'm looking forward to continuing to work with you, saving you money, and adding more value to our future services.
Sincerely,
Kaleigh Canavan, EA
