Prospect & Customer FAQ's

Let’s Clear Things Up

    • We bring solutions; not just checking off boxes 
    • We give a sh*t - you're not just a paycheck
    • Technology early-adopters and tech-focused leadership
    • Constantly improving and adding to our list of services offered
    • We think like entrepreneurs, not paper-pushers
    • We are a partner, not a provider
    • We aren't scared to tell you if your baby is ugly. ;) 
    • There are a number of startup bookkeeping providers who claim to do “automated” bookkeeping or automated accounting. We've noticed more & more that customers coming from these automated vendors can’t reliably produce GAAP-based, accrual financial statements. Deferred revenue, customer prepays, fixed asset schedules, upfront payments for SaaS software - these are items that need to be split out to produce accurate, accrual accounting. 
    • We have the ability to blend our accounting, tax and strategy services across our team and experience levels. You do not want a bookkeeping doing intensive budgetary planning, just like you do not want your CFO reconciling weekly invoices. With our team, we can match the complexity needs of the work with the correct experience (and hourly rate). This blended approach makes sure the work is correct and reduces your overall costs.
    • Your financials will be reviewed by a CPA each quarter (if not monthly). This review allows for issues to be caught and corrected before they get out of hand.
    • It's HARD to find good talent; especially in the tax, accounting & finance world! These people are also oft-sought after and paid quite competitively, so in terms of managing your internal costs/headcount, there's NO better solution than outsourcing!
    • We typically try to start our engagements at the beginning of the month, but if that is not possible, we do not prorate our services.
    • Even if you start in the middle of the month, we will still reconcile, close and review that month in its entirety, not just the days after the engagement.
    • Although the days in the month will be less, you will still be receiving the total month’s worth of services and attention, just in a condensed amount of time.
    • See the above "One-time Fees" section regarding upfront deliverables and services included in this custom engagement
    • Once an agreement is finalized, Advysor will send the new client an onboarding checklist, which must be completed prior to the initial kickoff call
    • The first kickoff/onboarding call will be 1-hour and include all necessary parties from both Advysor and the client's team. 
    • Onboarding calls/meetings/trainings are ONLY scheduled for the 3rd week of every month. 
    • We are open to many software systems and have experience working with just about every accounting system out there. We typically do not make you switch systems if you're happy with the one you're currently using. That said, we will offer advice on how to improve your processes and if this involves changing systems, we will make the recommendation, but we will not force your hand.
    • Our go-to accounting software is Xero. We believe it has all the advanced accounting features needed but also presents a simple and understandable user interface. Xero is also on the cutting edge of integration with 3rd party tools that you most likely already use in your business (Stripe, Square, Practice Ignition, etc.), which makes it easier to connect data and increase automation.
    • We are also Quickbooks ProAdvisors and experts in migrating data to & from QBO. 
    • Additional tools we use for clients include: Netsuite, Sage & ZohoBooks
    • We do NOT accept work/clients that refuse to migrate off desktop accounting systems or clients that prefer to remain in excel and not allow us to migrate them to a cloud-based solution.
    • Once you are fully through onboarding, you will be assigned a primary contact from our accounting team, and possibly one primary for Tax & Finance too (depending on what services you opt for). These primary contacts will remain your go-to for all questions & needs, and even if you sometimes direct an accounting question to a tax person, you can rest assured that we'll get that information to the right party internally! Also, our entire team (management/CEO included) is always available to field your questions of any topic - which is a nice perk of a company our size! 
    • Our Head of Sales will also be a constant contact for you throughout your time with our firm and will check back in periodically 60-90 days after your initial kickoff call with the Onboarding Specialist to ensure you're getting A+ service and transitioning nicely with the team. We'll also check back again after your 90-120 day checkpoint to remind you of our Referral Program perks and also make sure that you're 100% happy with your team assignment and the quality of work/communication they're delivering regularly. 
    • Step #1 - Capture: Import bills & expenses directly
    • Step #2 - Approve: Configure custom user roles to manage approvers and set thresholds by bill amount or add notes or questions to a bill
    • Step #3 - Pay: Link to multiple bank accounts, checks, CC, ACH, etc. Schedule automatic payments, pay multiple invoices at once or make partial payments. 
    • Step #4: Reconcile: integrate seamlessly with your cloud-based accounting solution to gain insights into bill payments, unpaid bills, vendor balances, aging, funds transfer and transaction lists. Also you can auto-void checks, create vendor forms automatically and see when checks clear at this stage.
    • Yes - we offer full payroll support/services.
    • Our preferred Payroll system is Gusto. If you prefer/require sticking with another/existing payroll system that is NOT Gusto, we will not force your hand, but we may increase monthly fees due to complexities known to other systems that are not as user-friendly as Gusto. 
    • If clients would like our support migrating from another payroll system over to Gusto, we will gladly support in this effort and only charge a one-time fee for the migration work. 
    • YES WE DO! It's a terrific, easy and VERY lucrative referral program (if we say so ourselves)! Here's how it works: 
      • For each & every referral you send our way that results in a signed monthly engagement, you will be paid $1,000 cash to any bank account of your choosing within 10 business days of that new client e-signing the engagement. 
      • We will also pay $500 cash for any signed one-time engagements valued at $5,000 or more. 
      • The referral bonuses are uncapped too; meaning you’ll continue to get paid whether you send us 1 or 100 that sign. This is our way of tangibly showing gratitude for the trust you place in us, while paying it back in dividends. 
      • To start the referral process, send an email to your interested party to make the introduction official. Our Head of Sales will personally respond to all referral inquiries within 3 hours to expedite them through our discovery processes.
        • **WHO QUALIFIES? Advysor customers, staff, friends, consultants, industry partners, investors, etc. are all eligible to receive referral payouts for introductions made to external parties. If a person or organization chooses to use or recommend Advysor for another of their affiliated businesses, franchisees, sub-entities, companies with shared decision-makers, ownership and/or board members, it would not be considered a "referral" by nature; therefore, disqualifying it from any referral bonus.
    • Accrual accounting means expenses and revenues are recognized and recorded when they occur. Cash basis accounting means these items aren't documented until cash exchanges hands. For example, if you purchase an annual software subscription, here is how both would apply:
      • Cash basis - the books will show cash leaving the business when the invoice is paid. 
      • Accrual basis - the books will show cash being distributed across the 12-month period
    • Your business structure affects how much you pay in taxes, your ability to raise money, the paperwork you need to file, and your personal liability. 
    • If needed, we can work with you to choose a different business structure that gives you the proper balance of legal protections and benefits, and we would do so under an hourly tax consulting engagement. 
    • Yes - on a case-by-case basis we gladly offer sales tax support & filing services; typically if less than <3 states' filings are required, we will perform these duties ourselves (assuming a general lack of complexity of those filings). 
    • We also often refer out more complex Sales Tax work (or nexus determination) to local DFW firms that exclusively handle Sales Tax accounting and compliance work beyond our team’s comfort or experience levels.
    • Are there cheaper companies out there? Maybe! But will those individuals or companies make you feel 100% safe, confident & proactive about your business' financials? With us - you get what you pay for - and we don't skimp on time, quality, technology or expertise in delivering white glove services. 
    • We're a true "one-stop-shop" for all your tax, accounting, payroll and strategy needs, so you don't have to hire multiple full-time employees + additional outside/3rd parties to do what we do all under one roof. Without the overhead of FT salaries and various 3rd parties (that may or may not communicate with one another), you're more likely to SAVE money and time with us. 
    • We also utilize the best, top-of-the-line technology to ensure that our work is always accurate, timely and impactful. Many big firms and old school accountants are admittedly late tech adopters - meaning they don't feel comfortable utilizing the new tools that can provide business owners with MORE info, BETTER insights and FASTER advice to help them pivot proactively vs. reactively. 
    • Once you sign and complete the Engagement Letter we will determine an onboarding start date and detailed instructions (in the form of a checklist) for what to prepare prior to that initial kickoff call with any/all relevant team members.
    • Typically, we can begin onboarding at any time of the month, and we don't require any window of time to prep or wait before kicking things off with our dedicated Onboarding Accounting Specialist. 
    • Onboarding typically involves many different tasks, and the scope is different for every client based on the services they've signed up for, and any accounting clean-up or catch-up work that was scoped and required initially. That said, our clients can typically expect to remain with their Onboarding Accounting Specialist for a minimum of 30 days, and a maximum of 90-120 days (again, depending on the scale of accounting cleanup/catchup work involved). 
    • During this time, we also go the extra mile to document all your business' critical operational and financial processes (intricately) that ultimately affect our day-to-day and month-end close processes. 
    • At the start of onboarding, we will ask to get view-only access to a lot of your bank accounts, critical systems (CRM, Payroll, Invoicing/quoting, Inventory, project management, etc.) that we need to derive data from and/or cross reference on a regular basis. This must be done first, over a LIVE ZOOM call, so we can work around 2FA authentication issues and prevent lengthy back-n-forth correspondence over email (which proves unproductive). 
    • We do our due diligence upfront to ensure that we're managing expectations on both ends, and to guarantee the fairest and most accurate Scope of Work and Pricing. This preliminary discovery work helps mitigate scope creep and ensures we staff each client and project properly from the start to always guarantee top-notch customer service levels and expertise. 
    • For those who cancel services with us and honor their 90-day contractual obligations, we will work up until the last day of services that are billed and paid for. Thus, if an agreement ends at the end of 2/29/2024 and no invoice will be sent for 3/1/2024, we will not work past the 2/29 date and therefore will not be responsible for closing your books for that prior month (since close typically requires work well into the following month for the month prior). If you decide to cancel your engagement with us, be sure to keep this transition/cut-over timeline in mind so that we may successfully offboard our work onto any party that carries the duties forward. 
    • Based on the information gathering during our discovery & due diligence processes, we will typically compile a custom proposal for every new prospect we engage. Our firm does not adhere to an hourly billing model, as we don't believe it encourages optimal work habits and best time management. By custom tailoring our scopes of work to meet each businesses' unique needs, we're able to provide businesses with more budget-friendly options because we don't pad our pricing to account for the unknown. 
    • If businesses ever need to augment or reduce their scope of services with us, we're happy to appropriately adjust the monthly fees at that time. If a business' staff size, revenue projections, expenses or overall transaction volume increases dramatically over a short span of time - requiring additional resources/tools on our end to maintain A+ service levels - we may need to raise fees at that time. That said, we will not raise fees without advanced warning and a discussion beforehand. For accounts with minimal or no significant changes over the course of a year, we may only charge an annual ~5-7% increase (industry standard). 
    • Our payment terms for recurring services are payable on the 1st of each month, for the services to be rendered that month via automatic debit transfer from a checking account. If an engagement is terminated for a certain month, no services (month close or otherwise) will be rendered following that exact cut-off date. 
    • No - All third party software fees are to be paid for by the client; those fees are not included in the total prices shown below.
    • All accounting & bookkeeping contract terms are 90 days. If a client then chooses to cancel at any time, then must provide a 90-day notice in writing so we can process and offboard the account properly. That said, all Fractional CFO contract terms include a 6-month minimum, then switch to 90-day terms after that initial 6 months is fulfilled.
    • We're quite strategic & deliberate in our staffing assignments & structure, and as long as you are a client of ours, we will always have at least 2-4 people reviewing, working on & knowledgeable of your account. This high level of touch & oversight ensures that any unexpected staffing changes will not disrupt your operations; providing an entirely seamless experience that de-risks your business immensely. THIS is the one of the best benefits of a fully outsourced accounting, CFO & tax team! 
    • Once an engagement is signed, we will kick off our Onboarding process with an initial "Required Access Call", where we all join a live ZOOM meeting and walk you through granting us admin/third party access to all relevant bank accounts, AR/AR software systems, expense management systems, payroll systems, sales tax login portals, CRM tools, etc. Our Onboarding Accounting Specialist will work with you 1-on-1 for the initial 30-90 days of your engagement to ensure that all processes are well documented and streamlined upfront, before assigning you to your full-time, year-round team of Staff/Senior Accountants, Financial Analysts and Tax Pro's! 

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