YHB CPAs & Consultants

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a marketing company, and our portfolio is pretty straightforward when it comes to the financial side. Our primary expense is our advertising dollars, and our overhead is relatively low. We have our payroll and some office expenses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Murray Jonson White & Associates?

The way we use Murray Jonson right now is online for our annual tax filings. The company I previously owned and worked for used them for quarterly reporting and quarterly filings for state and local taxes, worker’s compensation, and stuff like that.

My situation is a little complicated, and they actually do three different returns for us. There are three LLCs used in our organization, one in Florida and one in Virginia. Murray Jonson is able to handle both of those scenarios.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I usually have an annual review meeting with them to go over any tax law changes, and to see if there’s anything we can use to our advantage. We don’t have any heavy, depreciable assets and everything we earn is earned income, so it’s a pretty straightforward scenario. There isn’t a lot of opportunity to use accounting mechanisms to save on taxes by reorganizing the business or making a big acquisition at the end of the year that could reduce our income. We don’t have a lot to offset our income during any given year.

We handle all of our own books in-house with Quicken, but they use their own tax preparation software. We don’t send our accounting data for them to input into their system; we just submit reports to them and help them fill in the gaps with the data they need.

How did you come to work with Murray Jonson White & Associates?

I can’t remember how we found them originally. I’ve been working with the same guy, Randy Shapiro, for more than 20 years, first through my prior employer. When I started my own company, I just sat down with Randy and had him set us up. Every time we create a new company, we loop him in and have him handle our taxes. For us, it’s been more of a personal relationship with the accountant than with the firm.

How does the billing structure work?

They bill us once a year, and they’ve been very fair with us over the years, but we also make it easy for them. The amount of time they have to spend on our tax returns is relatively minimal because we’ve been doing it with them for so long. We have a methodology where we present everything to them in the format they need, and they can just plug and play, and roll. We’re not much of a burden on their expense side.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them over 20 years ago, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

In 15 years, I’ve yet to see them make a mistake, and I double-check all the numbers on the final returns. I’ve never even seen a small mistake, like transposing numbers. I’ve been pretty happy with that. The IRS has never come back to us with any issues that weren’t our mistakes. For instance, we paid the incorrect amount once, but that was about it.

We also work to get in early on their cycle, so we’ve never had to file any extensions. We get them the data early enough, and they turn it around very quickly. We then review through, and if we notice any discrepancy, it’s typically something on our end. They’ve always been very timely. We don’t do electronic filing, so they have to get the documents back to us, then we sign and submit them. They’ve been very timely that way.

How does their work have an impact on your bottom line?

There are different accounting services, and Murray Jonson is really just making sure that we accurately complete our forms, put everything in the proper place, and get our deductions put in the right place on the right form. We don’t really lean on them for anything else.

When there’s a change in the tax law, they notify us that something is going to be different in the coming year, so we know about it and plan for it before Tax Day. They identify what our estimated tax payments should be for the coming year, so that we can stay ahead of any penalties. We have to pay our taxes quarterly, and they give us an estimated tax schedule which keeps us in the clear, no matter what we make for that year.

Are there any areas Murray Jonson White & Associates could improve?

I really don’t have any negatives. They’ve done a good job for us.