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A few things: 1) While I pay an accountant to file my taxes, the biggest benefit I get is (a) knowing/understanding the tax law; and (b) most importantly knowi

A few things: 1) While I pay an accountant to file my taxes, the biggest benefit I get is (a) knowing/understanding the tax law; and (b) most importantly knowing what deductions and/or credits are available to me and my business. 2) In my opinion, if you have a basic business there is no real reason to pay a monthly bookkeeping company. Pay an accountant to get you set up on Quickbooks (or some other online accounting software) initially, and have them teach you how to enter income and expenses. 3) Software such as Quickbooks makes automating taxes pretty straightforward once setup correctly, especially for a simple business. Where tax filings get complicated is knowing what forms need to be filed when. Once you start mixing state and local taxes into the mix it can be a little overwhelming at first. The problem with automating all of this is that the tax laws change so much keeping up across all the states and cities would be a challenge. Next, you would possibly have to work with governments to be able to e-file in bulk. For me personally, I already pay an accountant that handles these filings and more for me. I would be hesitant to pay another service, especially an unproven one, when it comes to taxes.

nathan_f77 9y ago
Thanks, that's great feedback! That's a good point about basic businesses not needing a monthly bookkeeping company. I've been pretty happy with Wave, so I don't think I need Bench yet. And I agree, it would be difficult to stay up-to-date with all the tax laws. Ideally I would want to have an accountant as a co-founder, or at least work closely with an accountant who specializes in startups. The idea is that one accountant would create a streamlined process for all startups with similar situations. Then startups could pay a much smaller fee for a repeatable process. In your case, it sounds like your tax situation might be a little more complicated. But I do want to stress that we would have an accountant who double-checks everything, especially for the first customers.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  The problem is on the expense side: you just bought a computer do you expense it? depreciate it? You had someone build a component for your website? is that expensed? or was that a capital expenditure?

nathan_f77 9y ago

Thanks, that's great feedback! That's a good point about basic businesses not needing a monthly bookkeeping company. I've been pretty happy with Wave, so I don't think I need Bench yet. And I agree, it would be difficult to stay up-to-date with all the tax laws. Ideally I would want to have an accountant as a co-founder, or at least work closely with an accountant who specializes in startups. The idea is that one accountant would create a streamlined process for all startups with similar situations. Then startups could pay a much smaller fee for a repeatable process. In your case, it sounds like your tax situation might be a little more complicated. But I do want to stress that we would have an accountant who double-checks everything, especially for the first customers.

sharemywin 9y ago
The problem is on the expense side: you just bought a computer do you expense it? depreciate it? You had someone build a component for your website? is that expensed? or was that a capital expenditure?