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Bookkeepers take your invoices, receipts and financial statements and use them to produce up-to-the-minute reports. Reports that will show your business's profits and growth. This will help you plan for your future.
That depends! If your needs are QuickBooks set-up or training, we can work with a business of any size. We can do training 1-on-1 for you or your employees or we can provide group training. For monthly bookkeeping, we work with soloprenuers and small businesses who need less than 20hrs of accounting done each month. More than that typically requires a part-time employee to be cost-effective. The majority of our clients come to us because the business owner just wants more administrative time to devote to other projects or they don’t have enough work to justify a part-time employee.
An Independent Bookkeeper processes the daily accounting transactions of a business at a lower rate than would be charged by your CPA. Our bookkeeping services include transaction entry, account reconciliation, running reports and implementing procedures along with other regular tasks. CPAs typically provide certified financial statements, analyze financial data, prepare income taxes and more advanced functions that businesses need less frequently.
We are physically located in the Kansas City area, but we have clients all over the country. Much of what we do is electronic. If you have a scanner or fax machine we have a process to keep you up to date, ever if you aren’t located around Kansas City.
You may visit the Capstone offices at 15100 W 67th St. Ste 201, Shawnee, KS 66217 anytime from 9:30-5 on Monday-Friday. It is best to call ahead for an appointment. Feel free to call, e-mail or use our contact form any time you choose. We make every effort to respond within one business day. During peak seasons, more time may be required.
At the end of each year, business owners start thinking about filing taxes and we get more calls. Work is non-stop for us from December through April. There is also an influx in work right before the IRS extension deadlines in September and October?
September 15 is the extension deadline for S-Corps, C-Corps, Partnerships and Non-Profits whose tax year ended on December 31 and with an original filing date of March 15.
October 15 is the extension deadline for sole proprietors and single member LLCs whose tax year ended on December 31 and with an original filing date of April 15.
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Absolutely! Rest assured that without an agreement, your privacy is sacred. Capstone only shares general anecdotal information to help other business owners and answer their questions based on experiences we’ve seen with our clients. We would NEVER share direct information about you or your company.
Not Income tax. Capstone is not a CPA firm. We handle Sales, Excise and Payroll taxes only. We have a list of great CPAs we recommend. Just let us know what your priority is (location, industry, education, etc.) and we can help.
Absolutely! For us, it doesn’t get much better than reconciling an account to zero or knowing the file is as clean as you can get it when it’s handed over to the CPA for tax prep. Accountants and Bookkeepers don’t have to be stuffy bookworms who wear green visors. We take our work seriously, but not ourselves!
Communication! Feel free to call anytime with a question about your file. If you are making changes to how you conduct business that affect your accounting, please let us know. We welcome questions about your reports (even how to read them). Your assistance can identify gaps of needed documentation. We only have the information provided to us, but you can look at your numbers and identify places where things look out of place. Your knowledge about your business is critical in making sure we have asked all the right questions and gotten all the right documentation from you.
You absolutely can ask your CPA to do your bookkeeping and pay their rates, but why not save their talents for tasks that require them? Capstone coordinates with CPAs regularly to save business owners time and money.
As for doing it yourself, why not? You can do your own bookkeeping if you have a good accounting background, know you are using QuickBooks properly and have the spare time. The business owners who use our services are looking for expertise and to free up their time for other tasks, such as building their business, making money or just extra time with family and friends. The value of Capstone’s services is manifested in what else you could be doing while we are doing your bookkeeping.
We know exactly what you mean. We’ve seen it too. Capstone uses only truly qualified individuals to maintain our clients’ files. Briana personally has an accounting degree, along with a PUAD degree; corporate, small business and non-profit accounting experience; holds a QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification, training experience and has written policies and procedures for many types of businesses. When subcontractors are reviewed for a working relationship, they are tested on their accounting and QuickBooks knowledge.
Yes we do. We have several clients on QuickBooks Online. If you do not currently use QBO, but are considering it, we’d be happy to discuss the pros and cons of using a cloud service vs. the desktop version. QBO has features that are helpful for some businesses, but is not always the best fit.
There are many different accounting programs for different business needs. As QuickBooks ProAdvisors, we use QuickBooks for our clients. We are also knowledgeable with other software, like Peachtree and Great Plains.
Not at all. Frequently, clients call us because of a QuickBooks frustration and the answer is sometimes to find something more customized for their type of business. QuickBooks has many versions for different types and sizes of businesses, but it is just a tool and businesses often outgrow the tool they start with. There are many industry-specific or more advanced accounting software options available if/when QuickBooks just can’t meet your reporting or transaction volume needs.
QuickBooks is the #1 financial program for small businesses and can help you get your business organized. Capstone has versions of QuickBooks going back to 2007.
Yes. As a ProAdvisor, we are entitled to a 30% discount on Intuit software and supplies that our clients may use. Just let us know what you need and we’ll help get it!
As often as you want! If you would like for us to manage your file for you and simply send monthly reports via e-mail, many of our clients don’t even purchase the software for themselves. Conversely, if you would like to be in your file every day, we use tools like Dropbox to help facilitate multiple users. The file can even be stored on one of your computers and Capstone can remote access it through an Intuit product or other remote access software.
While Dropbox is completely secure (click here for Dropbox’s statement) and used by thousands of users for sensitive documents, it will likely never be considered HIPAA compliant. This is not due to DropBox not being a secure site, but because of the nature of HIPAA. Files with general file names that are encrypted prior to being moved to Dropbox would likely be considered HIPAA compliant, but this is not an option for QuickBooks files.
It is true that because QuickBooks files are continually being updated while the user is in the file, conflicted copies can be a problem. Dropbox is a free option to similar Intuit products and Intuit is clear that there is no future plan to integrate these tools to work better together. If you are more comfortable with a paid file-sharing or hosting option, Capstone would be happy to review and recommend a good fit for your business and budget.
After using Dropbox for years, we have found several ways to minimize potential problems. Click here for our Dropbox Help sheet.
