How Tax Pros Can Stay Busy in the Off Season

• Taxation for the Cannabis Industry
• Representation Before the IRS – Audits
• Representation Before the IRS – Appeals
• Representation Before the IRS – Collections
• Asset Protection – Tax Aspects
• Estate Planning
• Circular 230 Update
• Choosing a Business Entity
• General Partnership Taxation
• General Corporate Taxation
• Corporate Tax Planning
• Business Taxation

The CPE courses are called The Master Series. All classes give you three hours of CPE, except Circular 230 Update, which is two hours. In total, 35 credit hours are up for grabs.

If you miss any of the live webinars, you can view them on demand and still get CPE credit.

Another thing I did this offseason was test a new tax software using the extensions that I have. I have used Lacerte since Intuit bought out my tax software about 20 years ago. The problem is Lacerte is very expensive, and if you don’t pay for a portion of the program, you have to pay per return. Therefore, your monthly statement is a small fortune.

Changing tax programs can be daunting, but Intuit’s ProConnect tax software is not only cloud-based, which I love, but it was built to work just like Lacerte – and is thousands of dollars cheaper. ProConnect allows for a secure portal where your clients can answer your organizer, upload their tax forms, and sign your engagement letter. There are some kinks that I am working out, but I LOVE the program.

I also took a closer look at QuickBooks Online (QBO) this offseason. I’ve been setting up every new client on QBO for about four years now, but I talked to Intuit and they explained wholesale pricing to me and how their payroll worked.

With wholesale pricing, I am charged about $15 per client. I then mark that up a little bit and sell it to the client. With full-service payroll, I am charged a fee of $49 per month, no matter how many checks I write or how many times I do payroll a month. With full-service payroll, QBO does the payroll tax deposits and files the 941 forms and the state forms, taking me out of the equation. They also do the W-2 forms, so I don’t charge extra for W-2s and they mail the forms to the employees free of charge. We charge a $200 setup fee because we have to apply for the state unemployment numbers, and state income tax numbers if applicable, for new clients. If they used another payroll company in the year, we have to put that information into QBO. We charge a flat $100 fee for monthly payroll.

QBO also helps with monthly billing, which was such a pain to me. Most of our clients pay us on the first of the month with a credit card. I set up all of the reoccurring charges for the first of the month, when the payment is received, and QBO will reconcile the payments to the accounts receivable. If a credit card bounces, then I can rerun the charge.

But the best part of having 99% of our clients on QBO is that I can import the trial balance into ProConnect to do the tax return, which cuts my data entry time in half.

The only downside to QBO is that I can’t transfer depreciation from Intuit EasyACCT, which is accounting software that I only use for depreciation and after-the-fact payroll. QBO doesn’t handle depreciation at all, and there is no way to do after-the-fact payroll in QBO.

QBO comes with many apps that you can use. I am evaluating Tax Planner Pro as well as Bil.com for payments. It gets me out of writing checks and is faster than Bill Payer.

Tax Planner Pro is a tax planning app, and I use it in conjunction with my other tax planning software. I decided to charge extra for tax planning and included a money-back guarantee. If I don’t save a client at least double what I am charging them for the planning, I’ll give them their money back.

Another app is Aero Workfkow, which we desperately needed. We were using Atom, but my wife had to do tons of programming for what was needed, and I would have to spend many hours a month assigning work to the bookkeepers. With Aero, I can set a Master Aero that allows me to assign the work to a bookkeeper and have it repeat every month. It is awesome and saves so much time.

This offseason I decided for various reasons to fire my staff and begin fresh. I’ve spent a lot of time training my son, who decided to major in accounting, and I am training him right. We hired three new bookkeepers who I’ve spent time training, and I think we have a good team now. The best part is that I pay the bookkeepers a percentage of billing, instead of an hourly wage. I find that it makes the bookkeepers more productive, and if they are good, they can make up to $40 an hour.

I also did a ton of speaking engagements all over the country this offseason. They were mostly about the taxation of cannabis, but one is an hour CPE class before my peers in November on the home office deduction. I have been laying the groundwork for public speaking for a few years now, and today, we are getting our expenses paid for – airfare, hotel, rental car, and food. Plus I am being paid a fee.

Finally, I do a lot of writing for several publications. Why? Because I initially went to school to be an English major and become a writer. Not to mention, I love writing. I get a lot of emails about my articles, and I recently got one the other day from someone willing to pay me to write a white paper about the taxation of cryptocurrency.

My advice to those who specialize in tax is, we all know that we are going to make about 60% of our income from January to June. In this business the worst months for money are July, August, November, and December. After tax season is over, take a good portion of your cash and buy a six-month CD. The best advice I can give you is to diversify what services you offer.

During the offseason, I do estate planning. I became a Certified Estate Planner about four years ago. Do representation work. We have a company called Tax Crisis Center®, LLC that handles tax resolution, audits, appeals, and U.S. Tax Court cases. I study the tax laws every day. Now I have CPE webinars, I am being paid to speak, and I am being paid to write.