CFO vs CPA AlternativeWhich job comes first

A company that can already point at every deposit does not have the same open job as a company whose June still looks blank. The first company may be ready for a lender's report. The second company needs the month named before any report would be honest. This page is about telling those two companies apart.

A Saturday that fills the shop does not say which hire the month needs. The card batch can still land on Monday as one lump, and a full room does not name it. The file under a busy week can still be the one nobody has tied to the bank.

The useful split is small. Can you point at last month and say what each deposit was? Can you point at the money you took out and see it on its own line? If the answer is no, the job in front of you is the close. A signed report can wait until the answer is yes.

A CPA holds a state license and may sign reports on financial statements. An enrolled agent is admitted to represent a taxpayer in front of the IRS. Speaking to the IRS is a different hire from the person who names the deposits. A bookkeeper keeps the daily record. A Tax CFO reads the closed month with the owner and helps decide what to do before the year ends. Four jobs get talked about as if they were one job. They are not.

The line is the report. A person who does not hold the license may prepare statements and may not dress them in the language of an attest report. Preparing a return, keeping the books, and giving management advice sit on this side of that line. The audit, the review, and the compilation do not.

We say that without a sneer. The license is a real gate, and we do not walk through it. If your buyer, your bank, or your board wants the report, we will tell you the signature leaves. You can keep the month here and send the report out. Plenty of owners do both in the same year.

We will not say the monthly work is a license at a lower price. That sentence is a lie, and it insults both jobs. We will not call ourselves accountants. We will not put a look-alike title next to Steven Palmieri. The name on the door of this practice is Tax CFO, and also the Entrepreneur's CFO.

Representation at an appeal is its own hire too. Appeals go to an enrolled agent, a CPA, or an attorney, and this practice does not put its name on that paper. A form that only lets someone receive information can be part of support work. A power of attorney for the appeal is not something we put our name on.

If the search that brought you here was the license word, you now know what the license signs. The rest of this site is the other job, the one that makes the month true enough for a return and for a decision.