When to hire a bookkeeper or a CPA

General business guidance, not tax or legal advice. Credentialing rules, forms and deadlines change, and fees vary by market. Verify anything specific with your state board of accountancy, the IRS, or a CPA who works with contractors.

Hire a bookkeeper for transaction records and reconciliation, a tax preparer for returns, and a CPA or other qualified adviser for decisions beyond routine filing. The right starting point depends on what is missing: reliable books, tax support or advice on a specific decision.

"Get an accountant" is really three jobs. Someone records what happened. Someone files the returns. Someone tells you how to structure the business. One person can do all three, but the three are priced differently and needed at different times.

What bookkeepers, enrolled agents and CPAs do

Attorneys hold the same unlimited representation rights as EAs and CPAs.

The bookkeeping title alone does not establish tax-preparation or representation credentials. Check the person's qualifications and experience. A bookkeeper who also holds an EA or CPA credential has different IRS representation rights; an eligible Annual Filing Season Program participant has limited rights under the IRS rules.

The CPA route is set state by state, and the education requirement is in flux. Alongside the traditional 150 credit hours, NASBA and the AICPA added a bachelor's-plus-two-years-experience pathway that jurisdictions are enacting on their own timelines. What your state requires today is a question for its board of accountancy. Anyone paid to prepare federal returns must hold a PTIN, and the IRS directory of federal tax return preparers lets you check a name — though it includes selected credentials and Annual Filing Season Program participants, not every valid PTIN holder.

What doing it yourself actually costs

Their hourly rate against yours is the wrong comparison, because your admin hours were never all sellable. Track them for one month, then price them twice: once as if every hour would have sold, once as if half would. The table runs the arithmetic at $85 an hour to show the shape, not to give you a rate. Put your own number in.

Then add the part with no hourly rate: the deduction missed because the receipt was gone, the estimated payment underpaid, the sales tax return filed late. Compare that total against a real quote for the work, not a figure from an article: these fees are local and range widely.

When to seek accounting or tax help

Consider getting help before these events or as soon as a problem appears:

• Your first employee. Payroll adds several obligations: federal withholding and employment tax deposits, Form 941 each quarter (the IRS notifies some very small employers to file Form 944 once a year instead), Form 940 for federal unemployment, W-2s to employees and the SSA, plus separate state withholding and unemployment registrations. Late deposits carry penalties, and the IRS employment tax due dates page has the current schedules.
• An IRS or state notice you do not understand. Anything beyond a simple math correction is a reason to call an EA or CPA the same week. Notices have response windows, and a window is easier to protect than to reopen.
• Work crossing a state line. A second state can bring income tax filing, payroll registration, sales tax registration and its own contractor licensing. Ask before the first job, not at year end.
• The LLC-versus-S-corp question. Whether the election saves anything depends on your profit, the salary you would have to pay yourself, and your state's treatment of the entity — some states tax S corps in ways that eat the federal saving. It is made on Form 2553 and timed to the tax year you want it to start in. The IRS does publish late election relief procedures, but relief is conditional and not something to plan around.
• You keep missing deadlines. Repeated missed payments or returns are a reason to review the filing process. Assign responsibility, agree deadlines and confirm who monitors filings and payments.

Agree how accounting work will be charged

Treat this as shape, not price:

• Bookkeeping can be priced as a monthly package or by the hour, with the scope reflecting transaction volume and number of accounts. Payroll processing is often quoted separately, per run or per employee.
• Tax preparation may be charged per return or by time and complexity — a Schedule C is not an S-corp return with a state filing attached.
• Advisory work may be hourly, a defined project or an ongoing engagement. Ask which arrangement covers your decision.

Get the scope in writing before you sign: what is included, what triggers extra billing, and who files what.

Finding one who has worked with contractors

Trade businesses have specifics — job costing, retainage, progress billing, materials versus labor on sales tax, equipment depreciation — so ask whether a prospective adviser has experience with those questions. Ask directly:

• How many contractors or trade businesses do you currently work with?
• Do you do job costing, or only profit-and-loss at the company level?
• Who handles my sales tax returns, you or me? (Ask this one explicitly; it falls between roles constantly.)
• What is your normal turnaround on a question during filing season?
• Which software do you work in, and do I keep access to my own file if we part ways?

That last one matters more than it sounds: the accounting file is your record, not theirs, so own the subscription yourself. Then check the license where one exists — the state board for a CPA, the IRS directory for an EA.

Records to give your bookkeeper

Ask how cleanup work affects the fee. Supply reconciled bank records, invoices, receipts and tax records, with quote references that explain the scope behind customer payments.

The approved quote explains what the customer ordered. When your approved estimates and their line items sit in one place, with tax broken out and the approval attached, a bookkeeper asking what a $2,400 bank deposit was for gets a document instead of your memory. DoneQuote keeps that trail as you send the work out.

Start with the help you need now

If your immediate problem is routine recordkeeping, this sequence can help:

1. A bookkeeper, monthly. Agree on the records and reconciliation they will deliver.
2. A tax preparer — EA or CPA — for the annual return and your estimated payments. Give them the reconciled books and supporting records.
3. CPA advisory hours, when a real decision is on the table: entity structure, a multi-state question, a big equipment purchase.

An urgent tax notice or entity decision may need an adviser first. Do not delay that help while waiting for the books to be perfect.