Looking for Help for Your Small Business?

You're probably visiting this web site because you're looking for a CPA who can help you with your business or individual taxes, accounting, or business planning--or because you're looking for general small business information. With those notions in mind, let me briefly summarize both the accounting services we provide and the small business resources available from this website.

Let me also say that if what you read here piques your interest in our services, you absolutely should email me (steve.nelson@stephenlnelson.com) and introduce yourself. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss what you may need help with and to explain the services we offer. But let me get on with describing those services...

Business tax preparation and planning

We specialize in providing tax accounting and planning services to small businesses and their owners. We also offer individual tax preparation and planning services to these businesses and business owners--and to other individuals with complicated tax returns. For the record, if you can do your tax return yourself with TurboTax, that's what you should do. Using a more expensive solution like our firm makes sense only when the complexity of your financial affairs ratchets up or when your annual tax bill gets so large you want to hire a professional to minimize that burden.

Note: New tax return clients may want to download the individual tax organizer workbook. The organizer provides checklists and collects other information we need in order to do your individual return. If you need a business tax organizer, please email or telephone our offices for that workbook.

Fee-based Hourly Personal Financial Planning

If we prepare your tax return, I can also provide you with fee-only personal financial planning services in the areas of retirement and estate planning, thereby helping you implement practical, cost-effective personal financial management. Such services will not only save you the one to two percent fee that many financial planning firms levy... the services can also make your investments much more tax efficient.

Help with Small Business Tax Deductions

You can get information about my Small Business Tax Deduction Secrets e-book from this website and even order this downloadable resource. Specifically written for the business owner who wants to legally but effectively grind down his or her tax bill, this short 40pp document describes practical, common sense strategies for saving you thousands of dollars a year in taxes. By the way, many readers of this book later become clients so this book is a great way to "see who we are and how we can help..."

Free Resources & Inexpensive Downloads

You can click one of the Articles links to access dozens of useful small business tax and small business planning articles. The Downloads and eBooks links let you order and download inexpensive documents and ebooks, including sample limited liability company operating agreements and an ebook about how to set a shareholder salary for an S corporation.

Tip: If you're looking for free ebook versions of books I have written in the past, click the free stuff link shown under the Downloads and eBooks heading.

Downloadable Do-it-yourself LLC and Incorporation Kits

If you're looking for one of the downloadable do-it-yourself limited liability company or incorporation kits which we wrote, click one of the LLC and Incorporation Kits links along side the left edge of this window. For example, if you want to incorporate or form a limited liability company in Alabama, click the Alabama Kit link. Do-it-yourself LLC formation and incorporation kits are available for all fifty states as instantly-available, downloadable pdf files. Note, by the way, that these items aren't sold by my CPA firm, however, but rather by an affiliated entity, Stephen L. Nelson, Inc.

QuickBooks software training and consulting

If you're a business tax preparation or tax planning client, our offices will help you set up an appropriate business accounting system using a tool like QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Basic, QuickBooks Premier, or QuickBooks Enterprise. We will provide QuickBooks cleanup and related services on an hourly basis. In many cases, a few hours of a skilled accountant's time can greatly improve the accuracy and usefulness of your QuickBooks data and financial reports. (As you'll see if you spend much time poking around these pages, I happen to be the author of two rather popular books written about accounting software, QuickBooks for Dummies and Quicken for Dummies.)

General accountant services and business planning

We can provide as much help as necessary to prepare financial statements and work with you to create a practical business plan. I don't, however, provide bookkeeping services. You may find it useful, by the way, to know that another one of my books, MBA's Guide to Microsoft Excel, is used at several top-ranked business schools (including Dartmouth, Columbia, Notre Dame, and Thunderbird) as a text for business planning classes, seminars and workshops. The MBA's Guide to Microsoft Excel link (see left edge of window) provides you with free access to an HTML version of this book.