FCCA
Mohammad Azam
Founder & CEO
Founded the practice and still reads client accounts himself. FCCA is the fellowship grade of the chartered certified qualification, which takes years of practice beyond the exams to hold.
Tax preparation for marketing agencies April costs you a week, and the filing is the cheap part.
The expensive part is the document hunt: a week of founder time reassembling a year nobody kept current.
( Where it costs you )
What this is actually costing
- ( 1 )
April takes a week of founder time off the pipeline.
That is your most expensive hour in the building, spent looking for receipts rather than selling.
- ( 2 )
The books get reconstructed in March for a return due in April.
Reconstructed books are slower, more expensive, and more likely to miss something.
- ( 3 )
Deadlines land on whoever remembers them.
A missed sales tax filing is a penalty and interest on money you already collected.
- ( 4 )
You picked up clients in three new states last year.
Each one can create a filing obligation nobody checked until the notice arrived.
What changes
Tax preparation, and what it does to your numbers
Tax preparation for a marketing agency means federal and state business returns and sales tax filings, prepared and filed from books that are already closed. Because the same team keeps the books through the year, April is a review rather than a reconstruction, and the founder gets the week back.
We hold the deadline calendar and prepare your federal and state business returns and sales tax filings off books we have already closed. Then we get them filed on time.
Federal and state business returns prepared and filed
The return comes off books that closed monthly, so April is a review rather than a reconstruction.
Sales tax tracked and filed by state
A new client in a new state gets checked when they sign, not when the notice arrives.
We hold the deadline calendar
Nothing depends on you remembering a date, so penalties and interest stop being a line item.
Prepared by the team that keeps the books
No handover, no document request list, and no week lost reassembling the year.
Documentation kept audit-ready through the year
If anything is ever questioned, the support already exists instead of being rebuilt under pressure.
We work alongside your CPA where you have one
They get a clean current file instead of a shoebox, so their time on your account costs you less.
Run the numbers
What a few points of margin is worth
Worked example
Run the numbers on a founder who bills at $250 an hour.
- Founder hours lost to the scramble
- 30
- Value of that time
- $7,500
- Penalties and interest
- On top
Your own hourly number is the one that matters here.
( Compare )
Filing from current books against filing from a scramble
| Books reconstructed in March | Books closed monthly | |
|---|---|---|
| Founder hours in April | 20 to 40 | Around one |
| Who assembles the documents | You | Already assembled |
| Risk of a missed deadline | Depends on memory | Held on a calendar |
| Cost of preparation | Higher, it is rebuild work | Lower, it is review work |
Bookkeeping, tax and CFO work from one team start at $997 a month. See what sets the price.
Questions
The things agency owners ask first
01What exactly do you prepare for us?
Federal and state business returns, and sales tax where you have an obligation. We hold the calendar, prepare everything off books we have already closed, and get it filed on time.
02Do you sign the return?
No. A CPA signs it: yours, or one of the CPAs we partner with, depending on the engagement. We prepare it from books that are already closed, so their review is short.
03Do you handle multi-state sales tax?
Yes. Picking up clients in a new state can create a filing obligation you did not know about. We check that as your client list changes rather than at year end.
04Can you do our return if our books are behind?
Yes, but we bring them current first, quoted separately. A return built from reconstructed books costs more and is more likely to miss something worth catching.
05What if we already have someone doing our return?
Then keep them. We hand over books that are closed and current, which usually makes their work faster and cheaper than a shoebox in March.
06How far ahead do you tell us what we owe?
Because the books close monthly, the position is visible through the year rather than in April. You get the number early enough to put the cash aside for it.
If your clients sit in one vertical
The numbers change with the clients you serve
eCommerce clients
Ad spend runs through your account and revenue tracks your client's sales season, not your cost base.
Healthcare clients
Compliance and clinical sign-off rounds add revision hours that rarely appear in the original scope.
Real estate clients
Production costs get fronted and reimbursed on a lag, while listing cycles swing revenue month to month.
Go deeper
Frameworks you can run on your own numbers
5 min read
Why a large client's procurement team cares about your books
Above a certain contract size, winning work stops being a pitch decision and becomes a procurement one. A vendor onboarding check looks at whether your business is stable enough to deliver for two years. Weak financial records lose deals that the creative already won.
5 min read
The scope creep audit: a 15 minute check on your last three projects
Scope creep does not show up as a line on your P&L. It shows up as a margin that quietly fell and nobody can explain. This audit compares scoped hours against delivered hours on three finished projects, and usually finds the leak in one sitting.
Who does the work
A named lead, not a queue
ACCA
Asad Riaz
Managing Partner & Fractional CFO
Runs the CFO engagements, from profitability by client through to investor-ready reporting for a raise. If you are repricing a retainer or sizing the next hire, this is the person on the call.
ACCA
Syed Faheem Basit
Fractional CFO & Business Analyst
Builds the models behind the pricing and hiring calls, and the reporting that makes them readable. Utilization, effective hourly rate and the 13-week cash forecast come from here.
Those are the three who lead the practice. Behind them is the wider team that keeps books current, prepares returns and builds the reporting packs. What does not change is who owns your account. One of the three above leads it and answers when you ask why a number moved.
Next step
Find out which client is costing you money
A call is 20 minutes. Bring your last twelve months and you will leave knowing whether tax preparation is the piece you are missing.