Why would I fire a client who wants to save money by preparing their own payroll? Easy! Because that client will 100% cost themselves more money before they know it, not only in lost time, but fees they will pay me to clean up the IRS mess that undoubtedly will occur, because payroll is just that complicated and cumbersome. It is simply not worth doing your own payroll, especially when we have a resource like ADP.

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Most are surprised I do not provide payroll services or allow my clients to prepare their own payroll, but I tell them that after 31 years as a practicing CPA in the tax world, payroll is not easy and requires a constant watch on what seems like near daily tax law changes. Payroll should be serviced by professionals that make this their primary focus, and ADP keeps up with all those trivial details for my clients so as to not miss the crucial details the IRS requires.

 

As a practicing CPA, I do NOT offer payroll tax services and do NOT allow my clients to do their own payroll! Why? Because I have ADP! That simple. They are THE payroll experts, and everything related to payroll such as benefits, health insurance, 401(k) reporting, work comp insurance, and the list goes on. Do you know who is NOT an expert? A small business owner. And why should they be. The small business owner is the expert in their business, not payroll, and the time wasted crunching payroll and filing payroll reports only takes away from the bottom line.

 

My clients hire me as their tax expert to save them income taxes and increase their bottom line, NOT to "count beans" for their payroll needs. So, when I tell a client to hire an expert with their payroll and HR needs, I exclusively refer them to ADP!

 

Payroll is terribly complicated, and my clients want me spending time keeping up with the latest tax laws on how to reduce their taxes, not the ever-expanding tax laws on how to report last month's payroll numbers. So, in 2001 I stopped providing payroll services to better provide value to my clients and leave the complicated payroll reporting to the experts at ADP as they make it their main focus, along with HR services.

 

"Tax professionals... STOP preparing payroll returns!" - JJ THE CPA

 

Tax pros should heavily consider NOT providing payroll services to free up their time to provide more value to their clients on how to save them income taxes, and more importantly get away from never-ending "deadline" work and replace it with "valuable" work. Everyone knows it is better to work smarter, not harder. Tax pros should consider ADP based on their history, trustworthiness, expertise, and the ability to best service their clients. Call my team to see how they can help your clients!