Our Pricing Philosophy
We know that we are not the lowest-cost accounting firm available to you. We do not compete with other professionals on price. You can hire professional support or tax preparation services at any price level.
Our solutions and services solve for “total costs”:
- The professional fees you pay us
- The taxes you pay
- Your time
- Your peace of mind
We will devote additional resources to reduce your tax bill as long as it reduces the total outlay of taxes + professional fees. To reiterate, the true cost of your tax professional is the total outlay of professional fees + tax liability.
This often means that our professional fees will be higher than those of cost-first firms. This is in your best interest and minimizes your annual cost outlay. For some taxpayers, cost-first works best. Their situation is simple enough not to merit the additional effort. However, at ATMOS, we only engage clients for whom our expertise and knowledge will yield significant savings and/or those who value peace of mind and clear, easy-to-understand, time-saving communications. As soon as your situation does not merit it, we happily refer out to lower-cost providers.
What do I get for the additional fees I pay?
We are sometimes asked what we do that other firms do not and for an explanation of features and benefits that make our fees good value for you. Here’s a partial list:
Long-term tax planning
We are proactive and believe in taking time to “review” the future, not just the past. This allows efficient tax and business planning. Our philosophy is that tax preparation is more about tax planning than tax filing and that a longer-term vision can easily save you many thousands of dollars. After all, taxes are the second largest expenditure for most Canadian households. Only housing costs are higher. You want to be sure that whoever is advising you on your taxes has your long-term interests in mind. You don’t want to pinch pennies only to leak larger amounts to poor tax budgeting or lack of planning.
Thorough information review
We review your accounting GL for misallocations, etc. We don’t ask you to submit a specially-prepared summary sheet or require perfect records. Many accounting and tax preparation firms take client information at face value and do not look deeper into the information. This saves a lot of time for the accountant, allowing them to push through many more clients. However, in our view, this approach leaves the client vulnerable to missed opportunities for tax savings, GST recoveries, planning opportunities, etc. Every year, we uncover numerous issues in clients’ books that, if undiscovered, would have cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
CRA Processing Request responses included
We respond to CRA notices requesting more income tax information throughout the year for no extra charge. Most of the time, you will not even know that the CRA came calling. Most other tax preparers instruct the CRA to send processing review letters directly to clients. They then expect clients to look after these requests themselves. If the tax preparer looks after these matters for the client, they generally charge extra for the privilege. We ask the CRA to send the requests directly to us, and we do not charge you extra to look after the review for you.
An entire team available to help you
We have an entire team available to you to answer tax, bookkeeping and software-related questions. We are working hard to develop and maintain a skilled and knowledgeable team. Our team approach ensures that more than one person is usually able to answer your questions or look after your requests. This ensures that someone is always available to help you out.
Continuous education and training
We invest significant time each year to keep up with tax changes, industry trends, monitor audit risks, CRA activity, etc. All tax preparers are required to take part in educational webinars every year prior to tax season. We invest more in education and professional development per person each year than many tax preparers invest in initial training.
Information available 24/7/365
Tax returns are made available for you online at all times. We do not want you to be held hostage to our schedule or to standard office hours. We understand that sometimes last-minute financing requirements, requests for information, etc., must be attended to. We ensure that your tax returns are always available in DropBox, and we provide free training to our clients to ensure that you know how to access these files when required.
Technology
We stay current on technology, which not only enhances our internal efficiencies but allows us to suggest ways you can improve efficiencies in your own operations.
Document Storage and Security
We scan and store all documentation on our servers for a minimum of seven years. Many firms send your information back to you each year and leave this responsibility with you. We maintain digital copies of all information used to prepare your tax returns. All data is backed up securely in multiple locations.
Availability
We are available year-round. With the exception of statutory holidays and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, our team is always available to look after your requests. We are not a “tax season only” practice.
Transparent billing policies
Our subscription-based and transparent billing policies ensure that you know ahead of time what our fees will be, and make it easy for you to budget for our fees. For more information, visit our webpage on this subject.
We hope you find this insightful and helpful. If you have questions or want to discuss your particular situation, we’re happy to talk.