Accounting & tax for privately held businesses

The return, the books, or the whole department.

Some clients hand us the whole accounting function for less than one bookkeeper costs. Others just need the returns done right. Same team behind both.

Which do you need?

Book a 30-minute call

Path one — outsourced accounting

For businesses replacing or avoiding an in-house hire. Only need the returns? Skip to tax.

Hiring in-house vs. hiring us

Side by side, so you can weigh both options honestly.

Annual cost
About $70,000 with payroll taxes, benefits, software, and your time managing them
From $24,000 — most clients land below what the hire would have cost
Who does the work
One person doing every task at every level, data entry to financial statements
Each task at the right level — daily work, monthly close and review, CPA guidance
Oversight
Nobody checks the work. You find out at tax time, or when the bank asks
A senior reviews every month before anything reaches you, with a CPA on the account
When they quit
Books stall for months while you recruit, hire, and retrain
Nothing changes. The bench is deep and the documentation is ours
Taxes
Handed to an outside CPA in March, who bills separately and plans nothing
Same team all year — entity, comp, and owner planning before the year closes

Who you get with Steward

Each task at the right level of experience. You pay for the mix, not the salaries.

Bookkeeping Daily transactions, bank feeds, AP and AR, receipts, payroll entry. The weekly work.
Senior accountant Closes the books monthly — reconciliations, accruals, cutoff, sales tax — and reviews the daily work.
CPA On your account year-round: reviews the numbers, answers the judgment calls, owns the tax side.
Scaled to the work Bigger or messier engagements get more hands and more senior time.

What the function covers

Daily bookkeepingCoded and reconciled continuously, not scrambled at quarter-end.
Closing the books monthlyClosed on a set calendar — accruals, cutoff, reconciliations — and reviewed before you see them.
Accounts payable & receivableBills scheduled, invoices out, collections chased. You keep approval.
Payroll & sales taxProcessed, booked, and filed — across states and locations.
Reporting that decides thingsStatements plus the numbers you run on: margin by location, labor ratio, cash runway.
Tax planned and filedBusiness and owner returns, estimates, and decisions made in October, not April.
Path two — tax only

Your books stay where they are. Want those handled too? See outsourced accounting.

The returns, and the planning behind them

Not a return typed up in March by someone opening your file for the first time.

Business returns1120-S, 1065, and 1120 — federal and state, every entity, K-1s out on time.
Owner returnsPrepared alongside the business return, not by a stranger.
Quarterly estimatesCalculated off actual results, not last year’s number.
Planning before year-endEntity, owner comp, timing, and equipment decisions made in October, while they still change the outcome.
Books reviewed firstWe check the file is tax-ready before filing from it, and tell you what we found.
Notices and follow-upOn the planning engagement, anything from a tax authority is ours to answer.

What it costs

Priced on scope, not hours. We scope on a call, then send a fixed price in writing.

Outsourced accounting Flat monthly fee · No hourly billing
Ledger $2,000 /mo The accounting function, without the tax work.
  • Daily bookkeeping & reconciliations
  • Books closed every month, reviewed by a senior
  • AP, AR, payroll & sales tax
  • Monthly financial statements
  • Email answered same day
Ledger + Tax — most clients $3,500 /mo Books and tax under one roof, one fee, one team.
  • Everything in Ledger
  • Business return, all entities
  • Owners' personal returns
  • Quarterly tax planning & estimates
  • Quarterly call with your CPA
  • Entity & owner comp strategy
Full Function $6,000 /mo Books, tax, and a CPA in the room every month.
  • Everything in Ledger + Tax
  • Monthly review meeting with your CPA
  • Budget, forecast & cash planning
  • Location / unit economics reporting
  • Lender reporting packages

Multi-entity, multi-location, and inventory-heavy engagements run to $10,000/mo, scoped on volume, entities, and the state of the books.

Tax only Per return · Flat fee, quoted before we start
Individual from $500 A personal return, prepared and reviewed.
  • Form 1040, federal and one state
  • Wage, investment, and rental schedules
  • Prior year reviewed for anything missed
Business & individual from $1,400 The entity and the owner behind it, filed together.
  • 1120-S, 1065, or 1120 — federal and one state
  • K-1s issued to the owners on time
  • One owner's personal return included
  • Books reviewed for tax-readiness first
  • Additional owner returns from $500 each
Business, owners & planning from $3,600 /yr Compliance plus the decisions that change the bill — a year-round engagement, not a filing.
  • Everything in Business & individual, all owners included
  • Quarterly estimates off actual results, not last year's
  • Mid-year and pre-year-end planning sessions
  • Entity structure & owner compensation strategy
  • Timing calls on equipment, distributions, and retirement
  • Notices and tax authority correspondence answered by us
  • Your CPA reachable all year, not just in filing season

Minimums for a clean, single-state return. Extra entities, states, and owner returns are priced per return; complex files are quoted once we have seen them. Books needing clean-up are quoted separately — if that is significant, the monthly engagement often costs less than both. We do not perform audits, reviews, or other assurance engagements.

Who this is built for

We're deliberately narrow. If you're not one of these, we'll say so.

$2M–$20M privately held

Big enough that bad books cost real money, too small for an in-house department.

Multi-location & franchise groups

Restaurants, retail, and multi-site services needing clean numbers per location.

About to make your first hire

Worth running the numbers on both before you post the job.

Starting on tax takes about a week

01
Thirty minutes on the phone

Entities, states, owners, and last year. Enough for a fixed fee before you commit.

02
You send the file

Prior-year returns, this year's books, documents as they arrive. We tell you what's missing.

03
We prepare, review, and walk you through it

A CPA reviews every return, and we talk through what drove the number before filing.

Starting the accounting engagement takes about three weeks

01
Thirty minutes on the phone

Volume, entities, systems, and what's broken. Enough to scope and send a fixed monthly price.

02
We take the file over

Clean-up of the open year, chart of accounts rebuilt, access moved. Priced separately, up front.

03
Your first monthly financials land on the 15th

And every month after that. Same date, same package, same team.

See what it would actually cost you.

Thirty minutes, a real price in writing, and an honest answer on fit.

Book a 30-minute call hello@stewardcpas.com