The tax bill should never be a surprise.
Every year it is the same thing. You have no idea what you owe until someone tells you, and by then it is too late to do anything about it. No one modeled your quarterly estimates from real numbers. No one told you to set aside reserves as you billed. No one called in September to say "here is what we are looking at and here is what we can do about it before year end."
Instead, you get a number in April that makes you wonder where all the money went. You wrote a check you were not prepared for. Or worse, you overpaid because nobody planned ahead and you just gave the IRS an interest-free loan all year.
"I never know what I owe until it is too late."
You want to know in July what your tax liability looks like. You want to file quarterly estimates based on real data, not last year's guess. You want to walk into April knowing the exact number because you planned for it all year.
"I want to file on time and stop giving money to the IRS."
Extensions are not a strategy. They are a symptom. You want a CPA who files on time because the books were ready all along. And you want someone who is actively reducing what you owe, not just reporting on it after the fact.
You are paying for a CPA. Are you getting one?
Most law firm owners have the same CPA story. They hired someone who seemed competent, but the relationship has slowly turned into an expensive source of frustration.
"They only show up at tax time."
You hear from your CPA in March. They need your documents. They have questions about things that happened nine months ago. They do the return, maybe. They file an extension, probably. Then they disappear until next year. There is no relationship. There is no planning. There is no one watching your numbers between January and December. You are paying for a year-round partner and getting a seasonal contractor.
"They file an extension, eventually file, and vanish."
April comes. Instead of a completed return, you get an extension notice. Then months go by. You follow up. They need more information. Eventually the return gets filed in September or October and you find out what you owed six months ago. Then they are gone. No debrief. No plan for next year. No conversation about what you could do differently. Just a bill and radio silence until the cycle starts again.
"They make me pull all the reports."
Before your CPA will do anything, they need you to export data from your billing software, reclassify transactions, reconcile discrepancies, and organize bank statements. You are doing their prep work. They cannot pull the reports themselves because they have never logged into Clio, Smokeball, or whatever your firm runs on. You are paying them and doing half the job.
"They have never saved me a single dollar."
No mid-year strategy call. No 'here is what we should do before December to reduce your liability.' No deduction they found that you missed. No restructuring suggestion. Just a return and a bill. You expected a tax advisor. You got a data entry service that blames you when the numbers are off.
This is what a real CPA relationship looks like.
You should not have to manage your accountant. You should not have to explain your industry every April. Here is the difference between what you have now and what is possible.
Your current CPA
The tax bill is always a surprise
No quarterly estimates based on real numbers. No mid-year projections. You find out what you owe when the return is done. By then it is too late to do anything about it.
They file an extension and disappear
April comes. You get an extension notice instead of a return. Months of silence. The return eventually files in September. Then they vanish until next March and the cycle restarts.
You pull all the reports for them
Before they touch anything, they need you to export data, reclassify transactions, and reconcile bank statements. You are doing their prep work because they cannot log into your software.
Treats your firm like a generic business
Same chart of accounts as a plumbing company. No understanding of trust liabilities, earned vs. unearned revenue, or how contingency fees hit the books.
Blames your team, charges you to fix it
They tell you the books are wrong, then charge you to reclassify the very transactions they should have been managing. Every conversation is a lecture about what your staff did wrong.
Lancaster CPA
You know what you owe all year long
We calculate quarterly estimated payments from your actual financial performance. Tax reserves are set aside as you bill. The April number is never a surprise because you planned for it every quarter.
Filed on time. Every time.
No extensions. No excuses. We maintained the books all year. The return reflects reality. It is filed by the deadline because it was ready well before the deadline.
We pull our own reports because we work in your software
Clio, Smokeball, LeanLaw, MyCase, Filevine. We pull data directly from your billing system. No exports, no middlemen, no asking you to do our job.
Built exclusively for law firms
Trust account administration, IOLTA compliance, revenue recognition for retainers and contingency fees. Every process is designed for how your firm actually operates.
We own the process end to end
We maintain the books, reconcile the accounts, and catch errors before they compound. You do not get a bill to fix what we were supposed to be managing.
Your CPA cannot help you if they cannot use your software.
This is the single biggest reason law firms get bad accounting. The practice management system is where revenue starts, where trust accounting lives, and where billable expense data originates. A CPA who cannot work inside that system is guessing. We are not guessing.
75% of law firms under $10M revenue run on one of five platforms. If your firm is in that 75%, we already know your system. If you are in the other 25%, we will tell you upfront.
We reconcile trust activity from the source
Not from a spreadsheet your staff exported. From the actual trust ledger inside your billing software.
We catch unbilled expenses before they become losses
Filing fees, expert costs, and research charges tagged to the wrong matter or never billed at all. We find them because we can see them.
We integrate billing data into your financials
Realization rates, collection rates, revenue by attorney and practice area. Data that lives in your billing system flows into financial reporting that drives real decisions.
We fix integration issues between platforms
Software stacks that claim to integrate but do not. Data that pushes to QuickBooks incorrectly. We know how these platforms actually talk to each other because we work in them every day.
A CPA should pay for itself.
Your last CPA cost you money. We make you money.
When your CPA knows your software, they find billable expenses that walked out the door. When they plan ahead, they reduce your tax liability before year end instead of reporting on it after. When they maintain clean books all year, you avoid reclassification fees, penalties, and the hidden cost of a managing partner spending 10 hours a week playing accountant.
That is not a soft benefit. That is your revenue. And now it is going back into the firm instead of disappearing into an undiscovered accounting problem or a wasted decision made in the dark.
You will know exactly what you are paying for.
Bookkeeping, tax planning, and tax preparation. All included.
Our engagements with law firms typically range between:
depending on firm size, practice type, and whether money movement is included. Following our first call, we build a quote specific to your firm.
- ✓Monthly bookkeeping
- ✓Trust account administration
- ✓Year-round tax planning
- ✓Tax return preparation
- ✓Quarterly estimates
- ✓Compliance oversight
- ✓Dedicated CPA team
- ✓Monthly review meetings
"The accuracy of Knight's and his team's work has been outstanding and is a huge improvement over our previous approach. Knight has enabled us to focus more on the legal work we want to be doing and essentially outsourcing what used to be accounting and financial headaches."