A large share of Branch and Ledger's engagements come through CPA referrals. Not because we are a bookkeeping vendor, but because our work makes yours faster and cheaper at deadline. We handle the bookkeeping. You handle the tax. Files that used to eat weeks of year-end hours close in days.
You already know the shape. The client hired a bookkeeper who handled the easy categorization, but the parts that matter for tax are the parts they never touched. By the time the packet gets to you, half the year-end work is bookkeeping in tax clothing.
Transactions coded by rule, not by review. Guesses in expense categories. Owner personal spending mixed in with business. You have to unwind the P&L before you can trust a single line of it.
Bank recs stopped six months ago. Credit card accounts never balanced. Loan balances rolling forward with no interest split. You start every return with a reconciliation you were not scoped for.
Your prior-year adjusting entries get booked, then never followed up. Retained earnings never quite ties to the return you filed. Same conversation next March.
Vendor W-9s missing. Contractor payments miscoded across the year. 1099-NEC prep turns into a January scramble that lands on your desk instead of being handled at the source.
Draws, personal purchases, and reimbursements all running through the business account. Distributions coded as expenses. Equity nobody can explain. You end up reclassifying entries at tax-preparer rates.
You flag the same issues year after year. The bookkeeper acknowledges them and does not fix them. You end up doing bookkeeping work at tax-preparer rates because there is nobody else to do it.
Bookkeeping and tax are two different disciplines, and a good referral relationship depends on both parties respecting the split. We do not file returns, offer tax planning, or advise on tax strategy with clients. We hand off. That is the deal.
What you get in return is a bookkeeping partner who delivers files in the shape you want to receive them, with the judgment calls documented so nothing has to be guessed later.
Year-end packets go out in the shape you want to receive them. If you prefer adjusting entries pre-booked, we book them. If you prefer them flagged for your review, we flag them. The goal is that when the file arrives, the return is a return, not another round of bookkeeping.
We do not do formal fee-sharing arrangements. The relationship is that we do good work, we stay in our lane, and referrals flow both ways when they make sense. That has worked for the CPA relationships we already have, and it keeps things clean.
The one part worth flagging: every new client engagement starts with a paid diagnostic scope before we commit to cleanup or ongoing work. That protects the referral. We do not take on files we cannot actually improve, so you never refer someone into a bad fit.
We will talk about your practice, what you are seeing on small-business returns, and how a referral relationship might work. If nothing comes of it, no hard feelings. If something does, we start with one client and see how it goes.
Book a call to discuss referrals