Services Provided by SMC

Traditional Services

Audited, Reviewed or Compiled Financial Statements

This is oftentimes referred to as the "attest" function. Creditors or investors will request that we either audit or review a company's financial statements and render a report (attest) as to their fairness and their conformity with generally accepted accounting principles. Note, no level of assurance is given to the user if the financial statements are simply compiled by the CPA.

This is what we do. We attest. We give assurances to third party users of a client's financial statements that they can rely on those financial statements for lending or investing decisions.

How good are we at this attest function? Well, we undergo a "peer review" conducted by representatives of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants every three years. Since we entered the peer review program back in the 1980s, we have always received an unqualified report with no letters of comment. This is a matter of public record and should be very important to you, whether it is your financial statements we are auditing or reviewing, or you are a user of our audits or reviews.

Accounting

We have an Accounting Services Department that handles monthly, quarterly or annual accounting and reporting of small businesses. It processes all of a company's accounting transactions, reconciles the bank accounts and prepares non-disclosure compiled financial statements. At the same time, it processes the quarterly and annual payroll returns, annual information returns, as well as sales tax returns, business property statements, business license renewal forms, workers' compensation reports and various other business reports.

The personnel in this department are also knowledgeable in various small business accounting software (Quickbooks, Peachtree, etc). This allows them to help clients set up their books using these programs, and we train the client's staff in their use.

Taxes

There are two distinct elements of client service in the area of taxation. There is the compliance element - the filing of tax returns and other documents with the appropriate governmental agencies and responding to their inquiries, and the planning element - succession, retirement, estate, financial, investment and transactional planning, as well as annual income tax planning. The planning element of tax services will be covered in the "nontraditional' services section.

The compliance element is often overlooked as a value-added service. The timely filing of a tax return is important from a penalty standpoint, but it also allows the statute of limitations to begin for that return. Timely filed elections are mandated by law; miss the date, miss the election. Prompt responses to all government notices can preclude lengthy, recurring and drawn-out communications.