Frequently asked questions.
What Managed Accounting includes, how to get started, how scope and pricing work, and how AnchorPoint works with your CPA.
Services and fit
Do you provide Managed Accounting?
Yes. Managed Accounting is AnchorPoint's core recurring service: monthly bookkeeping and accounting, balance sheet review, and a disciplined month-end close under one accountable relationship. Cleanup and implementation are separate projects and can be engaged on their own.
What does Managed Accounting include?
Depending on the agreed scope: transaction review and categorization, bank and credit card reconciliation, balance sheet reconciliation and review, loan and liability tracking, payroll and payroll liability review, month-end close, preparation of financial statements, review for unusual or unresolved balances, owner reporting, and coordination with your CPA. Scope is defined per engagement and written down before work begins, so not every function is part of every engagement. The Managed Accounting page covers this in detail.
How is this different from a basic bookkeeping service?
The difference is the close. Monthly bookkeeping is included, and alongside categorizing transactions and reconciling the bank, AnchorPoint reconciles the loan, payroll liability, and sales tax accounts within the agreed scope, reviews the balance sheet every period, documents open items, and confirms the close in writing. That is what makes the financial statements dependable rather than merely current.
Do you handle accounts payable or payroll?
Both are available as coordination capabilities alongside Managed Accounting, not automatically included. AP Coordination covers bill intake, coding, approval routing, and AP aging, with you retaining final payment approval. Payroll Coordination covers reviewing registers and reconciling payroll liabilities, with your payroll provider running payroll and you retaining employer responsibility.
Are you a fractional CFO or advisory firm?
No. AnchorPoint keeps the books, closes the month, and produces reliable financial statements. It does not provide fractional CFO services, formal financial advisory, or assurance work.
Are you a CPA firm?
No. AnchorPoint is an outsourced accounting firm. Stewart Gotlieb holds a Master of Tax Accounting and is an Intuit Certified Bookkeeper and QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, but he is not a licensed CPA and AnchorPoint does not provide audit or assurance services.
Do you work only with certain industries?
No. AnchorPoint works with established small businesses across a range of industries: professional services, contractors and trades, owner-operated businesses, and businesses running several connected systems. What matters more than industry is whether the business needs a disciplined monthly close and has the complexity to justify it.
Do you work with QuickBooks Online?
Yes. QuickBooks Online is the platform AnchorPoint works in, and Stewart is a QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor.
Can you move us from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online?
Yes. Migration is part of Implementation: planning, review of the Desktop file, QuickBooks Online setup, account mapping, conversion, validation of balances after conversion, post-conversion cleanup, and workflow transition. Details are on the Implementation page.
Getting started
Can you clean up existing books?
Yes. Cleanup and remediation is a real capability: unreconciled accounts, historical inconsistencies, balance sheet problems, duplicate or missing transactions, incorrect classifications, opening balance problems, and preparing a file for CPA handoff. See the cleanup page.
Do I need a cleanup before starting monthly service?
It depends on the condition of the books. If they are in reasonable condition, Managed Accounting can start directly. Cleanup is needed when the historical record has problems that would make the monthly numbers unreliable, and when that is the case you will be told specifically what needs to be resolved and why.
Do I have to buy a paid review or diagnostic first?
No. Engagements start with a conversation. After engagement and system access, AnchorPoint reviews the accounting environment as part of onboarding. The only exception is a cleanup project whose size cannot be estimated responsibly from the outside, where a focused look at the file may be proposed before a cleanup quote is given.
How quickly can we start?
It depends on the condition of the books and current capacity. You will get a realistic start date during scoping rather than a generic promise. Monthly service usually begins with a specific month as the first close, and that month is agreed in advance.
What information will you need from us?
Access to QuickBooks Online with appropriate permissions, bank and credit card statements for the periods involved, payroll reports, loan statements, sales tax filings if applicable, and the name of your CPA or tax preparer. Anything else is requested as it comes up.
What happens if you find problems after onboarding?
You hear about them, in writing, with an explanation of what it would take to resolve them and what happens if they are left alone. Some issues get corrected inside the normal monthly work. Larger ones are scoped as separate cleanup work, with your approval before anything starts.
Is the initial conversation a sales call?
It is a conversation about your books and what you need. You will learn what monthly service would cover, what the starting point would be, and what it would cost to run.
Scope and pricing
How do you price Managed Accounting?
Managed Accounting is priced as a customized fixed monthly fee based on transaction volume, number of accounts, payroll, reporting requirements, and overall accounting complexity. Scope and price are confirmed in writing before work begins. There is no single package every client is fitted into, and cleanup or implementation projects are quoted separately from the recurring service.
Can you handle payroll?
AnchorPoint does not process payroll. As part of Payroll Coordination it reviews payroll registers, maintains accounting mappings, and reconciles payroll liability accounts against reports and filings. Your payroll provider runs payroll, and you retain employer responsibility and funding approval.
Do you prepare taxes?
No. AnchorPoint does not prepare or file tax returns. That work stays with your CPA or tax preparer, and AnchorPoint's job is to hand them books that tie out.
Do you work with businesses outside Birmingham?
Yes. AnchorPoint is based in Birmingham, Alabama and works with businesses across the state and the country. Work is performed remotely through secure system access, with in-person meetings available in the Birmingham area.
Working together
Do you work with my CPA?
Yes, and it is a normal part of the service. AnchorPoint answers CPA questions during the year, matches liabilities to filings, and delivers year-end information from a closed and confirmed period. AnchorPoint works alongside your CPA rather than in place of one.
Do you work with CPA firms directly?
Yes. Some CPA firms refer clients who need the bookkeeping handled or cleaned up before tax work, and some engage AnchorPoint on a subcontract basis so the engagement stays in the firm's name. Details are on the referral partners page.
What decisions stay with me?
All of them that belong to management. AnchorPoint runs the accounting process and coordinates the financial operations within the agreed scope. You keep approval and release of payments, payroll approval and funding, business decisions, and tax positions taken with your CPA.
Is Managed Accounting a temporary arrangement?
No. It is built as the ongoing way the monthly bookkeeping and close get done, an alternative to building and managing an internal accounting team, and the scope grows with the business. Engagement terms are set out in writing before work begins.
Question not answered here?
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