A boutique accounting experience with a major financial impact
Services
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Personal Accounting & Tax Prep
Let us help you minimize your tax bill with some smart planning that will leave more money in your pocket.
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Business Accounting & Tax Prep
Our firm specializes in helping corporations of all sizes to manage and minimize federal and state tax risks and liabilities.
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Partnership Accounting & Tax Prep
Partnerships can lead to some of the most complicated accounting and tax return situations. We can help you navigate, prepare and file your partnerships with ease.
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Financial Compilations & Reviews
Whether you’re starting a new business or are in need of a financial statement, our team can provide you with the documents needed to meet your financial goals.
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Bookkeeping & Payroll Services
Our experienced bookkeepers and accountants can take care of your payroll and financial tasks so you can focus on running your business.
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Monthly, Quarterly & Year End Services
We offer a variety of bookkeeping, payroll, L&I, B&O and other services that can be customized to fit your business’ specific ongoing needs.
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Catching Up on Back Taxes
Regardless of the reason, if you haven’t filed your taxes in some time, we’d be happy to take the stress off your plate and help you catch up.
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Quickbooks Set Up, Clean Up, & Consultations
Whether you need a Quickbooks renovation or are taking your spreadsheets to the next level, we’ll get your accounting into shape.
"Sherwood and Co has been preparing our taxes and providing our chiropractic business sound tax and business advice since 2001. Their staff is professional, always up to date, and always responsive to the specific needs of our industry, office, and individual financial fitness and responsibilities. They have always treated us like their own family. We look forward the next 20 years of our relationship. Thank you Sherwood and Co!"
— TIFFANY & JOHN TANASSE, TANASSE CHIROPRACTIC
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Introductions.
We’d love to get to know all about you, your business and your financial wants and needs while you’re welcome to dive into as much as you’d like about our service processes, accounting and tax prep background and boutique-style client experience.
What to expect
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Personalized plan.
Once we’ve gathered information about your wishlist and financial needs, we’ll compile a personalized plan for getting your tax prep, accounting, payroll, bookkeeping and any other services that we think could be beneficial to you.
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Paperwork made easy.
Whether you prefer a fully online client portal or a pen-and-ink, linen folder approach, we’ll offer you a step-by-step plan for gathering any information we’ll need from you each tax or accounting-service period.
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Sit back and relax.
No matter if you’re using our monthly, quarterly, annual or one-time services, we’ll make sure to take care of your tax, accounting and/or financial needs with minimal effort on your behalf. Choose to be as involved or laid back as you prefer and let us do your heavy lifting.
FAQs
General FAQs
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With decades worth of accounting and tax preparation experience, we’re capable of identifying even the most nuanced tax planning opportunities. From our experience, we find that our accounting and tax preparation clients tend to walk away with a much larger tax refund or a much smaller amount of tax due than they did when they used self-serve services in prior years.
Ultimately, we also only aim to work with clients who we believe will honestly benefit from our services, which is what out initial assessment is for. We’re always happy to refer our prospective clients to self-serve systems or other well-recommended, local CPA firms if we believe they might be a better fit for their needs, especially if we don’t believe our services would benefit them financially, or if they’re seeking a service that we don’t specialize in ourselves. -
It depends on your needs and priorities. If you would simply rather not worry about preparing and filing your tax return, then paying to have a CPA firm take care of this for you may be ideal for you.
If you’re more concerned about cost, then you can rest assured that we ultimately only want to add value to your financial and tax situation, and we are not at all opposed to telling you that we simply may not be able to offer you enough value for the cost of our services. We are very happy to be as transparent as possible about this, and we will oftentimes refer our prospective clients to self-serve systems, especially if we believe our fee would outweigh any benefit that we could offer them.
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Our secure, online client portal offers our clients a checklist of the exact documents we’ll need from them in order to complete their annual tax return. This checklist caters specifically to their unique tax situation and sends automated notifications, letting clients know what documents we’ll still need from them in order to complete their tax returns.
Within this portal, we also have a downloadable or fillable-PDF tax organizer available for those who prefer it, as well as easy-upload (from a computer, phone or tablet) document storage that allows our clients to see exactly which documents we’ve already received, and which documents we still need in order to complete their annual tax returns.
Please see this blog post, which outlines the typical tax documents needed to prepare and file your annual individual tax return.
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Yes! While our focus is on corporate tax prep and accounting, we very much value and love working with our personal clients! We would love to help you with your annual tax filing or bookkeeping needs, whether you have multiple properties, a unique family arrangement or you’d just like to not worry about the technicalities of filing each year. With our decades worth of tax preparation experience and strategic financial planning, we’re equipped to handle all kinds of individual tax situations, no matter how complex or straightforward they may be.
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Yes! In fact, while it seems counterintuitive to look forward to filing numerous years’ tax returns all at once, these have oftentimes been our favorite projects - it’s always incredibly satisfying to get so many years completed and off of someone’s shoulders all at once. We know this can be an emotional experience, and we’re more than happy to do whatever we can to take this off of your plate.
We also know how daunting the task of collecting all of your past years’ tax documents can be, and we strive to make the process of preparing and filing your past-due tax returns as easy, painless, and stress-free as possible.
We also want to assure you of a few things, to hopefully ease your mind:
You’re not a bad person! Regardless of the circumstances, we know this situation oftentimes comes with a lot of shame and guilt. Please be assured that we’ve seen numerous reasons why this has happened for others, and we have yet to feel anything but empathy for anyone in this situation.
You aren’t alone! This happens way more often than you might think. Whether you had a difficult spousal conflict, were generally overwhelmed with illness or life, were avoiding filing out of fear of paying taxes, struggled to find a CPA firm who would work with your unique situation, or simply didn’t realize you had a filing requirement, this happens all the time for all kinds of reasons (and it’ll be okay!).
One step at a time! While it may feel anywhere between mildly discomforting to absolutely terrifying, by simply beginning this process, you’re taking a step toward putting this guilt and stress behind you.
You have an accountability partner. We’ll assist you with routine check-ins, IRS transcript request forms, IRS communications, preparation and filing of your past-due tax returns, and the emotional relief of knowing that someone else is taking care of this with and for you.
You may owe less than you think. Included in our services are our tax planning consultations in order to ensure that you aren’t paying more in taxes than is necessary.
IRS payment plans are available. Depending on how much you may end up owing after your past-due tax returns are filed, there may be a surprising amount of flexibility with what the IRS is willing to offer in terms of payment plans.
Additional resources. Depending on how much you will owe, we’ll be happy to connect you with another CPA firm that specializes in negotiating and advocating with the IRS on behalf of our clients in order to make the next step of paying overdue taxes as painless as possible.
Going on Extension
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If you need your return filed quickly for special circumstances like purchasing a home, we will ensure that your return is filed as soon as possible, and yes, this might mean by April 15th or even earlier.
While tax returns may still be filed before April 15th, it is standard practice for our firm (as well as most CPA firms) to place our clients’ tax returns on extension each year so that we are able to spend enough time on each and every tax return to ensure quality work and a personalized experience for our clients.
Once your tax return is placed on extension for the year, we will begin working on it in the order your tax documents were received and it will be filed anytime between mid-April and mid-October (for individuals and C Corporations) or anytime between mid-March and mid-September (for passthrough entities).
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Not at all! The IRS does not penalize you for going on extension.
For those individuals who may owe tax on the April 15th payment deadline, we offer tax estimate assessments to ensure that any estimated tax is paid on time in order to avoid any late payment penalties or fees.
Going on extension benefits both yourself as well as our company, as it offers additional time for you to gather any tax documents that you may need throughout the year, while also offering us additional time to even out our workflow in order to offer the highest quality service to our clients throughout the year.
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Our top priorities for our clients are: one, the highest quality work possible to ensure we aren’t leaving money on the table for you and, two, a personalized experience where you will be able to personally connect and consult with your tax accountant throughout the year. We strive for a highly personable, boutique-style client experience.
We put the vast majority of our clients on extension in order for us to ensure that these values are upheld. While we of course work as diligently and quickly as possible while still maintaining high quality work, we don’t prioritize a quick turnover for returns.
We understand that these values may not align with everyone! If you value a quick return, we may not be the best CPA firm for your needs and we would be happy to refer you to one of the other wonderful CPA firms in the Olympia area who may be better suited to accomplish that with you.
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We aim to work on all tax returns based on when we receive their tax documents. Thus, if you’re able to bring us your completed tax documents as early as possible, your tax return will go out sooner. The earlier in January that you’re able to bring your information and documents in, the better! Most of our clients tend to bring in their documents throughout February and March.
Pricing
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For 1040 Individual clients with one to two W-2s, and minimal interest income from a bank savings account (for instance), our fee starts at $450.
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Because tax returns are each as unique as the person, business, etc. who needs them, it’s nearly impossible to create a one-size-fits-all price.
However, our fees do tend to follow a trend, so typically, you may expect to pay the following for our services*:
1040 Individual Tax Returns: $600-$1,200
1120-S, 1065, and 1120 Annual Corporate or Partnership Tax Returns: $1,400-$2,600
1041 Trust or Estate Tax Returns: $900-$1,600
1120-H HOA Tax Returns: $250-$500
709 Gift Tax Returns: $400-$1,200
*Please note: these numbers represent our typical fees for Sherwood & Co, PS.’s services, and are not accurate one-size-fits-all estimates. These prices also do not include how much you may owe in federal or state taxes due to the IRS.
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Sherwood & Co, PS. offers financial compilation and/or review services for businesses that require these documents in order to qualify for financing, bonding, or insurance purposes.
Our typical fees for financial compilation and/or reviews are anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000.
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Bookkeeping services, including monthly or quarterly bank reconciliations, quarterly Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow reports, and preparation and filing city and/or state DOR reports are all priced separately from our corporate and partnership annual tax returns.
Our fees for bookkeeping and DOR filing services typically range from $200-$1,000+ per month, depending on the number of bank and/or credit card accounts, monthly transactions, outstanding loans, and required DOR filing frequency.
Businesses that only require quarterly DOR filings typically pay our minimum fee of $200 per quarter.
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Payroll services, including running employee payroll, paying 941 deposits, preparing and filing 940 and 941 Forms, W-2s and W-3 Forms, L&I, ESD, PFML, Washington Cares Act filings, 1099 Forms, and other regular monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll flings, are all priced separately from our annual tax returns.
Our fees for these services typically range from $150 per month to $800 per month, depending on the number of employees, deposit and filing frequency, etc.
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Sherwood & Co, PS. will oftentimes offer either Quickbooks Online set up, clean up, and/or consultation services to those who need help with their business’s bookkeeping and/or payroll needs.
Typically, you may expect to pay the following for our Quickbooks Online services:
Quickbooks Set Up: $300-$1,000
Quickbooks Clean Up: $500-$2,000 per year
Quickbooks Training & Consultations: $100/hr for phone, video, or in person meetings; emailed questions are typically offered as a complimentary service for our regular clients