Our Services

Your business is your passion – and seeing you achieve success is ours. Our business consulting services are rooted in our belief in Performance Accounting, meaning your accounting should work for you, uncovering information that can help you identify areas to focus on for growth, efficiencies, and enhanced service for your customers.

You may even be looking for something intangible, such as a strategy to spend more time with family, or support your favorite charity. Perhaps your goal is to create an employee incentive plan, offer partnership to a key employee, or ensure that your employees have the best possible benefits. Regardless, we’ll help you articulate and quantify what you’re hoping to achieve, and create a practical action plan to get you there.

With this plan in hand, you have the power to shape your business and chart the visionary course for your future – inside and outside of the business. Because we’ll meet regularly, progress is tracked, knowledge is shared, roadblocks are removed, and you have the information you need (and know how to use it) to make good decisions.

Rackers & Fernandez has the experience to support businesses at all stages of a business’s lifecycle, from launching a new business, to managing growth and establishing a succession plan.

QuickBooks probably isn’t your area of expertise, but the great news is that for Rackers & Fernandez, it is! We have Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on staff who are ready and available to address all of your QuickBooks needs, from setting up and providing support for the software itself, to helping you maximize your use of the program. There are many things we can do to help:

• Setup – the goal of your accounting should be that it performs for you. To ensure this performance, it is critical that your QuickBooks program is set up properly so that we can get comprehensive, accurate information that will help you run your business. A Rackers & Fernandez QuickBooks ProAdvisor will help you with creating your company file, and provide training for using the software to meet your needs and goals.
• Review & Analysis – if your QuickBooks system is already set up, but have questions or concerns, we can perform an assessment outlining areas of inefficiency and recommend solutions. And because our goal is to be with you throughout the year, not just at tax time, we’ll perform periodic reviews throughout the year to simplify year-end closing, preparation of financial statements, tax planning and preparation.
• Job Costing & Budgeting – QuickBooks allows for detailed reporting to help you track these items. Are you leveraging these features in an accurate and efficient way? We’ll help you set up meaningful reports to compare budgets versus actual expenses to help you keep your finger on the pulse of your business.
• Payroll Selection & Setup – Payroll can be an intimidating process where simple mistakes can lead to costly messes. Whether you run payroll in-house or use an outside service, we can help you to ensure the amounts for salaries and taxes are set up and recorded properly.
• Customization – to reiterate, the goal of your accounting is that it performs for you. We realize that each business is unique, and can different sets of challenges and goals. That’s why it can be important to consider customization of your QuickBooks to help you monitor your business in a way that’s meaningful to you. Features, dashboards and reports can all be customized, and Rackers & Fernandez can help you determine what your customization needs are, and execute the work on your behalf.
• Conversion, Imports and Exports – perhaps you’re switching to QuickBooks from another software and need to get the existing data into the system. It may seem like a daunting task, but Rackers & Fernandez can help. We’ll create your QuickBooks file from another program, help you set up reports, export information to Microsoft Excel, create customized letters and mail merges with Microsoft Word, and more.
• Training & Support – Our Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors are always available to assist you with the software, as well as your related accounting and payroll needs – all year long. We offer both one-on-one training and group sessions to help you stay up-to-date on best practices for the software.

The annual culmination of your business’s performance happens each year at tax time, but it starts with efficient, ongoing planning throughout the year. There are many things that impact your tax returns, and many decisions to be made that can affect your taxable income. The Rackers & Fernandez team is with you through all of those decisions, providing forecasts, weighing the pros and cons, and proposing solutions to minimize your exposure where possible. This is at the heart of our performance accounting model. Our offering of tax services includes:

• Ongoing review and analysis of financial statements for planning purposes
• Identification of tax saving measures
• Tax return preparation
• Advocacy and liaison with the IRS and other tax entities
• Estate and gift tax planning (LLCs, FLPs)
• Stock option planning
• And more!

When tax time does roll around, we make the process of preparing for and filing your tax returns as seamless as possible. Our online portal is accessible 24/7, and contains all of the information you need to fill out, submit and review for your convenience.

Many of our clients, at some time in their business life cycle, consider investing in real estate. Whether it’s a commercial space for the own business, or to rent to others, or even a second home or collection of rental properties, there are decisions to be made and tax implications to consider. There are several things we’ll help clients analyze as they ponder the purchase of commercial or residential real estate:

1. Is there a tax benefit, or even a cost savings, involved if the purchase is made?
2. What is the potential return on investment, and would that return be greater if the money was invested elsewhere?
3. What are the risks involved?
4. If the property is for rental purposes, how much rent must be charged and is that amount in line with what the market will bear?

Performing this analysis and putting together forecasts under various scenarios helps to take the emotion out of the decision, and allows the client to make a fully informed choice.

Your bank plays an important role in the financial health of your company. As such, it’s necessary to evaluate what services you can, and should, access from your bank. Just like your accounting in general, your bank should be working for you, giving you the information, products, and convenience you need. Rackers & Fernandez will help you determine things like:

• Whether you need a line of credit, and if so, in what amount
• How to choose the best lender for capital equipment
• Providing advice on how to structure loans
• How to evaluate the effectiveness of your banking relationship
• And more!

Ongoing accounting is the foundation of performance accounting for your business. You can trust Rackers & Fernandez with these tasks, which can be time consuming and complicated, so that you can focus on your business. Imagine having quality, detailed financial reports that help you make educated decisions. Think of a world in which you know exactly what you’re looking at in these reports, receive feedback and analysis from our team, and can spot challenges and opportunities to quickly address them. That’s your accounting at work for you!

Our performance accounting services include:

• Financial literacy training … to help you cultivate your financial acumen and truly understand the data and what it means to your business
• Cash flow projections … to forecast your cash position on an ongoing basis, and address any cash flow challenges you may encounter
• Ratio analysis … to help you assess your company’s overall financial and operational performance in key areas such as efficiency, liquidity, profitability and solvency
• Management scorecards … to help you identify your performance measures and determine your progress towards your goals.

Clients are provided with a secure online platform that allows instant, 24 hour access to your documents so that you can view your most up-to-date financial information at any time.

Because Rackers & Fernandez helps clients succeed by taking all aspects of their financial lives into consideration, we routinely assist clients by performing a third-party review of their financial plan. While we don’t manage money or sell investments, we do provide objective advice on key areas related to a client’s portfolio and financial plan that their advisors may not be considering:

1. Based on income and tax position, how much can and should the client be saving?
2. Does the business have value, and if so, how can it figure into the overall financial plan?
3. Is the portfolio structured in a way as to minimize taxes – today and at the time of distribution?
4. What should the client’s distribution strategy in retirement be?

When it comes to legacy planning, many clients are concerned about how to structure their estate, as well as when and how the money can be accessed by their heirs. We’ll help them determine what their goals and desires are for their estate, and provide the financial information they’ll need when meeting with their estate attorney.

Today, we’re in an age where a large transfer of wealth from one generation (Baby Boomers) to the next (their heirs) is underway. With that in mind, there are many strategies and tax implications that should be considered when planning for the establishment of trusts, especially where a business owner is concerned.

That process can begin with Rackers & Fernandez. If you’re planning to meet with an attorney, we will arm them with the comprehensive financial information they’ll need to prepare an appropriate plan to meet the client’s wishes.

If you’re the beneficiary, we’ll help you identify which returns you’ll need to file, if any, and calculate what your tax exposure may be.