Accountants in Baltimore?

[Sam Frank]

Hi All,

I am a little over a year into starting a company that does real estate investing and contracting work. We are trying to find a good accountant in Baltimore - it has not been easy. We have spoken to 3 different firms, and then went under retainer with one firm, who we have been disappointed with. 

The accountants we have met with don't have enough innovative strategies and/or are not proactive enough.

For instance, I learned through my own studies about a couple great tax strategies. i.e. - Depreciation on rental properties, writing off business meetings and business trips if you look at a piece of real estate. Great tips. Not one accountant that I have met with, has come to me with great strategies or knows many of these best practices in real estate. Meanwhile, I go to the local REIA events and most folks seem to know all the best accounting trade secrets for running their investment businesses.

The other thing, is I would love to be more proficient in quickbooks or if there is a better software we should be using as our business grows / if we do more rental properties (I always hear Brandon pitch a specific software product on the podcasts), then I would love to know from an accountant what that program or strategy would be. The accountant that we are working with now, showed me some best practices for quickbooks but I am by no means a savvy quickbooks user (as I would eventually like to be). Or I'd like to hire a reasonably priced accounting firm to help us get our books looking in beautiful condition.

What are other people's experiences? Any accountant referrals appreciated - I know this is likely a trade secret, but I'd be interested in interviewing some folks around town to see how they could help our business.

Cheers, Sam

[Ned Carey]

@Sam Frank most accountants are primarily ta preparers.  Even most CPAs are just higher quality tax preparers. 

It could be that you simply have an accountant that assumes you know some or most of this stuff.  Investors  need to be a little proactive themselves by asking the accountant for help.  Ask the accountant "how can you  help me save on taxes?" Ask to set up a meeting or meetings, to go over strategies and basic understanding of what is deductible. 

It is critical that you work with an accountant that understands real estate.

A general rule of thumb is "Any expense that is necessary and ordinary in the running of your business is deductible."

Unfortunately taxes and accounting are very complex.  The things you mentioned like depreciation are incredibly basic for real estate or most other businesses.

While a good CPA can teach you best strategies, paying a good CPA can be an expensive way to learn. Especially if he is teaching you basics like what is deductible. The IRS puts out  some good free publications . This link Recommended reading for small businesses is an IRS page with exactly the kind of info you are looking for. A lot of this would be basic stuff you don't want to pay an expensive accountant to learn. 

The kind of thing to pay an accountant for would be strategies like using an LLC taxes and an S Corp to save on self employment tax, renting your home to your business for up to 14 days, how to maximize depreciation though cost segregation, how to maximize expenses vs depreciating, 1031 exchanges or possibly using self directed IRAs or a self directed 401K. Some of these are so specialized and technical that even a good CPA may not be able to advise you completely on them. However if any accountant you want to work with does not know about them, run and find another accountant.

My recommendation for an accountant in the area is Jeffrey Stoller of Goodwich Stoller and Associates. (easy to find on Google) He is very knowledgeable and knows real estate extremely well.  Just as importantly he gives fantastic service. Many many investors and others in the business use him.  Three of my partners, at least one of my lenders and my main attorney work with him. I cannot recommend anyone on my team more strongly. Oh yea, he has saved me many thousands of dollars on taxes. 

Quickbooks is a pretty powerful program. However if you don't know accounting already it can have a steep learning curve. I use Quick Books myself.  I wish I had learned some of its advanced features sooner.