Always a flat fee, quoted upfront. We don't track time and we don't bill by the hour. You know the number before we start, it's written into your engagement letter, and it doesn't change unless your business changes in a way that materially affects scope.

Hourly billing creates the wrong incentive - a firm that bills by the hour gets paid more the slower it works. Fixed fees mean we're aligned with you: the goal is great service, not more billable hours.

Everything. The bundle includes your business tax return, your personal tax return, and two tax planning sessions per year - one in summer to review year-to-date and one in fall to make moves before December 31. Year-round access to ask questions is also included.

The logic is simple: by April, every real tax-saving decision has already passed. The planning sessions are where the work actually happens - retirement contributions, entity structure, depreciation elections, reasonable comp for S-Corps. Filing the return is just the paperwork at the end.

That's a flat $1,750 for the business return. No monthly fee, no subscription - just a clean scope for the return. This is a fit for owners who already have solid bookkeeping, know their numbers well, and aren't looking for year-round planning support.

If you're not sure which fits better, the price estimator above will help you think it through.

It depends on where your books stand when we start. If your QuickBooks is current and reconciled, we can typically roll right in at the monthly rate. If there's catch-up work - months of unreconciled transactions, missing accounts, prior returns to review - we'll quote a one-time cleanup fee before monthly service begins.

We'll always tell you that number before you commit to anything.

Your fee is fixed for the scope we agreed on. If your business grows - more employees, a new entity, a second location, significantly more transaction volume - we'll revisit pricing and discuss it with you before making any changes. Nothing changes silently. Your engagement letter spells out exactly what triggers a scope review.

Bookkeeping starts at $350/month. Where you land depends on how many accounts you have, transaction volume, cash vs accrual basis, and whether you have sales tax requirements.

The price estimator above will give you a specific number based on your actual situation - no phone call required.

Every month you get reconciled books, categorized transactions, and a clean set of financials - P&L and balance sheet. If something looks off or unusual shows up, we flag it. QuickBooks Online is the platform we work in, and we'll set it up or clean it up as part of onboarding.

Sales tax filing and payroll are available as add-ons.

Bookkeeping is the ongoing monthly work - reconciling accounts, categorizing transactions, keeping financial records accurate throughout the year. Tax prep is the once-a-year task of filing your return using those records.

They're related but separate. Good bookkeeping makes tax prep faster and cheaper. Bad bookkeeping means your CPA spends half of tax season untangling your books instead of planning - and you pay for that time one way or another.

Yes, and some clients do exactly that. If you have a bookkeeper you trust delivering clean financials, we're happy to work from those records for tax prep and planning.

The place it gets expensive is when the books come to us and they aren't actually clean - miscategorized expenses, unreconciled accounts, personal and business mixed together. At that point someone has to do the cleanup, and it usually costs more than a year of clean monthly bookkeeping would have.

Payroll has two parts: a base processing fee per run and a per-employee fee. The base fee depends on frequency:

• Weekly: $54.30 per run
• Bi-weekly: $73.38 per run
• Monthly: $91.40 per run

On top of that, each employee adds $4 per run (weekly), $6 per run (bi-weekly), or $8 per run (monthly). Year-end W-2s and W-3 filing are a separate one-time fee.

The estimator above will calculate your exact monthly payroll cost based on frequency and headcount.

Gusto is the platform we use for payroll processing, and their subscription is separate from our processing fee. We'll help you get set up on Gusto and walk you through onboarding - it's straightforward and most clients find it easy to use for things like self-onboarding new employees and viewing pay stubs.

Yes. We work with businesses across North Idaho and the Spokane / Eastern Washington corridor, and multi-state payroll compliance is something we deal with regularly. Idaho and Washington have different tax regimes - Washington has no income tax but does have state unemployment insurance and the paid leave program - and we make sure your filings are correct in both states.

The $300 preparer is doing one thing: filing your return. They're looking at your documents in February, plugging numbers into software, and sending it in. No planning, no questions about what changed this year, no suggestions for next year. That's a legitimate service - it's just not advice.

The $600/month CPA is a different product entirely. You're paying for year-round access, two planning sessions where the actual tax strategy gets built, and a return that reflects decisions you made together throughout the year. The clients who see the biggest ROI on that are the ones running S-Corps, holding real estate, or doing entity planning - those situations have real planning windows a seasonal preparer isn't positioned to help with.

The main difference is who's doing the work and how available they are. Online services typically route you through a team of staff who don't know your business - you get whoever's available. With Kane Tax, you work directly with a licensed CPA who knows your situation and can pick up the phone when something comes up.

Online services also tend to work better for simple situations - straightforward books, standard W-2 income, no complex entity structures. The moment you introduce real estate, S-Corp reasonable comp, multi-state filing, or any kind of exit planning, the value of having a CPA who actually knows your file gets a lot clearer.

For a straightforward W-2 return with no side income, probably not - TurboTax is fine for that. Where the math shifts is when you have a business, investment property, or any complexity. TurboTax asks what happened. A CPA asks what should have happened and helps you position for it.

Clients who typically see the clearest ROI: S-Corp owners (reasonable compensation and QBID alone can easily save $5K-$15K/year), real estate investors (cost segregation, depreciation, 1031 planning), and anyone growing fast enough that entity structure is starting to matter.

No - we handle transitions all the time. We'll request your prior-year return and any relevant documents from your previous preparer, get your QuickBooks access set up, and take it from there. The only mildly inconvenient part of switching mid-year is that your previous CPA handled the first part of the year, so we'll want to review that work before the return is filed. That's standard.

If you've been unhappy with your current CPA for a while, the best time to switch was last January. The second best time is now.

A construction or trades business doing $800K/year, two bank accounts, two credit cards, 200 transactions/month, and bi-weekly payroll for six employees would look something like:

• Bookkeeping: ~$545/month
• Tax planning bundle (business + personal return): $600/month
• Payroll (bi-weekly, 6 employees): ~$270/month

All-in: roughly $1,415/month for a licensed CPA handling everything - books, taxes, planning, and payroll. Compare that to a $50K/year in-house bookkeeper who still can't file your return or tell you whether to convert to an S-Corp.

A real estate investor holding three rentals in North Idaho and Eastern Washington with a property manager handling day-to-day, relatively low transaction volume, no payroll:

• Bookkeeping: ~$390/month (low volume, clean books)
• Tax planning bundle: $600/month (especially valuable for depreciation strategy, cost seg, 1031 planning)

Roughly $990/month all-in. For someone actively acquiring properties, the planning component pays for itself fast - depreciation strategy and cost segregation alone can shift cash flow meaningfully each year.

A solo or two-person service business - consultant, agency, therapist, personal trainer - with one checking account, one credit card, and 50-100 transactions a month would land right around the $350-$430/month base. No payroll, no sales tax, straightforward cash basis books.

One of the cleanest, simplest engagements we do, and the starting price reflects that.

You work directly with Collin - licensed CPA, owner of Kane Tax. Bookkeeping is handled day-to-day by our admin team, but your tax work, your planning sessions, and any questions that require professional judgment come back to Collin directly. That's the model and it doesn't change as we grow.

Use the price estimator at the top of this page to get a realistic number for your situation - no obligation. If it makes sense, the next step is a short call where we look at your specific setup, confirm scope, and get a written proposal together. Most clients are onboarded within a week of that call.

Yes. Kane Tax works with clients across North Idaho and Eastern Washington - Coeur d'Alene, Dalton Gardens, Hayden, Rathdrum, Post Falls, Harrison, Sandpoint, Moscow, Pullman, Liberty Lake, Lewiston, and Clarkston - as well as the broader Spokane corridor. We're set up to work remotely with clients across both states, and most work happens digitally through TaxDome and QuickBooks Online.

If you're an Idaho or Washington business owner looking for a CPA who actually knows the Inland Northwest market, you don't need to be in-person for this to work well.

Tax planning clients have year-round access to ask questions. A quick email about whether a purchase is deductible, whether you should elect S-Corp before year-end, or how to handle a 1099 you weren't expecting - that's what the relationship is for. We're not going to invoice you every time you send a message.

Bookkeeping-only clients without the planning bundle are welcome to reach out, and we'll give you a straight answer on simple questions. More involved work outside scope would be quoted separately.