SERVICES

All professional services rendered by the firm are subject to strict quality control standards. All work products and deliverables are reviewed by (and in many cases prepared by) CPA’s licensed in the state of Louisiana. The firm is properly licensed by the Louisiana State Board of CPA’s, and all of our CPA staff is required to abide by the State Board Rules and the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. We take client privacy seriously and have invested heavily in technology security and monitoring.

We believe that the value we are able to deliver to our clients should outweigh the price paid for the service. Be it individual tax preparation and planning or business tax consulting and structuring, or years of experience coupled with extensive training will cost less than the value we deliver. We will not take on engagements where we cannot deliver value.

Responsiveness is key. We are evolving our practice to reduce wait times and we are committed to delivering timely financial reporting. We believe decision makers need up to date correct financial information and we see it as our role facilitate this process for your business and family.

You may have noticed on our Home Page links to “remote support.” This is the link we use to establish a secure connection to our client’s computer desktop so we can provide support to our clients who are trying to accomplish accounting tasks. Many times our clients require assistance in setting up items in the various modules in QuickBooks. We use this support portal to securely view our’s client’s PC desktop and help answer their questions on the front end.

Also on our Home Page – you will notice the “Client Login” area. Our clients use this portal to share information with us securely. Consider this your vault to store important documents, such as tax returns, personal and business financial statements, your will, etc. We can upload files to it for your use and download and so can our clients.

Michael D. Bergeron, CPA, CVA is an experienced business valuation expert qualified in Federal and Louisiana district court. He has offered services to numerous businesses and individuals in litigation, business sale/purchase/mergers, shareholder disputes, fairness opinions, business damage claims, etc. What is true, what is fair and what is right, considering all relevant facts and circumstances – that is the cornerstone upon Mr. Bergeron has built his valuation practice. Mr. Bergeron uses techniques that are generally accepted in the business valuation industry. He follows the standards promulgated by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts in the development of his opinions and calculations and in the development of his written reports. He is an effective witness, communicating in clear, concise answers.

This is a unique service we began offering in 2005. What we realized was that many small businesses were using QuickBooks, but not many businesses had the budget to hire a degreed accountant. We came up with a solution whereby we take our client’s QuickBooks file, store it on our server. We didn’t know it at the time, but we began cloud computing before the term “cloud” had been coined.

Our clients have access to their file from their office desktop. We process transactions (some or all of them) – and with degreed accountants handling the data entry – our clients always have materially accurate financial information. The data is backed up every night, so data security is our problem. We review our clients’ financial performance and condition regularly without the need to scrub the data for mis-postings and errors. The clients we have on the service love it.

Think about what the traditional model was. You handle the data entry – usually in QuickBooks or Peachtree or Business Works, etc. You need to produce a financial statement – for whatever reason – for investors, the bank, etc. – so what do you do? You hall the data over to the CPA office. He calls back and asks for back-up on bank accounts, accounts receivable, accounts payable, loan balances, etc. You hall that stuff over in another trip. He works the file for a period of time, then a couple of days/weeks/months later, you have your financial statement. MB+CO’s cloud service process eliminates the whole lag time. What used to take days/weeks/months now can be accomplished in minutes.

It is good business practice to engage the services of a certified public accountant to prepare financial statements for your business. As CPAs, our firm can prepare financial statements with a compilation report, review report or audit report thereon. Business and lending requirements needs typically dictate what type of service level is most appropriate for your organization.

Our office prepares tax returns for individuals, businesses, trusts and non-profit entities. Along with the experience garnered from years and years of experience, we use sophisticated software and quality control techniques that assure your returns are prepared in accordance with IRS and other taxing authority rules and regulations. We are an authorized e-file service provider. Upon completion of your return, we return all of your source documents and upload your returns to our client portal in electronic form. Your folder will contain your important tax documents and other information you chose to store.

One of the most valuable services we offer our clients is tax planning services. We get to know all of our clients, their needs and their goals and work with our clients to find business solutions that result in tax minimization. Our goal is to help our clients pay the legal lowest amount of income tax.

To charge sales tax or not to charge sales tax. That’s a question we get a lot. Because of our proximity to the outer continental shelf, sales taxability of several transactions is a big question. Over the years, we have consulted with our clients (and gone through quite few sales tax audits) on numerous transactions to determine sales or use tax applicability.

As CPAs, we are authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS (and other taxing authorities). In these cases, we meet and correspond with IRS on your behalf to defend your position.

Contemplating a new business or expansion? Investing in new equipment or business lines/services? Our office has extensive experience in preparing prospective financial statements that incorporate assumptions regarding revenues, costs and financing options. Businesses fail more often than not because they fail to plan.

Our office consults with Governmental entities and other NPO’s that enter into cooperative endeavors to spend public funds on large-scale contracts. We review the contracts and cooperative endeavor agreements and determine a record keeping regime and design a cost record keeping regime necessary to document the proper spending of public funds. We consult with respect to proper financial reporting and disclosure of these agreements. We help simplify the billing and collection process to collect cost recovery under the terms of the contracts, which sometimes come from several sources, each with their own unique reporting requirements.

Real Estate Title Insurance and Settlement companies were required to implement policies and procedures to demonstrate their compliance with Best Practices as promulgated by the American Land Title Association (ALTA). MB+CO tailored a service for Title Issuance and Settlement firms to demonstrate their compliance with the ALTA Best Practices Framework. Our reports have been accepted by lenders and Title underwriters. MB+CO is a member of ALTA.