What advice do you have for a small business owner?

‘Running a business requires a lot of planning and good execution,’ says Shrinivas. “The key is to hire an experienced CPA and work with them throughout the year, not just when you prepare your tax return,” says Shrinivas. Your CPA can help properly classify your business so as to avoid overpaying taxes. Making financial/tax decisions without consulting an accountant or tax adviser can put you at risk and cost you more money in the long run. Working closely with your Accountant helps to track income and spending, make sure you have a good working capital, and monitor the gross and net profits of the business. Secondly, keeping thorough and accurate records throughout the year will ensure your tax return is correct. Open separate bank accounts for your business. “One of the most important reasons to have separate business accounts is that it makes recordkeeping much simpler,” says Shrinivas. In a nutshell, your business Accountant can help you plan longer- term to maximize profits and lower taxes for years to come.

What advice do you have for an individual salaried person about managing his finances and taxes?

There are many deductions, tax credits, and benefits available for Individual tax payers, and a CPA can help you navigate the 70000-page tax law to find what will maximize your tax benefits. Things to consider at the beginning of the year when planning your tax structure include how much income you expect, stock market investments, 401k contributions, and real estate sales or purchases. Sankar says “Make a checklist of all items and meet with your tax advisor to discuss how these will affect your tax plan”. Sankar explained that it’s important to choose a tax advisor carefully. “There are people out there that are promoting tax shelters, but you need to find tax laws that make sense. Authorities look for supporting documents; keep pristine records,” he says. Sankar recommends at least a quarterly visit with a tax advisor and always checking in before filing in order to avoid any last-minute tax law changes. People work hard for what they have, he says, “and you must work hard not to part with it.”

What is FBAR and to whom does it apply?

The FBAR (formerly called the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) is a report that a US citizen must file if the person possesses bank balances in non-US bank accounts.
A United States person (U.S. citizens, Green Card holders, resident aliens, and dual citizens) that has a financial interest in or signature authority over foreign financial accounts must file an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) if the aggregate value of the foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year.

Why do businesses need an Accountant? How they make a difference?

“Needless to say, the “Books ofAccounts” provides the businessmanthe much- needed inputs on how hisbusiness is performing. While this canbe maintained by the businessmanhimself, it will certainly be prudentto spend his entrepreneurial time togenerating business & profitably so asopposed to writing the booksof accounts”, says Sankar.

More often than not the accountants deal with a variety of customers, and their experience can provide valuable inputs for decision-making for the entrepreneur besides providing the “Books of Accounts” that ‘calls the spade a spade’. Accountants can quickly point out in which areas the company is gaining and where it is draining.

What services your firm offer? How your services differ with other firms?

BERGERCPAFIRST focuses on three broad areas of service, with several other sub- divisions:
Our Business Services:
Business Strategy, Tax planning / Tax preparation and Filing Tax Returns, Payroll, Book-keeping/Accounting, Sales Tax & Business Valuation, Outsourced CFO services, Forensic Audit.
Our individual Services:
Tax Returns, Finance Planning, Tax Planning.
Tax Services:
Tax Returns, International Tax, and FBAR. There are several other services which our firm is competent to offer given our long experience in the trade, but we have consciously focused on a select view, so as to offer quality service to customers. Focus has been one of the hallmarks of our existence in this domain.

In what industries are your clients? Can you provide us with one or two success stories describing the challenges your clients faced and how Berger helped them overcome those challenges?

Challenges are always there in every industry, we have given our well diversified portfolio and long existence, there isn’t any industry where we do not have our customers. To name a few, we have customers operating in Health care, Performing Arts (Including Grammy awardees), Manufacturing, Marketing companies, Advisory companies, Transportation, Wholesalers, Retailers, Traders, Cleaning Services, Investment Consultants, HNIs, Farming & Agriculture, Software development companies, Auto works, Gas stations, Restaurants, says Shrinivas.

Do you handle international clients? What services do you provide to them?

We offer financial and tax advice to companies that have both inbound-US and outbound operations. We have worked with numerous international clients who own subsidiaries in the USA. BergerCPAFirst offers a complete list of services not only in Accounting/Tax but on following areas:

• Selection of Legal Structure: Thelegal structure selection for thebusiness initially will have a greatimpact on future tax and legal Our professionalswill help you choose the legalstructure that caters to yourrequirements.
• Obtaining a Tax ID number isimportant since it has to bementioned on all importantdocuments, including returns,statements, and other tax-related We will help you apply andobtain your TIN easily.
• We will offer advice on ways tolimit your tax liability for overseas
• Our experienced consultantswill help you with payrollmanagement and sales tax

We will facilitate easy communication with the IRS, state, and local authorities

What is the secret of your firm being in practice for over 30 years?

BERGERCPAFIRST has always believed in being 200% updated, be with Tax Laws, Accounting Standards, Industry practices, Technology, Software, or hardware. Our team members do not miss out even on the smallest amendments in laws and guidelines.

We have always strived to deliver our clients what they would expect from us a couple of years later. For example, we were interacting with clients & delivering services over the ‘Cloud’ even before the arrival of COVID-induced lockdowns. In other words, for us, technology adoption was by choice as opposed to technology imposed by circumstance, says Sankar. One strong conviction with us is that ‘we should not rest on our laurels’. Various awards won by BERGERCPAFIRST & our partners have not altered our core values and belief that ‘client satisfaction’ is the ultimate award to aspire for.

We also believe in providing equal attention to all customers, irrespective of their size of operations or engagement fee. Barring the partners, none of the sixty strong team members know the fee levied on the customers, and that has helped the team provide equal importance to all without any differentiation, says Shrinivas.

Can you provide us with one or two success stories describing the challenges your clients faced and how Berger helped them overcome those challenges?

There are many, and it will be more credible when the clients narrate that. However, since some instances have been sought, we would restrict ourselves to two.

In the case of a customer who isdealing with multiple products,there were no internal controlsystems or product costing data.We guide the customer to put inplace a “product-wise costingsystem” that brings to light whatthe product economics for eachof them were. This helped the customer weed out unviable products,which turned operations profitable.

One of our clients who had a modest start, was introduced to proactive management practices quite early in their growth path. This company grew exponentially over the years and has increased revenues by a whopping 2000% over the past five years. We not only set up a Management accounting & Budgeting process in the company but also donned the role of an off-site CFO effectively playing a supervisory role on most of their financial functions. While the mobilization of business should be credited to the promoters of the company, BERGERCPAFIRST did play a small but effective role in guiding the company to run the operations efficiently, says Shrinivas.

“BergerCPAFirst help streamline your business processes”

“Grow your business tension free, we take care of your accounting and tax needs”