[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I left public accounting (as an auditor) back in May, and one of my ambitions was to start up my own side business of doing taxes and basic personal financial consulting. I would always (and still do) help out friends and family with taxes and financial advice. I’ve prepared numerous tax returns for friends and family over the years, and a lot of the CPE that I do is geared towards individual taxes. I like being able to help out people like that, and I think that starting up a small practice would be right up my alley.

For those of you that have done this, I have a couple of questions for you:

1.) How is your business organized? I see that many individual CPA practices are set up as LLCs.

2.) How did you go about getting clients?

3.) I envision my clientele would be people that are in similar situations as my friends and family that I advise. When I advise them, I feel like I am able to come up with good answers and solutions. When I think about advising people and preparing taxes in a business setting, I sometimes wonder if I actually know enough to make a business out of it. Did you ever have those doubts? If so, what resources do you use to help resolve unfamiliar client situations, particularly tax issues?

4.) What tax prep software do you use? I did some research and came across Drake. The reviews seem pretty good, and the pricing structure is very reasonable. I saw an article in the Journal of Accountancy that said Drake was the highest rated and most recommended tax software among the survey respondents.

That’s all the big questions I can think of at the moment. Answers to these questions and anything else anybody can recommend would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!