The first letter
CPA El Paso Alternative on what the first scope letter should say.
A letter that names the months, the entities, the fee, and the work left out is a letter. Anything softer is a brochure.
Talk through a letter
Four things the letter has to name.
First, the months. Which months will be closed, and what closed means. On our side it means the bank matches, open items are named, and the sales pieces agree with the deposits. If your letter uses the word close without that meaning, ask for the meaning in writing.
Second, the entities. One company, or three. A payroll provider already in place, or none. A sales account, or several addresses that do not share a rate. The fee that ignores entity count is a fee that will be renegotiated in the ugly month.
Third, the fee and what it does not buy. Whatever the letter lists is what the number buys. Anything past that list is priced on its own, and nobody starts it until that second price is agreed. A letter that folds unknown future work into one number is selling comfort, not a close.
Fourth, the work that is out. Leave the examination, the review, and the compilation with a firm that can sign them. Payday itself is out, because a provider you choose runs it. An examination, if a letter from the government opens one, is a conversation about who stands in the room, and that person may not be us. A letter that hides this list is incomplete.
What you should feel when you read it.
You should be able to hand the letter to a skeptical friend and have them say what you are buying. If the friend has to ask you to translate, the letter failed. Plain words are not a style choice. They are how you avoid paying for a surprise.
Talking for free can sketch the letter. Nothing is engaged when you hang up. Both sides are free when it ends, including the freedom to say the fit is wrong. Engagement begins only after both signatures are on the letter. Records you send come back if either side stops.
Put the one month you already believe on the table for that talk. The letter gets more honest when it is about a real month instead of a hypothetical year. If that month is open, the letter should say the first task is to close it, or to wait.
A fifth line belongs in the letter even though people forget to ask for it. Name the day you will hear that a month failed. The useful day is inside the same week, while the deposit can still be found in a memory or a bank screen. A letter that promises a quarterly surprise has chosen lateness. Ask for the day to be a date on a calendar, not a season of the year.
Read the fee paragraph out loud to a skeptical friend. If the friend cannot say what is included after one reading, the paragraph is doing too much. Split it into three short sentences. One for the months. One for the entities. One for a task outside the letter, which gets a new quote before anyone starts it. Three short sentences beat one long promise of comfort.
Bring one real constraint to the call that sketches the letter. A lender who wants a package in June. A provider change that happened in the summer. A sales address that does not match the shop. The letter gets sharper when it has to step around a real constraint. A letter written for a smooth imaginary year will not survive the year you actually had. Keep the signed copy beside the bank downloads, so a new task in November can be checked against what was already bought. If the copy and the invoice ever disagree, the copy wins, and the invoice gets a conversation before it gets paid.
Say what you need the letter to cover.
Months, entities, or the limit. If waiting is the wiser move, that is the reply you will get.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.