Secure intake
Prior returns, notices, entity documents, payroll reports, books, and goals enter one controlled workflow.
Virtual CPA firm, nationwide
Virtual CPA Firm for Tax Work That Is Anything but Basic
CPA-led tax planning, preparation, and accounting coordination delivered securely across the United States.
Best suited to clients who value year-round advice and have business, real-estate, multi-state, equity-compensation, or other meaningful complexity.
Know how the remote relationship will work.
- Who it fits
- Owners, physicians, investors, and high-income households comfortable working remotely with a CPA firm.
- What to scope
- Agree the planning, preparation, or accounting scope, communication arrangements, and deadlines before transferring records.
- What to prepare
- An outline of entities, states, accounting software, prior-year filings, and upcoming decisions. Sensitive documents belong in the client portal after intake instructions.
- Who does what
- Your proposal defines the team responsibilities and review cadence. Remote delivery does not make every service or an unlimited response commitment part of the engagement.
A free 30-minute conversation with our onboarding team about your situation, service fit, and next steps. Your proposal specifies fees, timing, and ongoing support.
Explore ongoing monthly bookkeepingThe short answer
A good virtual CPA relationship combines secure online delivery with a named team, a planning calendar, written deliverables, and state-specific analysis. “Virtual” should improve access, not reduce the work to outsourced return preparation.
CPA, MBA
Bryan Martin, Managing Partner and Founder of Taxstra
1,000+ clients
Fully remote firm based in Springfield, IL, serving every state
Secure portal
Documents, e-signatures, and messaging in one client portal
Multi-state returns
Resident, nonresident, and entity filings coordinated by jurisdiction
A strong fit
- Business owners with clean-up, planning, or multi-entity needs
- Physicians and high-income professionals
- Real estate investors with multiple properties or entities
- Clients who prefer secure remote collaboration
- People willing to implement recommendations during the year
Probably not the right fit
- A simple return where the lowest fee is the deciding factor
- Someone seeking one-off individualized advice without an engagement
- A business unwilling to maintain usable books
- A situation that requires recurring physical, local presence
Delivery model, not a service tier
What a virtual CPA relationship actually is
A virtual CPA provides the same licensed professional work through secure digital workflows, scheduled video meetings, cloud accounting systems, and documented follow-through.
The useful distinction is not local versus online. It is reactive versus proactive. A remote preparer can still be transactional; a virtual advisory firm should know the client’s entities, books, compensation, investments, and decision calendar before a filing deadline creates urgency.
| Relationship | Typical focus | Communication | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual advisory CPA | Planning, compliance, accounting coordination | Scheduled cadence plus secure portal | Complex, mobile, or multi-state clients |
| Local tax preparer | Annual return completion | Seasonal and office-based | Straightforward returns where proximity matters |
| Low-cost online filing service | Data collection and filing | Ticket or chat queue | Price-first, low-complexity filing |
| Bookkeeper | Transaction accuracy and monthly close | Ongoing operational contact | Businesses that need reliable books; CPA review may still be needed |
A documented operating system
How the relationship works from onboarding through filing
The system should make ownership, timing, and decisions visible, not merely replace an office visit with a video call.
Live fact pattern
Changes in income, states, property, equity, ownership, and family circumstances are captured before they become return surprises.
Decision meetings
Meetings are tied to choices: estimates, elections, retirement funding, purchases, transactions, and year-end implementation.
Written follow-through
Recommendations have assumptions, owners, deadlines, dependencies, and a record of what was implemented.
Security and communication
What should never depend on ordinary email
Tax returns, identity documents, bank information, and payroll records belong in a secure portal. Prospects should ask who can access files, whether multi-factor authentication is available, how documents are retained, and what happens when a team member changes.
- Secure portal for document exchange
- Multi-factor authentication where supported
- Electronic signatures for eligible filings
- Named communication channels and response expectations
- Access controls by client, entity, and team role
- A defined record-retention and offboarding process
A useful diligence question
Ask the firm to explain its document workflow without marketing language. If the answer is “just email it,” keep looking.
Integrated service
Planning, preparation, and accounting should inform one another
Tax planning
Scenario modeling, estimates, entity and compensation analysis, retirement funding, transaction timing, and implementation tracking.
Tax preparation
Federal and applicable state filings built from a fact pattern the team has monitored, not rediscovered in March.
Accounting and bookkeeping
Reliable monthly data for owners whose tax and operating decisions cannot wait for annual cleanup.
Business advisory
Cash, profitability, entity, payroll, and owner decisions coordinated with the tax consequences.
Online CPA for small business
Online CPA services for small business: what changes when the firm is virtual
Nothing about the licensed work changes. What changes is that the books, payroll reports, and returns live in one cloud file the CPA can see every month, so planning runs on current numbers instead of a March scramble.
A virtual accountant for small business handles the same stack a local firm would: the monthly close in QuickBooks Online, payroll coordination for owner wages and employees, quarterly estimated payment figures, business and owner returns, and the entity question (default LLC treatment or an S corporation election) modeled from real profit rather than a rule of thumb. Every piece runs in shared systems with a named CPA reviewing the output, not a box of records handed over once a year.
Taxstra delivers virtual tax accounting services and monthly bookkeeping as one engagement when the business needs both. Owners who only need clean books can start there and add planning once the business is consistently profitable. Owners with clean books and a painful tax bill can start with planning.
- Monthly close: categorized transactions, reconciled accounts, and financial statements on a set date
- Payroll coordination: owner wages, employees, contractors, and work states reconciled to the books
- Quarterly estimates: payment figures computed from actual year-to-date profit, not last year’s return
- Entity and owner pay: LLC, S corporation, and partnership treatment modeled with reasonable compensation documented
- Business and owner returns prepared from the same reconciled file, with K-1s flowing to the owners
- One secure portal for documents, e-signatures, and questions, with a named contact instead of a queue
Go deeper: accountant for small business · bookkeeping for small business · virtual accounting and bookkeeping services · small business tax advisor
Nationwide does not mean generic
Federal coordination with state-by-state analysis
A nationwide CPA must identify where the client lives, works, owns property, employs people, sells, and operates entities.
State residency and sourcing can diverge from the federal return. Businesses can create income-tax, payroll, sales-tax, or registration obligations without opening an office. The engagement should surface those facts early and use state authority when the treatment is material.
Go deeper: multi-state tax planning services · state and local tax planning guide
Selection criteria
How to evaluate an online CPA without lowering the bar
| Ask | Strong answer | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Who reviews my work? | Named CPA and defined team roles | No accountable professional |
| When do we plan? | Scheduled decision calendar | “Call us if something changes” |
| How are recommendations documented? | Written assumptions, actions, and owners | Verbal ideas with no implementation path |
| How do you handle states? | Fact gathering and state-specific research | “We file everywhere” without analysis |
| What is outside scope? | Clear engagement letter and escalation path | Everything sounds included |
Go deeper: small-business CPA hiring guide · CPA fee guide
Free initial consultation
Book a free initial consultation
Pick a time below. We will look at your entity, books, and last return, tell you candidly whether Taxstra is the right fit, and outline the first steps.
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The working relationship
How the engagement works
- 01
Fit and scope
Discuss the entities, returns, accounting systems, states, deadlines, and decisions that make up the engagement.
- 02
Secure onboarding
Transfer records through the portal, authorize access, confirm responsibilities, and build the tax calendar.
- 03
Planning and execution
Model choices, document recommendations, coordinate implementation, and update estimates as facts change.
- 04
Preparation and review
Prepare the returns from the same fact pattern, reconcile the plan to actual results, and carry open items forward.
“Exactly what I was looking for in a CPA/Tax Prep Company. Returns were filed on time. Highly recommend Bryan Martin and his team to everyone who needs to have their taxes incl. biz taxes done!”
Would a more proactive CPA relationship improve the decisions you make this year?
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Authoritative Sources
- IRS, Choosing a Tax Professional
- IRS Directory of Federal Tax Return Preparers with Credentials
- IRS Publication 5708, Creating a Written Information Security Plan for your Tax and Accounting Practice
Citations reflect U.S. federal tax law as of the article's last reviewed date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Taxstra works with clients nationwide. A remote relationship does not eliminate state-specific work: residency, source income, payroll nexus, sales tax, and entity filing rules still have to be analyzed state by state.
Not necessarily. Virtual describes delivery, not service depth or price. A sophisticated virtual firm may cost more than a local tax preparer because the scope includes planning, implementation, accounting coordination, and year-round access.
Documents move through a secure client portal, and eligible forms use electronic signatures. Sensitive tax documents should not be sent through ordinary email. Taxstra explains the portal, naming standards, and deadlines during onboarding.
A local professional can be preferable when the work depends on frequent in-person access, a local licensing or municipal issue, physical inventory observation, or representation before an authority where local presence materially helps.
Yes, when bookkeeping is part of the client’s broader accounting and tax system. Taxstra is not positioned as a low-cost transaction-coding vendor; the books should support decisions, tax planning, and reliable filings.
Yes. The books run in QuickBooks Online, payroll reports and bank feeds connect to the same file, documents move through a secure portal, and the business and owner returns are prepared from the reconciled close. A virtual accountant for small business handles the same stack a local firm would; the difference is that a named CPA can see current numbers every month instead of once a year.
Educational information only, not individualized tax, legal, or investment advice. Federal rules are discussed unless stated otherwise; state treatment and exceptions can differ.
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Book a free 30-minute consultation. We will tell you candidly whether Taxstra is the right fit and what the next step would be.
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