I was (past tense) with AP CPAs for over a decade. But it's just gone down hill as they've grown. Their process is cumbersome, at best, and their costs are high.
The last few years they've also shifted to holding your tax return hostage and wanting payment up front, but NOT telling you even how much that is. The messaging is very passive-aggressive, like "here is your tax return, we won't file it until you pay us" and then they don't explain how to make a payment, other than "go to our website." Yet, on the website they want a customer ID and the payment amount, which, they didn't tell you! I had to drag that information out of them. It's crazy.
On top of that, I did virtually all of the prep this year, giving them everything in an itemized spreadsheet and ready to go. They just had to do some data entry. I didn't even have much complexity to things this year. Yet it's a $1250 bill -- checking online for industry standard rates and it's still in the $750-$800 range, so I'm not sure how they even can justify such a thing. I asked them for an accounting of the time spent behind the cost, and they refused to give it (ironic, I know, from an accounting firm), and instead said maybe I should just find somebody else next year.
Well, that was already my plan.
Being told to take a hike for having the gall to ask them to account for where their costs are coming from, the rising costs, difficult to use website, lack of transparency on costs and billing, and overall: it's just not worth it anymore.
All that being said, I think all the individual people there are pretty nice to work with, and I feel bad with such a negative review. It's just that the overall experience in the end is frustrating as all get out. Not to mention the high cost and lack of transparency in billing. read more
