To be fair, Palm accounting stepped up to heroically set up an S-election for a single-member LLC. They mobilized rapidly and set up all necessary accounts. Looking back, it's not clear this was a good idea for me as it's created a lot of stress, confusion, and extra work.
I'm dealing with the IRS now trying to get relief from over $1000 in penalties due to the fact that I didn't file my forms on time. This was a late payroll tax payment that remained unreconciled over months of paid bookkeeping with no due dilligence on the accounting end. So, I'm understandably miffed.
Was this "my responsibility"? Yes - I did get an email while I was travelling in Japan that I should mail in these forms. While not strictly legally required, followup seems reasonable.
I reached out for assistance on this, and they recommended I talk to the IRS. I did, and they actually dropped the penalties. But this was where I finally exceeded my threshold - and I truly wish I'd not gone down this route with Palm.
I'm coming out the other end of a difficult transition after the guys dropped me suddenly with no real explanation. Talking to my bookkeeper after, perhaps it was because I wanted to take a more active role in managing my business. Or perhaps it was because I was trying to find a way to do business without sharing my personal bank credentials with the entire team.
So, probably if you are the kind of person who follows directions well, and can take full responsibility for your business, and you fit into the company's sense of how you should run your business, you'll do fine. For me, my experience with Palm was that it created a lot of headaches for me, and they really didn't look after my business apart from making sure forms were filled out.
The idea of paying a bookkeeper who is not going to alert me to unreconciled books is certainly NOT something I want to pay for.
On the flipside, the bookkeeper was helpful in assisting with ways that I could structure things like foreign cash expenses to simplify my bookkeeping.
These folks are competent and helpful, but less proactive than I needed - including multiple oversites / mistakes, and a little too "one size fits all" for the way I want to run my business.
UPDATE: They also put the wrong SSN for me on my state business income tax filings. Oy. read more