Industries

Clients and Industries Served:

 

Automotive Dealers

Accounting, Business Advisory, and Tax Solutions to Help Your Auto Dealership to Remain Profitable and Grow in a Thin-Margin Market

 While the profit margins on the sale of new vehicles have long been razor-thin, profits on the sale of used cars are narrowing, too, making sound financial management essential for the continued success and survival of auto dealerships.  With over three decades of combined experience in the industry, our accounting and tax professionals can assist your dealership in meeting its financial and operational goals.  Our services include:

  • Valuations of vehicles, parts, and other inventory
  • Creating or evaluating depreciation schedules for fixed assets and inventory
  • Evaluation of customer service agreements to determine whether these conform to U.S. GAAP revenue recognition standards
  • Analysis of lease agreements, loan agreements, vendor contracts, warranties, and other financial obligations
  • Construction Accounting & Advisory solutions
  • Bookkeeping support
  • Creating financial and cash flow projections
  • Preparing budgets that reflect the economic realities of your dealership
  • Preparing financial statements and management reports
  • Tax planning and reporting
  • Auditing and attestation services
  • Internal auditing and risk management solutions

 

Bankruptcy

Facilitating Equitable Settlements and Fresh Starts

 Three major types of bankruptcy are available to individuals who operate small businesses as sole proprietorships.  While Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code provides for the dissolution of a troubled business and the distribution of its assets to creditors, Chapters 11 and 13 provide for the reorganization of a struggling business, and the eventual repayment of some or all of its debt under a structured plan.  Bankruptcies under Chapters 7 and 11 are also available to businesses organized as corporations.

We offer the following services to debtors and creditors in bankruptcy proceedings, with the aim of helping all parties to achieve an equitable settlement:

  • Compilation or reconstruction of missing financial records
  • Valuations of businesses and assets
  • Identification of exempt property
  • Analysis of contracts and loan agreements
  • Cash flow analysis and management
  • Segregation and assignment of assets and liabilities among related business entities and their owners
  • Forensic accounting services
  • Conversion from the going concern basis to the liquidation basis of accounting
  • Tax reporting and representing taxpayers before the federal, state, and local tax authorities
  • Development and implementation of business turnaround plans

 

Commercial Real Estate

Helping Developers, Management Companies, Leaseholders, and Investors to Clear the Way for Equitable, Fair, and Profitable Opportunities in Commercial Real Estate

 Even with a well-built and nicely maintained property, an attractive location, an accommodating landlord, responsible tenants, adequate insurance, a viable business plan, and positive cash flows, commercial real estate can still carry substantial hidden financial risks and costs without a good accounting and tax reporting system in place.  Such costs and risks may result from:

  • Incorrect allocations of income and expenses to individual properties by owners of multiple properties
  • Improperly computed common area maintenance (CAM) charges
  • Over- or under-reporting of depreciation on tax returns due to the incorrect application of capitalization rules
  • Default on existing loans as a result of the 2019 change in lease account rules, which require tenants to list operating leases as liabilities on their balance sheets.

Our experienced professionals are available to assist you with the following real estate accounting and tax reporting matters:

  • Selecting an appropriate business structure for your commercial real estate activities (among other options, Pennsylvania businesses can incorporate as a partnership, LLC, S-corporation, or C-corporation)
  • Valuations of real estate and improvements
  • Analysis of lease agreements
  • Computation, verification, and analysis of CAM charges
  • Construction Accounting & Advisory solutions
  • Recording additions, improvements, and repairs
  • Creating financial and cash flow projections
  • Preparing budgets
  • Preparing financial statements and management reports
  • Bookkeeping and payroll services
  • Selecting and implementing payment systems for lessees and tenants
  • Tax planning and reporting  services

 

Construction

Project Budgeting, Billing, and Reporting Solutions for Architects, Engineers, and Contractors

 

 The tasks of billing clients and of preparing budgets, financial reports, and tax returns can be extremely complicated for firms in the construction industry owing to such factors as:

  • Long completion times for larger projects, which can last for several years
  • The unique, non-recurring nature of many construction projects, which can make forecasting project timelines, revenues, and expenses difficult
  • The challenges of tracking revenues and expenses from diverse service and product areas, including consulting, design, engineering, physical construction work, and raw materials
  • The difficulties of allocating such indirect overhead expenses as office rent, utilities, insurance, and legal fees to individual construction jobs.

Our principal, Jeffrey Pelesh, CPA, has personal experience as a developer of residential property.  Jeff and his associates offer decades of combined experience and experience, and can assist your construction business with all of the following:

  • Tax planning and reporting
  • Evaluating loan agreements
  • Fixed asset accounting
  • Depreciation
  • Job estimating and costing
  • Bookkeeping
  • Payroll
  • Credit card management
  • Developing financial and cash flow projections
  • Project management reviews
  • Developing and implementing turnaround plans for troubled projects and businesses

 

Employee Benefit Plans

Helping Businesses to Maintain Competitive and Viable Employee Benefit Plans Over the Long Term

 

 While employee benefit plans – which can include such things as group health, dental, life, and disability insurance, as well as health savings accounts, retirement savings plans, profit-sharing plans, tuition assistance, and daycare – are critical for the recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction of skilled and qualified staff at organizations of all sizes, the costs of providing such benefits tend to be disproportionately greater for smaller enterprises than for large companies due to such factors as constrained resources, smaller staffs, and limited bargaining power.

Among other issues, employers who maintain employee benefit plans are concerned with verifying that:

  • Participation in benefit plans is limited only to qualified employees
  • Employee contributions are withheld from pay at the correct rates
  • Their qualified retirement plans comply with the non-discrimination rule (An employer may be required to make additional contributions when a retirement plan is found to be “top-heavy” – i.e., to disproportionately favor owners, officers, and other key employees.)
  • Plan assets and liabilities are recorded at the correct values
  • The employer’s records agree with those of the plan fiduciary

Our Employee Benefit Plans practice focuses on providing the following services and solutions to small-  and medium-sized enterprises and non-profits that offer benefits for their employees:

 

Estates & Trusts

Estate and Trust Planning Solutions to Help Maintain Businesses and Preserve Value Across Generations

 Inadequate succession planning is one of the most significant and common factors contributing to the demise of previously successful businesses after the retirement or death of their founders.  Focused, driven, and capable entrepreneurs who otherwise tend not to back away from difficult decisions may nevertheless baulk at confronting the issue of succession planning for a variety of reasons, including their close, personal identification with their businesses, their fear of losing capacity, their fear of mortality, or a desire to avoid raising tensions among business partners or family members.

Our accounting and tax professionals offer decades of combined experience in assisting the owners of closely-held family businesses as well as their surviving partners and heirs through all stages of the succession process.

  • Planning for the continuation or orderly dissolution of family businesses, partnerships, and professional corporations
  • Tax planning
  • Preparing the final returns of deceased individuals
  • Preparing estate, trust, and gift tax returns
  • Analyzing wills, trust agreements, and partnership agreements
  • Discovering and creating inventories of assets and liabilities
  • Valuations of business assets and liabilities
  • Compiling or reconstructing financial records for family businesses
  • Analyzing corporate life insurance policies
  • Identifying unclaimed property in state custody (such property is often overlooked by estates)

 

Family Businesses

Maintaining the Viability and Enhancing the Value of Family Businesses Across Generations

 Although business risk is often thought of in the context of a desire to avoid long-term loss, recoup invested capital, and maintain the viability of the enterprise, success can also create significant risks for family businesses, which often launch on a very small scale, operate informally, and grow organically, with the help of family, friends, and neighbors.  Some of the more common risks associated with the growth of family enterprises include:

  • Continuing to operate as a sole proprietorship or as a general partnership after the business has grown beyond a certain size.  While a major advantage of forming a business as a sole proprietorship is that the business can be launched and operated with little formality, a big disadvantage of sole proprietorship is that the business owner is personally liable for all debts and obligations of the enterprise.
  • Intermingling personal property with business property, which makes family property vulnerable to claims by creditors.
  • Operating the business without any system of internal checks and balances in place.  For example, the functions of authorization, custody, and record-keeping should be separated as soon as is practicable to reduce the risk of error or fraud committed by one employee.
  • Maintaining the business without a succession plan in place.

The following are among the many services and solutions that we have to offer your family business:

  • Advising on the business structure that is best-suited to your company’s stage of development (among other options, Pennsylvania businesses can incorporate as a partnership, LLC, S-corporation, or C-corporation)
  • Formalizing the financial and operating structure of your company
  • Deciding on a basis of accounting (cash, accrual, or tax)
  • Selecting and installing accounting systems
  • Segregating business property from that of related family companies and the personal property of family members
  • Preparing financial statements
  • Creating financial and cash flow projections
  • Evaluating loan agreements
  • Bookkeeping
  • Payroll
  • Auditing financial records and business operations
  • Designing and implementing effective internal controls for the financial and business operations of your company
  • Tax planning and reporting
  • Development and implementation of business turnaround plans
  • Planning for the continuation or orderly dissolution of your family business

 

Manufacturing

Helping to Maintain the Global Competitiveness of Your Manufacturing Business Through Customized Solutions in the Areas of Cost Control, Lease Management, Financial Planning, Taxation, and More

Mass consumer goods are still produced in the Greater Philadelphia area – and such manufacturing activity may even increase as labor costs in emerging economies continue to rise.  Nevertheless, the great majority of manufacturing activity carried on by small- and mid-sized companies in our region today is for differentiated products – such as specialty chemicals, fine metals, and precision machine tools – that are manufactured to specification, and for which ready markets often do not exist beyond narrow groups of industry customers.  The ability of small- to medium-sized manufacturers to remain viable and operate at a profit thus depends, more than ever, on their ability to make reliable financial projections, to accurately allocate a multiplicity of direct and overhead costs, and to take full advantage of available tax incentives for such items as depreciation.

We can help your manufacturing business in the following areas:

  • Valuations of property, plant, and equipment
  • Creating or evaluating depreciation schedules for fixed assets and inventory
  • Analysis of contracts and loan agreements
  • Lease accounting
  • Evaluation of forward contracts, future contracts, and other derivatives used for hedging purposes
  • Creating financial and cash flow projections
  • Job estimating and costing
  • Cash flow analysis
  • Preparation of financial statements and management reports
  • Bookkeeping
  • Payroll
  • Auditing financial records and manufacturing operations
  • Tax planning and reporting

 

Non-Profits

Helping Your Non-Profit to Fulfill Its Main Charitable Mission and Financial Goals While Also Maintaining a Culture of Accountability

 Beyond the constant challenge of raising sufficient funds to meet their philanthropic missions, other major financial challenges faced by non-profit organizations generally include:

  • Ensuring that fundraising activities do not jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status.  For example, funds generated through activities that are unrelated to a charity’s tax-exempt purpose may be deemed unrelated business income (UBI) by the IRS and subject to tax as such.
  • Monitoring activities and tracking assets and spending to ensure that the organization’s limited resources are properly used in furtherance of the organization’s main philanthropic purpose, and that spending on administration and overhead is tightly controlled.
  • Complying with the varying and often-complex financial reporting requirements of private donor groups, government donor agencies, and the federal and state tax authorities.

We offer the following services and solutions to help your non-profit organization to safeguard its resources, maintain accountability, and operate on a sound financial basis:

  • Selecting and installing accounting systems
  • Creating revenue, cost, and cash flow projections
  • Creating and evaluating budgets
  • Preparing general-purpose financial statements as well as donor-specific financial reports
  • Bookkeeping
  • Auditing operations or financial records
  • Designing and implementing effective internal controls to preserve resources and maintain a culture of accountability
  • Tax reporting

 

Partnerships

Transparent and Comprehensible Reporting for Partnerships and Investors

 Whether you are a managing partner of a business or venture organized as a partnership, or an investor receiving a Schedule K-1 reporting partnership income, our aim as accounting and tax professionals is to make the reporting of partnership financial data as transparent and straightforward as possible, while also helping you to fully understand any financial reports or Schedules K-1 that you may receive from a partnership as an investor.

We are also available to assist partnerships and investors in the following areas:

  • Advising on whether a partnership structure is suitable for your business needs
  • Assisting with state tax nexus issues
  • Creating revenue, cost, and cash flow projections for ventures organized as partnerships
  • Valuations of partnership property
  • Allocations of partnership income, losses, and liabilities
  • Preparing partnership financial statements
  • Tax reporting
  • Succession and contingency planning for partnerships

 

Private Clubs/Recreational Associations

Laying the Financial Foundation for Good Fellowship

 Due to high ongoing maintenance costs and the low, even negative profit margins typically generated by certain areas of club operations, many private clubs and recreational facilities experience ongoing economic pressure.  The following are some of the more common financial constraints under which private clubs operate:

  • The costs of capital improvements or major repairs.  To finance these, a private club’s board members may find themselves confronted with the choice of raising dues and assessments, expanding the club’s membership base, or taking on debt in order to finance, where none of these measures stand to be implemented without considerable controversy from among the club’s general membership.
  • Low profit margins associated with popular amenities.  While the dining and bar facilities at private clubs tend to be among their most popular amenities, the profit margins associated with operating these facilities are generally very thin, due to the relatively limited scale of such operations, the elevated costs associated with providing high-quality meals and beverages, as well as the availability of fine dining options elsewhere.
  • Non-profit status.  For private clubs organized as non-profits, a third major financial constraint is that their tax-exempt status is placed in jeopardy when gross receipts from non-members exceed a certain threshold.

As accountants, tax specialists, and business advisors, we can assist your private club or recreational association in the following areas:

  • Selecting and installing accounting systems
  • Preparing financial statements and management reports
  • Valuations of club real estate, facilities, and equipment
  • Analysis of contracts and loan agreements
  • Cash flow analysis and management
  • Preparing budgets and financial projections
  • Bookkeeping services
  • Payroll
  • Credit card management
  • Auditing financial records and club operations
  • Designing and implementing effective internal controls
  • Tax planning and reporting

 

Professional Services

Business, Financial Management, and Tax Solutions for Time-Conscious Professionals

 Professionals in private practice – such as physicians, attorneys, architects, engineers, counselors, and consultants – may be financially sophisticated, but often find themselves with little time to deal with the financial and tax ramifications of operating their practices.

We offer a variety of accounting, tax, and business advisory solutions with the objective of helping our professional clients to get a sound grasp on the financial aspects of their practices, freeing them to devote the great majority of their time to their own clients.  These services include:

  • Creating financial and risk management strategies for professional practices or evaluating existing strategies
  • Selecting a business structure that is consistent with the financial goals and risk management philosophy of the members of the practice.  [In Pennsylvania, professional practices most commonly do business as professional corporations (PCs) or as limited liability partnership (LLPs).]
  • Tax planning and reporting
  • Selecting and installing accounting systems
  • Bookkeeping services
  • Payroll services
  • Credit card management
  • Receivables management
  • Preparing financial statements
  • Partnership accounting
  • Practice valuations
  • Auditing and attestation services
  • Advising on acquisitions, sales, and wind-ups of professional practices

 

Retail

Lease Accounting, Contract Management, and Inventory Control Solutions to Help You Maintain and Improve Your Margins

While inventory is the central component of most retail businesses, other important factors that independent retailers must consider include:

  • Staffing and payroll
  • Leases and leasehold improvements
  • Loans and their associated covenants
  • The accuracy of common area maintenance (CAM) charges
  • Proper revenue recognition practices for service contracts

Our accounting and tax professionals strive to help our retail clients to maintain and improve their operating margins, to realize expansion plans, and to benefit fully from available tax breaks and incentives.  Our services include:

  • Choosing between a periodic or perpetual inventory management system
  • Adopting consistent methods for tracking inventory costs
  • Creating realistic loss reserves for such risks as obsolescence, damage, and theft
  • Valuations of commercial property, leasehold improvements, fixtures, and inventory
  • Analysis of lease agreements, loan agreements, vendor contracts, warranties, and other financial obligations
  • Evaluating service agreements to verify that these conform to U.S. GAAP revenue recognition standards
  • Verification and analysis of CAM charges
  • Creating cash flow projections
  • Preparing budgets
  • Bookkeeping support
  • Preparing financial statements and management reports
  • Internal auditing and risk management solutions
  • Auditing and attestation services
  • Tax planning and reporting

 

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Dedicated to Making the Expertise, Insight, and Acumen of a Big Accounting Firm Available to Small and Growing Businesses

 Small and medium-sized businesses are a vital part of the fabric of their communities and also drivers of economic and commercial growth.  Whether you operate a long-established local family business, a small start-up company offering innovative products and services, or a regional manufacturing company with several hundred employees, our professionals are available to help you meet your accounting, financing, tax, and business planning needs.  Below are some of the many services that we have to offer:

  • Evaluating the actual or proposed business structure of your enterprise to verify that it is consistent with your financial goals and risk management philosophy (Among other options, Pennsylvania businesses can incorporate as a partnership, LLC, S-corporation, or C-corporation.)
  • Creating budgets and financial projections
  • Preparing financial statements and management reports
  • Partnership  accounting
  • Valuations of real estate, productive assets, and inventory, as well as of entire businesses
  • Analysis of lease agreements, loan agreements, vendor contracts, warranties, and other financial obligations
  • Bookkeeping support
  • Payroll services
  • Credit card management
  • Tax planning and reporting
  • Auditing and attestation services
  • Internal auditing and risk management solutions
  • Developing and implementing turnaround plans for troubled businesses