5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a CPA

Kimberly Green | 2026-04-15

5 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a CPA (That Nobody Tells You to Ask) Most people hire a CPA the same way they pick a restaurant they've never been to. Someone they trust says it's good. They look at the website. It seems fine. They book the call. Then tax season arrives and they find out their CPA doesn't know their industry, filed something wrong, or never once mentioned the deductions they were missing. Not because the CPA was bad—but because nobody asked the right questions upfront. These 5 questions change that. They're the ones Sam asked when he was vetting 150+ financial professionals. They cut through the sales pitch and tell you fast whether this person is actually right for your business. Question 1: Who Is Your Ideal Client? This is the most important question on the list. Most people never ask it. CPAs are not generalists who can serve everyone equally well. A CPA who specializes in W-2 employees doing personal returns is a completely different professional than one who works with multi-entity S-corps doing $5M in revenue. Both are good CPAs. They're just not good for the same person. What you're listening for: a specific, confident answer. If they say "we work with everyone," that's a flag. a vetted CPAs know exactly who they're built for. For example, ECOM CPA works exclusively with eCommerce businesses on Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart. That's their whole world. They know the inventory accounting issues, the multi-state sales tax exposure, the platform-specific reporting. A generalist CPA can't match that. Solopreneur CPA (Matt Chiappetta) only works with consultants, coaches, and freelancers doing $250K to $2M. That niche means he's seen your exact situation dozens of times. Ask the question. The answer tells you everything. Question 2: What Does Your Firm Actually Do—and What Don't You Do? This sounds obvious. It's not. A lot of firms say they do "full-service accounting" when what they mean is bookkeeping and tax prep. That's fine. But if you think you're getting strategic tax planning and you're actually getting compliance work, you'll be disappointed. The services that matter most often go unstated. Tax planning (building a strategy to reduce future tax bills) is different from tax preparation (filing what you owe). CFO advisory (analyzing your numbers and helping you make decisions) is different from bookkeeping (recording what happened). Under IRC Section 162, all CPA fees are deductible—but only if they're actually working on your business, not just processing returns. Ask them to walk you through exactly what's included. Then ask...