6 Things Your CPA Should Be Doing (That They Probably Aren't)

Kimberly Green | 2026-03-31

6 Things Your CPA Should Be Doing (That They Probably Aren't) File taxes. Send invoice. Repeat next April. That's the relationship most business owners have with their CPA. And it feels fine—until you meet someone whose CPA is actually working for them, and you realize what you've been missing. The gap between a reactive CPA and a proactive one is measured in real money. Missed deductions. Wrong entity structures. Tax bills that could've been half the size. Decisions made without financial modeling that should've had it. Here are six things a genuinely great CPA does—and what it's costing you that yours probably isn't. 1. Reaching Out to You Proactively (Not Waiting for Your Call) The standard CPA relationship is reactive. You have a question, you call. They need a document, they email. A proactive CPA doesn't wait. They reach out when something changes—a new tax law that affects your situation, a deadline coming up, a number in your books that looks off. They're watching your financial picture between conversations. This sounds small. It's not. Ron Parisi at CPA on Fire built his entire practice around this idea. His FINANCIALS FORWARD system is designed for ongoing engagement, not a once-a-year transaction. That's not marketing—that's the operating model. 2. Explaining What Your Numbers Actually Mean You get a P&L. Maybe a balance sheet. Numbers in boxes. Does your CPA walk you through what those numbers mean? Which expenses are trending up? What your gross margin is telling you about your pricing? Whether your cash conversion cycle is healthy? Most don't. They produce the reports and move on. A genuinely useful CPA treats financial statements as conversation starters. Purewater Financial does exactly this—they're forward-looking, helping clients understand what their numbers mean for the future, not just recording what happened. Their team describes their philosophy as "success through clarity." 3. Building a Multi-Year Tax Strategy (Not Just Filing April) Tax planning is not an annual event. The decisions you make this year affect your tax position for the next three to five years. Your entity structure, your retirement contributions, your depreciation elections, your compensation structure—all have long-term implications. Most CPAs think about taxes one year at a time. A great CPA thinks about your tax trajectory. CPA on Fire offers 3- to 5-year proactive tax strategies as a standard deliverable. For businesses doing $1M to $10M in revenue, that kind of multi-year thinking typically pays for the entire engagement many times over. 4. Flagging Your...