Bookkeeping Services in Rochester, NY

We run your books on QuickBooks Online or Xero on a monthly cycle. Every transaction is categorized against a chart of accounts built for your business, every bank, credit card, and loan account is reconciled to the statement, and payroll entries from your payroll provider are booked correctly, including the employer taxes owners routinely miscount as profit. You get a profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash flow summary on the same date every month, with a short note on anything that moved. When something needs your answer, it comes as one batched question list, not a drip of emails.

What you get: Reconciled books and a three-statement financial package on a fixed date every month.

Cleanup is usually where an engagement starts. We rebuild the ledger from bank and credit card records, fix miscategorized history, reconcile every account to the statements, and clear the junk balances that accumulate in accounts nobody reviews. The deliverable is a books-to-bank reconciliation your tax preparer, your lender, or an auditor can rely on, brought current through the most recent closed month, and then kept current monthly so the backlog never rebuilds. If prior-year returns were filed off bad books, we flag the differences so your tax preparer can decide what needs amending.

What you get: A books-to-bank reconciliation current through the last closed month, quoted as a one-time project.

We set the books up so sales tax collected posts to a liability, not to income, and reconcile that liability to what the returns actually remit. Rochester sellers register with the New York State Tax Department for a Certificate of Authority at least 20 days before making taxable sales, then file on the schedule the state assigns: quarterly returns due March 20, June 20, September 20, and December 20 for most businesses, annual filing when the year's tax runs 3,000 dollars or less, monthly once taxable sales pass 300,000 dollars in a quarter. Filing on time also pays a little: New York's vendor collection credit lets quarterly and annual filers keep 5 percent of the tax due, up to 200 dollars per period, and a late return forfeits it. Two Monroe County specifics worth knowing: clothing and footwear under 110 dollars per item are fully exempt here since the county dropped its local share in March 2023, a register setting many Rochester retailers still have wrong, and Rochester is outside the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District, so the MCTD sales tax surcharge and the MCTMT payroll tax that downstate businesses pay do not apply. We prepare and file the returns, and keep the exemption and resale certificates that support any nontaxed sale.

What you get: Registered, reconciled, and filed New York sales tax, with the certificates that support every nontaxed sale.

Because the books close every month, year-end is fast: the package is assembled from books that are already done. We deliver a year-end package your tax preparer works from directly: final reconciled statements, the general ledger, loan and fixed asset schedules, and the contractor payment detail that feeds 1099-NEC filings. We track the New York items that surprise owners, including the annual LLC filing fee that scales with New York-source gross income and the biennial statement due to the Department of State every two years. Corviniti also prepares business and personal tax returns, so the same team that kept the books can file from them, and the handoff disappears entirely.

What you get: A year-end package your preparer files from directly, or returns prepared by the same team.

Contractors and the trades. Profit lives at the job level, so we track costs by job, carry work in progress correctly, and manage the New York sales tax split the trades get audited on: capital improvements are exempt with a Form ST-124 certificate from the customer, repairs and maintenance are taxable, and the certificate file is what settles it.

Medical, dental, and therapy practices. In the orbit of the University of Rochester and Rochester Regional systems, practice books have to reconcile insurance deposits, net of adjustments and clawbacks, back to the production the providers actually billed, and keep provider compensation splits clean enough to survive a partner meeting.

Restaurants and cafes. From Park Avenue to the Public Market, the daily reality is merchant deposits net of fees, tips flowing through payroll with tip credits, and prepared food taxable at the full 8 percent. We unwind deposits to gross sales so the books match the POS, which is exactly the tie-out a sales tax auditor runs.

Optics, photonics, and precision manufacturing. The Kodak and Bausch and Lomb lineage lives on in small shops, anchored by AIM Photonics' national test-and-packaging facility on Lake Avenue. Inventory and job costing decide whether a quote made money, New York exempts qualifying production machinery and equipment from sales tax, and qualified New York manufacturers can reach a 0 percent state business-income rate, which we flag to the tax side.

Professional services. Law, engineering, and consulting firms depend on unbilled work in progress and retainers, and attorney books add escrow and IOLTA funds that must stay strictly separated from operating cash. We keep the earned, the unearned, and the held-in-trust distinct.

E-commerce and retail. New York's marketplace facilitator rules mean the marketplace collects on marketplace sales while you still file, direct-channel sales remain yours to collect, and out-of-state sales raise nexus questions. We keep the channels separated so the sales tax return is right by design.

Landlords and real estate investors. Security deposits are not income and are held separately, every property gets its own profit and loss, and depreciation schedules stay current so the tax return does not start with an archaeology project.

Startups and technology companies. The companies coming out of NextCorps and the university labs need accrual books, deferred revenue handled correctly, and investor-ready reporting from the first check, because cleanup during a diligence process is the most expensive kind.

Nonprofits. Rochester's nonprofit sector needs funds and grants tracked by restriction, books that support the IRS Form 990, and the New York Attorney General's CHAR500 annual filing, which is the one that catches small organizations by surprise.

What you get: A chart of accounts and monthly reports built for your business type, not a generic template.

The work is done in QuickBooks Online or Xero, read-only bank feeds, and a shared document inbox for the statements and bills we need. You get a fixed monthly delivery date, a standing way to reach us, video calls when a conversation beats an email, and a CPA who answers within one business day. You also get a team led by a New York-licensed CPA at a flat monthly price a solo bookkeeper cannot match on depth: the same practice handles technical accounting for venture-backed and public companies, and your books are kept to that standard.

What you get: A fixed delivery date, one batched question list, and a CPA who replies within one business day.

The offices you will actually use: the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance for sales tax registration, returns, and business tax accounts; the New York Department of State for LLC and corporation filings and the biennial statement; the Monroe County Clerk for assumed name (DBA) certificates for sole proprietors and partnerships; the U.S. Small Business Administration, which serves Rochester through its Buffalo district office and a Rochester branch office at 100 State Street, and the New York Small Business Development Center network for free advisory; SCORE for volunteer mentoring; and the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce for the local business community. If a registration or filing on any of these sites is the thing blocking you, ask us; it is usually a ten minute answer.