Choosing the wrong bookkeeper is a mistake you usually discover about a year later, and rarely at a convenient moment. It surfaces when a lender asks for financial statements, when a tax return needs preparing and the underlying records will not support it, or when you finally look closely at a report and realize the numbers have not matched your sense of the business for months.
That delay is the whole problem with this decision. Most purchases tell you quickly whether they were good ones. Bookkeeping does not, because the output looks the same whether the work underneath was done properly or not. A reconciled set of books and an unreconciled set produce reports in the same format, with numbers in the same places.
We should say who is writing this. AliCat Solutions is a bookkeeping firm that serves Georgetown, and we would like your business. This is not a neutral ranking and there is no top-ten list here, because a firm that competes in this market cannot honestly write one. What we can do is publish the standard we think you should apply, which is the same standard we would want applied to us.
So this is a guide to judging, not a directory. It covers what matters more here than it might elsewhere, the criteria worth weighting, the red flags worth taking seriously, and the specific questions to ask any candidate, including us.
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Overview
Judge a bookkeeper on verifiable things rather than on rapport: who reviews the work, whether reconciliations are produced as evidence, whether the accounts are held in your business’s name, and how the monthly close is scheduled. In Georgetown specifically, ask about Texas franchise tax reporting and sales tax, since the state has no personal income tax but does have filing obligations that catch owners out.
What this guide covers
- What is different about doing business in Georgetown
- The criteria that actually predict good work
- How to run the comparison, including on us
What to weight when choosing, in rough order of importance
- Who actually does the work, and who reviews it. Review by a CPA is a different product from unreviewed bookkeeping, and it should be a named arrangement rather than an implication
- Whether reconciliations are produced as evidence each month, or accuracy is simply asserted
- That every account, including the accounting software subscription, is held in your business’s name with you as the owner and the bookkeeper granted user access
- A defined monthly close with a stated date by which your statements arrive, rather than reports whenever you ask
- Familiarity with Texas obligations: franchise tax reporting, sales tax where you are registered, and payroll if you have employees
- Experience with your kind of business, since job-costed trades, professional services, and retail need genuinely different handling
- A written scope stating what is included and what is not, particularly around payroll, sales tax, and prior-year work
- Willingness to say plainly when something belongs with a CPA or an attorney rather than answering anyway
Red flags:
- A firm price quoted for a cleanup before anyone has looked at your file
- The accounting subscription set up under the bookkeeper’s own email rather than yours
- Being reassured that everything is fine rather than shown the reconciliation reports
- Reluctance to put the scope, the schedule, or what happens on exit in writing
- Answering tax and legal questions freely without ever naming a boundary
- No named person accountable for the work, or a different contact every month
Questions worth asking:
- Who performs my bookkeeping, who reviews it, and what does that review cover?
- By which day of the month will I have my statements, and what happens if that slips?
- Whose name is on the accounting subscription, and what is the exit process if I leave?
- How do you handle Texas franchise tax reporting and sales tax filings?
- Can I see a sample of the monthly reporting pack a client of my size receives?
- What is explicitly outside your scope, and who do you send those questions to?
What is different about doing business in Georgetown
Georgetown sits at the northern edge of the Austin metro, and it is the county seat of Williamson County. Sun City Texas, the large Del Webb active-adult community, is part of Georgetown rather than a separate town, which matters more than it sounds: a great many businesses here are second-act businesses, started by people with substantial professional careers behind them, often consultancies, professional practices, and specialist services rather than storefronts.
That shapes what good bookkeeping looks like locally. A second-act owner is usually not learning how to run a business, and does not need a bookkeeper to explain what a profit and loss statement is. What they typically want is accuracy they do not have to supervise, clear reporting on a predictable schedule, and someone who will say plainly when a question belongs with a CPA. Being talked down to is a far more common complaint here than being confused.
The other local factor is growth. Williamson County has expanded rapidly and Georgetown with it, which means a lot of businesses here are younger than their owners’ experience suggests, and a lot of them scaled faster than their bookkeeping did. The most common condition we encounter is not neglect. It is a business that outgrew a system that was perfectly adequate two years earlier, where the owner is still using the arrangement that worked when there were forty transactions a month.
Then there are the Texas-specific obligations, which are easy to underestimate because the headline is reassuring. Texas has no personal income tax, and owners moving from other states often take that to mean there is little to file. In practice most taxable entities have a franchise tax reporting obligation with the Texas Comptroller, and this is the detail that catches people. Since report year 2024, an entity at or below the no tax due threshold no longer files a No Tax Due Report, but is generally still required to file a Public Information Report or an Ownership Information Report. The threshold itself is adjusted periodically and is $2.65 million of annualized total revenue for the 2026 report. There are exceptions, including certain passive entities and qualifying new veteran-owned businesses, so your entity type determines what actually applies to you. The general point holds regardless: no tax owing is not the same as nothing to file, and a missed report is a genuinely avoidable problem.
If your business is registered for sales tax, that is a separate filing on its own schedule, and the books need to agree with what was filed. A bookkeeper working in Texas should be able to describe how they handle both without having to look it up.
- Sun City Texas is a Del Webb community within Georgetown, not a separate town
- Many local businesses are second-act ventures run by experienced professionals
- Rapid county growth means businesses commonly outgrow their bookkeeping setup
- No personal income tax in Texas does not mean no filing obligations
- Under the franchise tax threshold, most entities still file an information report
The criteria that actually predict good work
The single most useful question is who reviews the work. Bookkeeping quality varies enormously, and the variation is largely invisible from the outside, because the reports look the same either way. A file reviewed by a CPA is a materially different product from one that is not, and the difference shows up precisely when it matters: when a lender, buyer, or agency examines it. If a firm describes itself as CPA-supervised, ask what that means concretely, who the person is, and what they actually look at.
The second is whether accuracy is evidenced or asserted. Reconciliation reports are produced automatically as a by-product of doing the work, so asking for them each month costs a competent bookkeeper nothing. A firm that reconciles will send them without hesitation. A firm that does not will explain why they are not necessary. This one question separates candidates faster than any other, and it keeps working after you have hired someone.
The third is ownership of your own accounts, and this is the one owners most often get wrong at the start because it feels administrative. The accounting subscription, the bank portals, the payroll system, and the sales tax account should all be in your business’s name, with you as the primary owner and the bookkeeper granted access as a user. Set up the other way round, a routine departure becomes a recovery process involving identity documents and waiting. Our guide on what to do when a bookkeeper leaves suddenly covers what that recovery actually involves.
The fourth is the schedule. A defined monthly close, with a stated date by which your statements arrive, is what makes the numbers usable. Numbers that arrive six weeks after month end can only explain what happened. Numbers that arrive predictably in the first half of the following month can inform what you do next.
The fifth is honesty about boundaries. A bookkeeper who answers tax questions freely, opines on legal matters, and never says that something belongs elsewhere is not being more helpful. Bookkeeping, tax preparation, representation before the IRS, and legal advice are genuinely distinct functions with different qualifications behind them. Our guide on what a bookkeeper does compared with a CPA sets out where those lines fall.
- Ask who reviews the work, and what the review concretely covers
- Reconciliation reports cost a competent firm nothing to provide
- Your business owns the accounts; the bookkeeper gets user access
- A stated close date turns reporting into something you can act on
- A bookkeeper who never names a boundary is not being more helpful
Comparing bookkeepers in the Georgetown area? See how we work.
How to run the comparison, including on us
Ask every candidate the same questions and write down the answers. That sounds obvious and almost nobody does it, because these conversations are pleasant and rapport does the work instead. Rapport is worth something, but it is not evidence, and it is precisely what a firm doing weak work has to offer in place of reconciliations.
Ask for a sample reporting pack for a business of roughly your size, with the client details removed. What arrives tells you a great deal. You are looking for reconciliation summaries alongside the financial statements, a balance sheet you can follow, and comparison against prior periods. A single profit and loss statement with no supporting evidence is an answer in itself.
Ask what happens if you leave. A firm confident in its work will describe an orderly handover: you own the file, the records go with you, and there is a defined process. Hesitation here tells you how a departure would actually go, and departures happen for ordinary reasons.
Ask about scope in writing, specifically whether payroll, sales tax, franchise tax reporting, and any prior-year cleanup are inside or outside the arrangement. Most disputes between owners and bookkeepers are not about quality. They are about somebody assuming something was included.
For completeness, here is how we answer our own questions. AliCat Solutions was founded in 2013 and works with more than a hundred clients. Alicia Hoffman has held a CPA license since 1996 and spent two decades in corporate finance, mostly at Dell, before founding the firm in 2013, and the work is CPA-supervised rather than nominally overseen. We publish a written three-point guarantee covering accuracy, monthly financials by the 15th, and a reply within one business day. We do bookkeeping only: we do not prepare tax returns and we do not represent clients before the IRS, which means when a tax question arrives we send it to your CPA rather than answering it ourselves. If another firm answers these questions better for your situation, that is a good outcome for you, and you will have asked much better questions than most people do.
- Ask every candidate identical questions and record the answers
- Request an anonymized sample reporting pack and read what is missing
- Ask what leaving looks like, because departures are routine
- Get scope in writing, since most disputes are about assumed inclusions
- Apply the same standard to us as to everyone else on your list
Frequently asked questions
Q: Is Sun City a separate place from Georgetown?
A: No. Sun City Texas is a Del Webb active-adult community located within Georgetown, in Williamson County, rather than a separate town. For business purposes that means a company based there is a Georgetown business, using Georgetown addresses and the same county and state filing arrangements. It is worth mentioning because a great many businesses run from Sun City are consultancies and professional practices founded by people with long careers behind them, and their bookkeeping needs tend to look different from a first-time owner’s.
Q: Do I need a local bookkeeper, or does it not matter anymore?
A: For the mechanics, location genuinely does not matter: reconciliation, reporting, and payroll all work identically from anywhere. Where it does matter is state-specific knowledge and accountability. A bookkeeper working in Texas should already understand franchise tax reporting and Texas sales tax without researching it, and a local firm is a named business you could visit rather than an anonymous support queue. Judge on the criteria above rather than on distance, but treat state knowledge and a named accountable person as requirements.
Q: How much should bookkeeping cost in this area?
A: It varies with transaction volume, the number of accounts, and whether payroll and sales tax are included, so any figure quoted without knowing those is a guess. For context, monthly bookkeeping with monthly statements starts at $400 a month and scales with volume and scope, with larger businesses priced to their requirements. Businesses in years one through three, with lower transaction volumes, can start on quarterly bookkeeping from $175 a month. What matters more than the number is that the scope is written down, so you can compare two quotes that actually cover the same work.
Q: What if my books are already behind before I hire anyone?
A: That is a common starting point and it is not a barrier to hiring. What it changes is the sequence: catching up is a defined piece of work with its own scope, priced separately from ongoing bookkeeping, and it should be assessed before anyone quotes it. Ask candidates how they scope catch-up work and whether they will give you a written assessment you could take elsewhere. Ongoing work then starts from a verified position rather than an assumed one.
Want to learn more?
AliCat Solutions serves Georgetown, Sun City, Round Rock, Leander, Cedar Park, and the surrounding Williamson County area from our base in Cedar Park, and works nationwide through our virtual bookkeeping service. Every engagement is CPA-supervised and backed by a written three-point guarantee.
Citations
- Franchise Tax (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts). The Texas franchise tax rules, including the reporting obligation that applies to most entities regardless of whether any tax is owed. https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/franchise/
- No Tax Due Reporting for Report Year 2024 and Later (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts). The Comptroller’s guidance that entities at or below the no tax due threshold no longer file a No Tax Due Report but must still file a Public Information Report or Ownership Information Report. https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/franchise/ntd-rpt-updates-2024.php
- Recordkeeping (Internal Revenue Service). The federal guidance on keeping business records as long as they are needed to prove the income or deductions on a return. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/recordkeeping
Related reading
- Who are the best bookkeepers in Cedar Park, Texas?
- How do I know if my books need a cleanup?
- What does a bookkeeper do, and what does a CPA do?
- My bookkeeper quit suddenly. What do I do about the books?
Books you can actually trust, every month
Our promise is specific and in writing: CPA-checked accuracy, your monthly financials by the 15th, and answers within one business day.
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About the author: Alicia Hoffman, CPA is the founder of AliCat Solutions. A CPA since 1996 with two decades in corporate finance, mostly at Dell, and a BBA from Texas A&M, she built AliCat to bring corporate-grade bookkeeping discipline to small service businesses across Central Texas, backed by a written 3-Point Guarantee.
