Know of any other great accounting firms that you’ve worked with? Let us know!
As a photographer, you’re passionate about capturing beautiful moments, but managing the financial side of your business can be overwhelming…right?
Hiring a professional accountant can make all the difference in keeping your business finances organized, compliant with tax regulations, and helping you to become more profitable.
In this blog post, we’ve curated some highly recommended accounting firms that specialize in working with photographers, each offering valuable services to help you streamline your business.
Running a photography business involves more than just taking photos and booking clients.
We all know this 🙂
It could be pretty easily argued that photographer’s actually spend just 5% of their time shooting, with the other 95% of their time spent to working on their business.
As your business grows, the financial aspects become increasingly complex, and that’s where a professional accountant can help.
Here are a few key reasons why hiring an accountant is beneficial:
Engage CPAs is an accounting firm known for its expertise in working with creative professionals, including photographers. With a team that understands the unique challenges faced by photographers, Engage CPAs can help you with tax preparation, bookkeeping, and financial planning, ensuring that your business stays on track.
We have worked directly with Engage CPAs for many years, and they have helped us navigate many difficult times in our businesses and personal lives including the 2020 pandemic, opening a new business (Shoot and Thrive!), starting a family, investment strategies, tax optimization strategies, restructuring as S-Corps, and more. They make money matters a lot easier to digest!
Why Photographers Like Them:
Bastien Accounting is a boutique accounting firm that provides personalized services to creative professionals and small businesses. Their team focuses on helping photographers with everything from bookkeeping and tax preparation to financial forecasting. Bastien Accounting prides itself on offering custom financial solutions tailored to your business’s specific needs.
While we have not directly worked with them, we have read many positive things online from others who have!
Why Photographers Like Them:
Tidy Books offers bookkeeping and financial organization services designed to take the stress out of managing your business’s day-to-day finances. While they specialize in small businesses, Tidy Books understands the challenges photographers face in managing cash flow, taxes, and expenses. Their team helps photographers keep their books organized, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Keep in mind, Tidy Books is not a full accounting/CPA firm – but specializes exclusively in bookkeeping (tracking your expenses and sales). They offer services to help you get this set up on your own, or fully managed solutions.
Why Photographers Like Them:
Collective is the first all-in-one financial solution exclusively for solopreneurs. They currently work with over 1,000 photographers as clients!
One thing that makes Collective unique in this list of recommended accounting firms is that you can sign up for a monthly membership that includes: LLC and S Corp formation, payroll, monthly bookkeeping, quarterly tax estimates, annual tax filing, and access to a team of experts.
This gives photographers peace of mind, maximizes their profits, and gives time back to focus on growing their business.
Why Photographers Like Them:
*Based on the average 2022 tax savings of active Collective users with an S Corp tax election for the 2022 tax year
Sign up for Collective using promo code THRIVE to get 1 month free!
Photographers often face the dilemma of handling accounting and bookkeeping themselves or hiring a professional. Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of each approach:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Ultimately, if your business is growing or you find yourself struggling to manage your books effectively, working with a professional accountant may be the best option for long-term success.
When hiring an accounting firm, it’s essential to understand the common pricing structures to ensure the services fit your budget. Here are the most common ways accounting firms charge for their services:
For specific services like tax preparation or setting up your bookkeeping system, accounting firms often charge a one-time fee. This pricing method is straightforward and ideal for one-off projects, such as filing annual taxes or conducting a financial review.
Best For: Photographers needing occasional services or one-time assistance, like tax returns or setting up a bookkeeping system.
Some accounting firms charge an hourly rate for their services. This can be common for ongoing consultations or ad-hoc financial advice. The hourly rate can vary depending on the accountant’s experience and location.
Best For: Businesses needing occasional help without the commitment of long-term contracts.
Many firms offer retainer agreements, where you pay a set monthly subscription fee in exchange for ongoing accounting services. This often includes bookkeeping, financial reporting, tax preparation, and more comprehensive financial management. Collective is a good example of an accounting firm for photographers that does this.
Best For: Photographers who need consistent, ongoing support to manage their finances year-round.
Some accountants offer package deals that include several services, such as bookkeeping, tax preparation, and financial planning, for a bundled price. This can offer cost savings compared to paying for each service separately.
Best For: Photographers looking for all-in-one financial services at a predictable cost.
Understanding how your accountant charges for services will help you choose the best firm for your budget and business needs.
When choosing an accounting firm, it’s also good to know the difference between custom accounting services and general bookkeeping solutions:
Choosing a custom accounting service ensures your accountant understands your business model, helping you make the most of available financial strategies to grow your business more efficiently.
Hiring the right accountant is an investment in your business’s future.
Whether you’re looking for tax assistance, help with financial organization, or strategic advice to grow your photography business, the firms listed here can help you succeed.
By outsourcing your financial management to professionals, you free up time to focus on other aspects of your business (the funner ones, right?!) while ensuring that your business remains financially sound and ready for growth.
Honesty is a cornerstone of Shoot and Thrive, so we want you to know that some links in this post are affiliate links. This means we may earn a commission if you make a purchase—at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products and services we trust, have used ourselves, or have thoroughly researched based on industry feedback. Our goal is to provide solutions that genuinely help, whether they come from our direct experience or the collective knowledge of the photography community.
As photography business educators, we believe it's important for educators in this industry to be active photographers themselves. The images used throughout this website were taken through our photo studios - Hand and Arrow Photography and Marshall Scott Photography, except for stock images or if otherwise noted.
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