Business Advisory Services

Business Advisory & Tax Strategy for Business Owners

Business advisory should do more than sound good on paper. It should help you make better decisions, reduce tax liability, and improve how your business operates throughout the year.

At Lipsey & Associates, our advisory services are designed for business owners who want more than year-end tax preparation. We work with clients on an ongoing basis to identify strategies, implement them correctly, and coordinate the tax and accounting impact over time.

Our advisory services are not billed on an ad hoc basis. They are structured as ongoing monthly engagements so we can provide consistent guidance, implement strategies properly, and support you throughout the year.

Why Clients Use Our Advisory Services

Our clients use advisory services because they want more than compliance. They want a CPA firm that helps them think ahead, structure decisions properly, and reduce preventable tax costs over time.

Many of the strategies we help implement are not especially complicated—but they do require timing, coordination, and follow-through. That is where ongoing support creates the most value.

Business advisory is most effective when it is built into an ongoing relationship, not delivered as a one-time recommendation.

Business Advisory Engagement Options

Clients can begin advisory services at the start of any quarter. All engagements are billed monthly via ACH autopay and structured as quarterly commitments.

While clients may begin in any quarter, advisory services are most effective when implemented over a full year. Many strategies require planning, coordination, and execution across multiple quarters to deliver the intended result.

R&D tax credit work is handled separately due to its complexity and documentation requirements.

How the Advisory Process Works

Our advisory work follows a structured annual cadence so planning happens proactively—not all at once at year-end.

Q1: Foundation & Entity Optimization

• S Corporation reasonable compensation analysis
• Review of current entity structure and how income is reported across LLCs, S Corporations, Partnerships, and C Corporations
• Operating agreement review for partnership clients (allocations, ownership, and tax impact)
• Entity optimization analysis, including S Corporation election considerations for Schedule C / self-employed clients

Q2: State Compliance & Family Strategies

• Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET) analysis
• Kiddie payroll and family tax strategies

Q3: Strategy Implementation

• Kiddie payroll implementation
• Augusta Rule planning and setup

Q4: Year-End Planning

• Finalize Augusta Rule execution
• Year-end tax projections
• Strategy adjustments before filing

This cadence helps ensure that planning is spread throughout the year and actually implemented—not compressed into a few weeks during filing season.

Examples of Ongoing Tax Minimization Strategies

These are examples of the types of strategies we help evaluate and implement for business owners. The right strategy depends on your entity structure, income level, and how your business operates.

Augusta Rule Planning
If you own your home and use it appropriately for business purposes, you may be missing an opportunity to structure deductible rent payments correctly. We help clients set this up and integrate it into their broader tax strategy.

Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET) Planning
PTET elections can create meaningful federal tax advantages in the right state and entity structure. We help evaluate whether the strategy makes sense, guide implementation, and coordinate the filing impact.

Family Payroll & Income Shifting Strategies
For some business owners, payroll strategies involving family members can create legitimate tax planning opportunities when implemented correctly. We help clients evaluate those strategies and coordinate the reporting and compliance involved.

Ongoing Business Advisory Services

Our advisory services often overlap with bookkeeping and tax work because the most effective guidance comes from having accurate numbers and full context.

• Budgeting Setup and Review: Establish a clearer budget, review results against expectations, and identify where performance can improve.
• Financial Statement Analysis: Review profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow reporting to better understand how the business is actually performing.
• Monthly or Quarterly CFO Check-In: Meet regularly with a CPA/EA to discuss performance, open questions, and key decisions.
• Retirement Deferral Strategies: Evaluate retirement contributions in the context of your broader tax strategy—not in isolation.
• Cafeteria Plans and Owner/Employee Benefits: Understand how benefits structures may create opportunities or complications for your business.
• Accountable Plans and Reimbursement Plans: Coordinate reimbursements for expenses such as auto mileage, cell phone use, education, and other qualified items.
• Accounting System Modernization: Improve the systems and workflows supporting your financial reporting so decision-making becomes easier and more reliable.
• Entity-Type Analysis: Review whether your current structure still makes sense and whether a different entity would create a better long-term result.
• New Business Advisory Sessions: Help new owners make better early decisions around structure, reporting, and planning.

When Advisory Becomes More Hands-On

For some clients, advisory work extends beyond tax strategy into more hands-on financial guidance. This may include budgeting, cash flow planning, and ongoing financial decision support.

In these situations, our role begins to resemble an outsourced CFO relationship, where we are more actively involved in helping guide the financial direction of the business.

These engagements are typically more customized based on the level of involvement required and are scoped separately from our standard advisory services.

What to Expect

Our advisory services are designed for business owners who want an ongoing relationship—not one-time recommendations.

That means we focus on planning, implementation, and follow-through over time. While a client can begin advisory services at the start of any quarter, the most valuable results usually come from staying engaged across the full year.

This allows us to align tax strategy, entity structure, compliance, and financial visibility in a way that actually supports long-term growth.