Frequently Asked Questions

  • Aside from the type of partnership we create through our pricing and engagement structure, we bring a holistic business view to every engagement that most firms can’t provide. We’re not just accountants.

    Our leadership not only worked as a CPA across private and public companies, but we’ve built startups from 0 to 1, operated small businesses, and worked in startup sales and operations. This means we understand how each unique aspect of your business plays together to make the whole vehicle move forward. It provides an added background of strategy that others can’t match.

    Additionally, our full suite of services allows you to start anywhere and go anywhere with Ara. Our engagements can be updated over time to meet new, changing needs to grow with you.

  • Our services are less about a client’s industry, and more about the size/structure of your organization or your specific needs. Typically, our clients have revenues between $250k - $25M, headcount of 1 - 50 people, or specialized needs/projects beyond the capabilities of their internal accounting team.

    See the current, wide range of client industries we serve on our Industries page.

  • We work off Value-Based Pricing to align our incentives with yours. We think the old way of firms over billing hours, no cost predictability, and misaligned interests created a lack of trust in the industry.

    Each engagement is unique to our client’s needs. We perform a free initial consultation and follow-up discussions to understand the scope of your needs, followed by a 2 month scoping period based on an hourly rate.

    At the end of the 2 month scoping period, a flat monthly fee is mutually agreed upon to give you predictability in your costs and expectations. This also provides us predictability, and pushes us to drive efficiencies that further benefit you and us.

    This creates a partnership where you are free to reach out any time and treat us like a member of your team, without worrying about higher bills.

  • Absolutely. While we work with all clients on a custom scoped, recurring monthly engagement, we often perform project based work as well. Think initial budget creation, cash flow projections, hiring planning, etc.

  • Accounting and finance functions should not simply be a cost center. You need to receive reliable, actionable, and timely financial information on company performance and key performance indicators (KPIs) that help make the best short and long term decisions for the growth of your business.

    Having a partner that deeply understands your business and that you can rely upon sets the foundation for a value-added finance function.

  • Our clients use Quickbooks Online and Xero. The cloud functionality of these systems makes collaboration and anywhere-access hugely beneficial. Additionally, the ability to scale businesses and integrate to other systems makes these solutions the right fit for SMB and growth startups.

  • Each partnership is unique. The best relationship is one that brings the most value to you. Whether that’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings, specified reporting deadlines, etc, we work to ensure your needs are being met and deliverables are provided timely to drive your business decisions.

    As long as we both have proper access to information and a communicative relationship, the partnership is efficient and effective.

  • When we enter an engagement, most often we replace an existing firm. We work with you on the front end to plan the transition timeline and process together to ensure confidence.

    Once the process begins, we work with you as the liaison to transition all financial files and shared documents, along with granting us access to the financial systems, to ensure no interruptions in your business.

    Instances where there is no existing partner or system, we advise and work with you to establish the foundation from scratch.

  • Nope. Our entire operation is based in the US. Unlike other firms that outsource repeatable tasks to lower-wage countries, our US team handles all work to ensure high quality and reliability, along with data protection.

  • Even with our ultra high retention rate, we get it, sometimes clients go fully in-house. To keep you in control at all times, you own your accounting system and all the data within. If we part ways, simply remove our system access, and we’ll transfer any other shared files/external files via secure methods to ensure business continuity.