Accounting Firms
Clients see a finished return. Tax season rides on everything below it.
March 3rd, 9:20 p.m. Four preparers still at their desks, six client files open against the QuickBooks server, and a filing deadline that does not care how old that server is. We support the systems accounting firms actually use, and we know the IRS data security expectations that apply to small firms.
The work that saves April happens in October.
Tax season is not the time to discover your file server is dying.
Accounting firms have a particular IT problem. For most of the year, the systems work fine and nobody pays attention to them. Then somewhere between mid-January and April 15th, you suddenly need every workstation, every printer, every internet connection, and every shared file to work flawlessly under load. The file server that has been quietly losing a disk since November becomes a five-alarm fire. The QuickBooks file that has been gradually corrupting suddenly will not open. The remote-access setup nobody used since last April does not work for the new staff person you onboarded in February. We do the work that prevents this in October, not in April.
Software and systems we already support.
QuickBooks Desktop on Windows Server
Multi-user file sharing, database server mode, hosted on a properly-spec'd Windows Server with shadow copies and tested backups.
QuickBooks Online
For firms moving to the cloud. Secure access, MFA enforcement, audit logging.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Both, with the security hardening that IRS Publication 4557 expects of small accounting firms holding taxpayer data.
Secure document portals
For client document exchange that does not involve unencrypted email attachments.
Encrypted email and email security
Microsoft 365 sensitivity labels, Google Workspace S/MIME, anti-phishing rules tuned for the kind of attacks accounting firms get during tax season.
Endpoint encryption
BitLocker on every workstation that touches a tax return. Required by IRS Publication 4557, and a basic professional standard either way.
Multi-factor authentication everywhere
On email, file shares, QuickBooks Online, and remote access. The IRS-recommended baseline.
Audit logging
Who accessed what, when. Both for IRS-style oversight and for any internal investigation that might come up.
IRS Publication 4557 + the FTC Safeguards Rule
Small accounting firms holding taxpayer data are expected to meet baseline data security standards under IRS Publication 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule (effective for tax preparers since 2023). We are not a formal compliance firm, but we know what these standards expect technically: written information security plan, multi-factor authentication, encryption of stored taxpayer data, regular access reviews, security incident response plan. We can put the technical pieces in place that make compliance defensible. For the formal documentation work, we'll point you to a partner.
What we do for accounting firm clients.
QuickBooks Desktop server administration and tested backups
Pre-tax-season load testing and capacity planning every October
Secure remote access for staff working from home or client sites
Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace security hardening to IRS Pub 4557 expectations
Endpoint encryption and MFA enforcement on every device that touches taxpayer data
Email security tuned for the phishing and impersonation attacks that target accounting firms
Secure document portal setup for client file exchange
Daily helpdesk so partners and staff are not troubleshooting their own printer at 9pm in March
Where this lands
Cybersecurity
Huntress EDR, identity hardening, endpoint encryption, phishing simulation, and incident response.
See how →
Backup & Disaster Recovery
Tested restores, ransomware recovery, isolated backup copies, and plain-English RTO/RPO planning.
See how →
Microsoft 365
Tenant administration, Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, MFA, Entra ID hardening, and license rightsizing.
See how →
Get a tax-season readiness check.
Thirty minutes with Orion about what you run and what has been annoying you. No slide deck, no checklist. A straight answer on what to fix first, whether or not you hire us.