Fantastic work! You’re officially a VC-funded startup. If you haven’t already, take a moment to celebrate. You earned it.
We’d also like to compliment you for being here. Many founders fail to see the value of accounting support (until it’s too late, and something already went wrong).
Not only that, but you’re doing your due diligence. You know you’re in a buyer’s market, and are taking the time to find the best startup CPA for your needs.
In this article, we’re going to cover three topics:
- A list of startup CPA firms you should consider. We’d be doing you a disservice by pretending we don’t have competitors. So do your research, and when the time is right, we’d love to be among the list of CPA firms you reach out to.
- 6 key things to look for in a startup CPA firm. We understand how busy founders can be, so we’ll keep it brief and share only the essentials.
- Myths and misconceptions. Most people didn’t go to school for finance. And because of this, they’ll use terms like bookkeeper, accountant, and CFO interchangeably. You likely already know what you’re looking for, but just in case, we’d like to share the ins and outs of key finance functions your startup may need.
Who Is Indinero?
During 2009, in a UC Berkeley dorm, Jessica Mah and Andy Su realized startups and new business owners were often overwhelmed by the administrative burden of financial management. Young entrepreneurs needed a solution that freed them to focus on growth without sacrificing financial clarity or control.
Then they took their idea to Y-Combinator, joined the 2010 class of VC-backed startups, and indinero was born.
Fast forward 16 years, and we’ve provided hundreds of startups and businesses an integrated financial solution that handles everything from daily bookkeeping to strategic tax planning, accounting services, payroll, and high-level fractional CFO advisory services.
Startup CPA Firms You Should Consider
The “best” CPA firm can be a subjective conversation. The right fit depends on your growth stage, geography, industry, and future plans — but we can point to some firms that’ve built strong reputations in the VC-backed space to get you started.
Here are a handful of organizations we regularly cross paths with.
| Differentiator | Who They’re Best For | Trade-offs | |
| Kruze | Boutique firm serving exclusively startup companies. | Startups only. No small businesses. | Hidden fees and upcharges outside of advertised flat monthly fees. High accounting department turnover. |
| Pilot | High-volume, streamlined, and productized services. | Founders who want a turnkey solution with standard deliverables. | Less personalized service, and lack of expertise for non-standard accounting or tax situations. |
| Zeni | Fully AI-Agent powered services. | Startups that value speed and automation for their needs. | Despite AI-powered services, pricing is only on par with competitors. |
| Escalon | Their full-stack of back-office financial services includes human resources (onboarding, benefits administration, and compliance). | Startups that want a bundled finance + HR solution in a single provider. | Broad scope can mean heavier processes and variable depth of specialization. Bundled pricing may be higher than piecemeal vendors, especially if you don’t need their full range of services. |
Do You Really Need a CPA, or Is a Bookkeeper Enough?
Here’s a simple test.
Could you send someone last month’s financials by end of day, with the confidence they’re correct? Every transaction categorized, payroll tied out, and all AP and AR transactions reconciled against bank statements? If not, start with bookkeeping.
Once the books are trustworthy? Then it’s time to think about a CPA.
6 Key Things to Look for in a Startup CPA Firm
When you interview firms, everyone will sound good on paper. Proposals are sharp, websites sparkle, and salespeople speak to their benefits, values, and how they’re different than everyone else.
But start asking questions specific to your world, and good firms will start separating themselves from the best firms.
Here’s what to look for:
- Specialized Startup Services: There’s a world of difference between a Main Street small business and a high-growth startup. Ask specific questions and see which firms respond with generalities, and which ones have laser-focused responses.
For instance, you’ll likely compensate investors or early employees with ownership shares, so your startup CPA needs to be familiar with tracking equity distributions with cap tables. You should also ask how often their clients go public, and how much VC funding they’ve helped secure. Your first round certainly won’t be the last, and an experienced startup accountant will be crucial for future efforts.
- Niche Specific Expertise: Tax and accounting rules vary by industry, so you’ll need someone who knows both startups and your particular vertical.
For instance, SaaS firms need CPAs familiar with deferred revenue recognition, while a biotech company should have someone who understands capitalizing clinical trial costs, and international companies need someone good with Forms 5471 or 5472 (there are heavy penalties for misfilings).
- Comprehensive Services: As you grow, you’ll move from having just a bookkeeper all the way through hiring CPAs, tax accountants, CFOs, payroll administrators, and more.
Each of these players need to be on the same page, but if you’re stuck coordinating multiple vendors, things risk falling through the cracks (not to mention the time you’ll spend playing middleman). It may not seem important in the moment, but choosing a firm that can provide additional services as you grow will be important in the future.
- Quick Communication: Accountants are notorious for disappearing, especially during tax season. But if you’re on a deadline and an investor needs an important report, or you’re planning for the next quarter, it’s crucial to have immediate access to your financials.
This can be tough to vet beforehand. Sometimes you’ll only find out a firm is unresponsive after you’ve hired them. However, former clients don’t hesitate to tell their stories; look for reviews. You can also gauge their promptness by observing how they communicate before you sign. Is it within a business day? Do they meet their self-imposed deadlines? Are they on time for meetings? These signals add up, so don’t ignore them.
- AI Policies: The best partners aren’t waiting for the future; they’re already ahead of the curve. Firms that embed AI into workflows can deliver faster month-end close rates and cleaner data at lower costs.
Just as important, a firm needs to know where automation ends and human judgment begins. AI can help with repetitive tasks, but people with real experience and a watchful eye still need to be behind the wheel making decisions. ChatGPT can’t translate your numbers during board meetings, and with hallucinations still common, its output can never be fully trusted. It’s a language model, not a math model.
- Tax Expertise: This is where your startup CPA can really shine. Interacting directly with the IRS takes a ton of time. You may have experienced how difficult getting them on the phone can be, so it’s crucial to have everything you may need ready to go at a moment’s notice, and the right CPA can prepare you proactively for that moment.
Additionally, a CPA familiar with the R&D tax credit can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. When people think of research and development, they usually think of scientists in lab coats handling test tubes. But that isn’t necessarily true. There’s a good chance your startup qualifies, and it’s absolutely worth looking into.
Myths and Misconceptions
The week after VC money hits the bank, most founders do the same thing: take a deep breath, and get to work.
Your board deck is due in three weeks. A new head of sales starts Monday. And your lead investor is asking for “nothing fancy.” Just a cash burn analysis, runway estimate, and revenue forecast. So you open QuickBooks, remember you have a bookkeeper, and tell yourself you’re covered. They’ll help you handle it.
This is the first myth that may be quietly doing damage — bookkeepers, accountants, tax professionals, controllers, and CFOs are not different versions of the same thing — they’re distinct crafts with unique deliverables, outcomes, and considerations.
Below, we’ll provide an overview of each function and share when it may be time to hire for those different levels of support.
And if you have the time, we highly encourage you to watch the following Y-Combinator lecture. It’ll give you a sense of the basic accounting (and legal) foundation every startup needs, regardless of where they are in their journey.
Plus, you can see a glimpse of Sam Altman before OpenAI fame. He introduced speakers Kirsty Nathoo and Carolynn Levy, sharing a simple statement: “This certainly isn’t the most exciting topic, but if you get it right, it’s probably the one that will help you avoid the most pain.”
Myth: Accounting Functions Are Interchangeable
Here’s the reality, in plain language:
- Bookkeepers put facts into the system. They manage the day-to–day records, categorize AR and AP transactions, and make sure internal data matches your bank statements. If your finances are a car, they’re putting gas in the tank and making sure you have enough money in the checking account to pay the bill.
- CPAs review the bookkeeping, close your books at the end of the month, and handle more complex tasks like policy setting, deferred revenue recognition, and preparing IRS and investor-ready reports. They’re like auto mechanics: keeping everything in sync, ordering parts, and making repairs.
- CFOs are future-thinking strategists. They translate numbers into pricing plans, forecasts, and scenario planning, answering questions like “what happens if I hire a sales team” or “can our margins handle a 10% tariff price increase?” If you’re on a road trip, they’re in the passenger seat mapping routes, monitoring progress, and helping the CEO decide where (and how quickly) to drive.
| Related: CPAs can also be controllers or comptrollers. But what’s the difference between them and CFOs? Learn the answer here. |
Myth: We Need a CFO
This is a pretty common story.
A SaaS founder recently reached out, interested in our fractional chief financial officer services. However, as we listened, the signals pointed somewhere else.
Our rep asked for their most recent financials. But what came back was a handful of spreadsheets, a QuickBooks report that didn’t match bank statements, and a Stripe export.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping track of financials like this — it’s pretty common for bootstrapping companies to DIY and make do — but when they asked for a CFO’s help, their true need (for now) was elsewhere.
Instead of proposing pricey CFO time, we suggested a bookkeeping-first sprint: daily transaction cleanup, bank reconciliations, and a month-end closing checklist. And within weeks, they had more clarity on their financials than they’d ever had.
Many startups may eventually need a CFO. But before you grow into that level of support, you need to set the foundation.
Myth: We Can Clean up the Books When It’s Time
Founders sometimes do this because it feels efficient. Do it once, and focus elsewhere for the rest of the year. Right?
But when tax time comes, you’re preparing for your next raise, or going through due diligence for an acquisition, it’s the most expensive choice you can make.
Not only are you in crisis mode trying to find everything, but if you weren’t keeping clean records to begin with, reconstructing the past can prove to be an impossible task.
That’s exactly why Irish Benedict, a merger and acquisition advisory firm, insists his clients contract with indinero before he’ll help with their acquisition. Clients were struggling to get through due diligence because they lacked the expertise, or bandwidth, to properly set financial foundations.
A light but disciplined monthly close, managed by well-practiced hands, can prevent you from panicking when deadlines arrive. It’s an investment that will save you time, money, and headaches in the future.
Myth: Software or AI Can Replace the Finance Team
Would you trust ChatGPT to file your taxes? Probably not.
Similarly, it’s probably not wise to replace the finance department with AI either. Automation is brilliant at cleaning up spreadsheets or accelerating the data gathering process, but it can’t replace the human judgment and expertise a seasoned professional brings to the table.
What Sets Indinero Apart?
Finance is full of timers: board asks, lending applications, tax deadlines. But founders usually notice our difference pretty quickly.
Maybe you’ll send a late-afternoon note — “Investor update Friday. Can you sanity-check our numbers and pull last month’s revenue figures by cohort?” — and you don’t get a ticket number. You get a reply with clear next steps, and a short list of what we’ll deliver and when.
That’s because communication is baked into everything we do. Silence is expensive, so we guarantee to answer within 24 hours (but you’ll often hear from us much sooner).
And when we do reply, it’s not from a “support@indinero” address. We don’t send questions through a merry-go-round of support staff (who aren’t familiar with your business).
Instead, every client has a single point of contact. You’ll trade emails, exchange Slack DMs, and see their name on calendar invites or Zoom meetings. They’ll be intimately familiar with your business, and it’s their job to walk you through the financials, in plain language, giving you the info you’ll need to move forward with confidence.
Behind them is a deep bench of expertise. If your point of contact doesn’t know something, there’s a good chance the team does. We coordinate everyone on your behalf, so you’re never responsible for conducting the orchestra. No chasing multiple vendors, no “who owns this” questions at 9 PM. Just one relationship, one rhythm, and one source of truth.
Conversations peak at month-end with what many clients consider the most valuable part of working with us: your regular review meeting. We don’t just send a packet of reports. We sit down and walk through what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do about it: candid, practical, with the goal of turning complexity into clarity.
Additionally, our services can scale with your business, and we’ll never recommend expensive hammers if all you really need is a wrench. If you need airtight bookkeeping and a disciplined month-end close, we’ll start there. And when the time is right, we can layer in a CPA, proactive tax services, payroll administration, or fractional CFO support.
In short, working with indinero feels less like renting a service and more like adding a calm, accountable partner to your startup team.
We answer quickly, you talk to one person who owns the outcome, and we’ll tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about what’s really going on. And when you succeed with your next growth milestone? You won’t need to find a new firm; we bring the right specialist to the table and keep you moving.
So when the time is right, reach out for a free consultation. We’d be delighted to show you the difference we can make in your business.
We’ll handle the numbers. You focus on growth.
