Payroll Companies & Payroll Services in Champaign, IL

Overview

Accounting Plus Tax Solutions, Inc. is an accounting and tax firm based in Champaign, Illinois. It handles payroll alongside bookkeeping, financial reporting and tax work. The firm serves both business owners and individuals. It presents itself as a single point of contact for companies that want one team to manage their payroll, books and tax filings. For buyers comparing payroll providers in the Champaign area, it represents the local accounting-firm model rather than a national software platform.

Payroll Services

The firm runs a payroll service meant to take routine pay-period work off an employer's plate. According to its website, the service produces professionally prepared paychecks, the supporting payroll reports, and the tax forms employers are required to file. The same office also prepares unemployment and other business tax returns. As a result, payroll-related filings can be coordinated with the rest of a company's tax compliance instead of being split across separate vendors.

• Preparation of employee paychecks
• Payroll reporting for each pay cycle
• Payroll tax form preparation
• Unemployment tax return preparation

Accounting and Reporting

Beyond payroll, the firm delivers monthly bookkeeping and reporting packages. These include operating statements that break down each month's sales, cost of sales and expenses. Clients also get balance sheets showing assets, liabilities and net worth at a point in time, and a monthly reconciliation of bank statements against their checkbook.

The firm supplies general ledger reports listing dates, check numbers, payees and expenses by account, whether records are kept by hand or in accounting software. It also provides charts that compare current revenue and spending with prior months or years. The firm lists QuickBooks services and offers software training adapted to each client's business.

Tax Work

As a full-service tax office, the firm prepares federal, state, and local returns. It also handles sales, property and unemployment tax filings, and reviews everything with clients before deadlines. It encourages clients to schedule a planning meeting in early summer to look ahead to the coming filing season. The firm takes tax questions throughout the year and lists help with tax problems and audits among its offerings.

Working Style and Commitments

The firm describes its approach as collaborative. It aims to keep clients up to date and involved so they have timely financial information for business and personal decisions. Its staff pursue ongoing training to sharpen their technical and financial knowledge, and the firm invites clients to call to discuss statements or other matters directly.

One commitment stands out for payroll buyers. The company states that if a client is charged penalties or late fees because of mistakes in its work, it will pay them. The firm says it has grown steadily since its founding. It operates from an office on Windsor Place in Champaign and offers a secure online client portal.

Overview

Feller & Kuester CPAs is a small certified public accounting practice based in Champaign, Illinois. It serves individual taxpayers and small companies across the Champaign-Urbana area. The firm is best known for tax and audit work, but payroll is a regular part of its daily client work, delivered alongside bookkeeping and accounting support.

For a business owner comparing payroll providers, the appeal is that the same CPA team runs the payroll and also prepares the company's books, financial statements and tax filings.

Payroll and Bookkeeping Services

The firm positions itself as an outsourced accounting department for clients that prefer not to keep these functions in house. Companies can hand over their entire accounting workload or choose individual pieces. On the payroll side, staff process payroll for client businesses and prepare the related payroll tax returns. Several team members also handle sales and use tax filings.

Payroll work ties directly into account reconciliations and the preparation of financial statements, so payroll figures feed into the wider set of records the firm maintains.

• Payroll processing for small businesses
• Payroll tax return preparation
• Sales/use tax filings
• Bookkeeping and account reconciliation
• Financial statement preparation
• Business, corporate, partnership, fiduciary and individual tax work
• Estate and gift tax strategy and estate tax filings
• Compilation, review and audit engagements

Tax and Audit Capabilities

Beyond payroll, the practice follows changes in tax legislation to look for planning opportunities that reduce what clients owe now and in later years. Its audit and assurance work covers not-for-profit organizations and government bodies of widely varying size, from organizations with a single employee up to entities with multimillion-dollar revenues.

The goal is to leave clients with practical suggestions for strengthening their accounting systems and internal controls. Because the firm belongs to the Illinois CPA Society, it participates in the peer review program and makes its results available on its website.

History and Team

Stan Feller graduated from Illinois State University and began his career at Peat Marwick Mitchell. He opened the practice in 1975 and joined the Illinois CPA Society in 1974. Neal Kuester earned a Master of Accounting Science from the University of Illinois and spent five years at a large regional firm.

He became a partner in 2011, when the practice adopted its current name. Neal concentrates on tax matters for individual filers and small companies, and on audits for municipal bodies and not-for-profit groups. The wider staff includes a senior accountant with decades of experience at firms in Danville and Urbana, and staff accountants focused on tax and audit.

It also includes an office manager who has handled payroll, bookkeeping and tax returns for the firm since 2013, and a bookkeeper with more than four decades in accounting who specializes in payroll and payroll tax reporting.

What Sets the Firm Apart

The firm describes its aim as combining the expertise associated with larger practices with the attentiveness of a small office. Because the team is compact, clients typically work with the same people who know their records. Payroll questions can be answered by staff who also understand the client's tax and accounting picture.

For small employers in Champaign-Urbana who want a local CPA firm rather than a national payroll platform, Feller & Kuester offers payroll as one integrated part of a full accounting relationship.