As the leaders of family-owned and closely held businesses increasingly turn their attention to succession planning, our valuation engagements continue to span industries. We know that nothing strikes closer to the heart than determining the value of your business. It is likely a significant asset in your estate. And it represents years or decades of hard work. With three Certified Valuation Analysts at the principal level, we apply the highest standards of professionalism and integrity to our business valuations. You’ll emerge with a fully documented valuation—as well as a clear understanding of what constitutes the value of your business.

Services

• Estate and Gift Tax
• Divorce
• Shareholder Disputes
• Buy/Sell Agreements
• Mergers and Acquisitions

Our business valuations team is led by Certified Valuation Analysts and CK Principals James Scherzinger, Micah Vant Hoff and Manager, Jason Hofferica.

Our tax planning and preparation team helps you make the most of seemingly contradictory tax regulations, maximizing your savings against the codes. But for Cray Kaiser, tax season isn’t a season at all. Throughout the year, we help you think through daily business decisions—matters ranging from equipment to real estate to personal.

Whether we’re preparing a straightforward personal return or a complex ownership transfer, we investigate implications: What does a dollar saved or spent today mean for tomorrow? If you are the leader of a closely held or family-owned business, your personal life and professional world are connected.

Specializing in the closely held and family-owned space, we pursue your planning holistically. At every stage, we revisit the same overarching question: How can your business transactions benefit your tax picture and, by extension, your family at large?

Services

• Tax Planning and Consulting
• State and Local Tax Compliance and Planning
• Tax Compliance
• Trusts and Estates
• Ownership Transfers

As a nonprofit, you most likely run on the love and fumes of volunteer talent, even when it comes to meeting your tax and accounting needs. With broad and far-ranging experience in the nonprofit sector, we understand these organizations’ unique tax and accounting processes, inside and out. And that’s where our nonprofit audit experience comes to play.

When you are required to submit a Uniform Guidance Audit, for instance—a type of audit that the Office of Management and Budget requires from nonprofits that receive certain levels of federal funding—we help you navigate the rigorous requisites. In the process, we work with you to develop best practices for your internal financial reporting systems.

A byproduct of a nonprofit audit is that you, your staff and constituents—including volunteers, board members and part-time employees—gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to run a fiscally ethical, transparent and compliant nonprofit. Given that your “shareholders” are in fact the people within the community you serve, this heightened knowledge base, along with the increased visibility to the public at large, becomes doubly important.

Contact us today to learn more about conducting a nonprofit audit.

Certified audit and assurance services help you build financial reporting credibility, manage risk and measure performance across critical business areas. For your lenders, investors and reporting agencies, an audit or assurance analyzes the accuracy of your financial reporting against what professionals call generally accepted accounting principles. But the “generalities” end there.

Our approach to a certified audit puts us in a league apart. We know that your passion lies in operations. Not in financial reporting. So we direct every effort toward easing the burden of the assurance process. We set you up for success by asking the right questions: Who requested the audit? How will you use this extended line of credit? Can we achieve your goals through a compilation instead?

Although the audit process is independent, we can help you mitigate future risk and turn inefficiencies into opportunities. Our decades of combined experience put us in the position to manage even the most specialized audit reports, including nonprofit audits and the heavily regulated area of employee benefit plan audits. In the latter case, we work with your Plan Administrator to answer the Department of Labor’s requisites, serving as the liaison between you, the administrator and the government.

Services

Agreed Upon Procedures, including:

• Internal Control Reviews and Assessments
• Cash Management System Reviews
• Regulatory Compliance Assessments
• Training for Internal Audit Professionals
  

Specialized Services

• Employee Benefit Plan Audits – Voluntary Member, AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center
• Nonprofit Audits
• Transnational Audits – certified by Russell Bedford

Cray Kaiser delivers tax, accounting and strategic services with a steadfast commitment to accuracy and integrity.

By definition, projections live in the future. As strategic consultants, we bring them into the here and now. Leveraging our more than 50 years in business, we blend the high-touch service of a boutique firm with the proficiencies of a strategic consulting powerhouse. In this “best of both worlds” scenario, we expand and refine our focus to meet your unique needs.

Over the years, our engagements have encompassed the full strategic spectrum. We’ve advised clients about corporate structure; mergers and acquisitions; estate, succession and exit planning; P&L analysis; business valuations and more. We’ve provided employment procurement services. We’ve even deployed Cray Kaiser accountants as temporary CFOs.

No two engagements are alike. But our strategic consulting offering is always actionable. Taking stock of your strengths and weaknesses, as well as marketplace opportunities, we devise measurable objectives and arm you with a detailed implementation plan. Priority number one? Empowering you to put theory into practice.