If you run a CPA or accounting firm, choosing an IT provider is no longer just about keeping laptops running and printers online.
Your entire practice runs on digital systems that must stay secure, compliant, and available, especially when tax season hits.
In March, a single hour of downtime can easily wipe out a full day of billable work once you factor in missed client calls, delayed filings, and staff who cannot access tax and accounting applications.
That is why relying on a generic small business IT provider is increasingly risky for CPA firms. Most managed service providers understand Windows, email, and basic cybersecurity. Far fewer understand how a hybrid or fully remote tax practice operates, how quickly workloads spike between January and April, or how IRS and FTC rules actually translate into day-to-day controls. A CPA-focused managed IT provider will speak fluently about GLBA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, and IRS security publications, not just antivirus and firewalls.
The difference shows up in the questions they can answer without hesitation. If a provider cannot clearly explain how they support IRS Publication 4557, IRS Publication 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule for CPA firms, they are not ready to manage your IT.
The goal of this guide is to give you a concrete CPA firm IT checklist so you can test that expertise before you sign anything. If you are still mapping the market, you may also want to look at the best managed IT support providers for accounting and tax firms like Verito to understand how specialists position their services compared to generalists.
In the sections that follow, you will find 20 critical questions to ask any CPA IT support company before you hire them. For each question, we will explain why it matters for an accounting firm, what a strong, specific answer should sound like, and which vague or incomplete responses are red flags.
By the end, you should have a clear, practical framework for how to choose a managed IT provider for a CPA firm, and a much sharper sense of whether you are talking to a true CPA-focused partner or just another generic MSP.
If you want to benchmark your current setup while you read, you can also schedule a free security assessment with Verito, including a review of managed IT services for accounting firms and IT support for accounting firms that is designed specifically around CPA workloads and compliance requirements.
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Quick checklist: The 20 Questions You Should Ask a CPA IT Provider At a Glance
- How many CPA and accounting firms do you currently support, and what percentage of your client base is tax and accounting?
- How do you map your security controls to IRS Publication 4557, IRS Publication 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule for CPA firms?
- Can you provide and maintain an IRS-compliant Written Information Security Plan for our firm, and who owns keeping that WISP updated?
- Will our firm run on dedicated private servers or shared infrastructure, and how is our data isolated from other clients?
- What uptime do you actually deliver for tax and accounting applications, and what historical data can you share for peak tax season months?
- How do you keep our tax and accounting applications fast and responsive when workloads spike three to five times between January and April?
- How do you handle data backup, immutable storage, backup retention, and regular restore testing for CPA firms?
- What endpoint protection and email security controls do you use, and how do they protect us against ransomware and phishing?
- What are your documented response time and resolution time commitments, and what are your real averages during the busy season?
- Is your helpdesk truly 24/7, and who answers after hours and on weekends during filing deadlines?
- How do you support remote, hybrid, and multi-office CPA firms without sacrificing security or performance?
- Which tax and accounting applications do you support every day, and how deep is your experience with our specific software stack?
- How do you handle vendor management and escalation with our tax and accounting software vendors when issues cross between systems?
- What is included in your managed IT services for CPA firms, and what would count as out of scope or billable project work?
- How do you price your services for CPA firms, and do you offer transparent month-to-month terms with no long-term lock-in?
- What is your process and typical timeline for onboarding a new CPA firm or switching us from our current IT provider?
- How do you monitor and log access to our systems, and what kind of security and compliance reports will we see each month or quarter?
- What cyber incident response process do you follow if there is a suspected breach, and how quickly can you help us meet regulatory notification requirements?
- How do you train our staff on security best practices, phishing awareness, and safe use of remote access tools?
- Which third-party certifications, audits, or data center standards do you rely on, such as SOC 2 Type II, and can we see the latest reports under NDA?
Why CPA Firms Need a Specialized IT Provider, Not a Generic MSP
CPA and accounting firms operate under pressures that most generic IT providers never fully understand.
Your calendar is built around immovable filing deadlines, with workloads that compress into a few critical months each year.
Staff depend on legacy desktop tax applications that were never designed for cloud use, along with newer SaaS tools, all of which must stay responsive for remote and hybrid teams. At the same time, you handle some of the most sensitive data in the professional services world: Social Security numbers, bank details, payroll records, business financials, and prior year returns for entire households and companies. Small configuration mistakes can quickly turn into long outages or data exposure that directly hits clients and partners.
On top of the operational pressure sits a growing regulatory load. CPA firms are covered by the Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) and the FTC Safeguards Rule, which require you to protect client information with documented, auditable controls. The IRS reinforces those expectations in Publication 4557 and Publication 5708, which call for a Written Information Security Plan, role-based access controls, encryption, multi-factor authentication, vendor due diligence, and ongoing monitoring. A generic IT provider that treats you like any other small business is unlikely to connect day-to-day IT decisions to these specific obligations, which leaves you exposed when examiners or insurance underwriters start asking hard questions.
A specialized CPA IT provider is built around these realities. They understand that peak tax season is not the time to roll out disruptive changes, that remote staff must be secured without slowing them down, and that your IT architecture has to align with WISP commitments and engagement letters.
They think in terms of protecting billable hours and safeguarding client trust, not just keeping servers online. In practice, that means architecting environments that respect how tax software behaves, planning capacity for three to five times the normal load in March and April, and translating regulatory requirements into concrete controls that can be demonstrated on request.
Verito sits deliberately in this specialized category. Verito’s VeritGuard managed IT services and VeritSpace dedicated private servers are designed specifically for tax and accounting workloads, combining SOC 2 Type II infrastructure with 100 percent uptime and CPA native support. That combination of audited controls, performance-first cloud hosting, and accounting-fluent helpdesk is what you should expect as a baseline from any provider that claims to be focused on CPA firms.
The 20 Questions One Must Ask CPA IT Providers
Category A: Security, Compliance, and WISP Questions
1. Do you specialize in CPA and accounting firms, or are we just one vertical you serve?
For a CPA firm, IT decisions tie directly into GLBA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, IRS security guidance, cyber insurance questionnaires, and even PTIN attestation. A provider that only casually serves accountants will not naturally connect day-to-day IT support with those requirements.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “More than half of our clients are CPA and accounting firms. We support busy season, remote staff, and tax software like Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax, CCH, QuickBooks Desktop every day.” | “We work with all kinds of small businesses,” with no numbers or specifics about accounting firms. |
| References to GLBA, FTC Safeguards, IRS guidance, and WISP support as normal parts of their service. | They ask you what IRS Publication 4557 is or treat tax season as just “a busy period.” |
Verito fits the “specialist” profile here, focusing its cloud and managed IT services only on tax and accounting firms rather than spreading across unrelated industries.
2. How do you help us comply with IRS Publication 4557, IRS Publication 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule?
These are the core rules that define how you protect taxpayer data. A CPA IT provider should be able to show how its platform and processes support encryption, MFA, access control, monitoring, vendor management, and incident response in line with these standards.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| A simple mapping that shows how their controls align with 4557, 5708, and the Safeguards Rule, plus how they support you with cyber insurance and examiner requests. | “We use antivirus and firewalls, so you are covered.” No mention of these documents by name. |
| Discussion of MFA, device and remote access policies, log retention, vendor due diligence, and documented risk assessments. | They say “compliance is your responsibility” and do not offer any concrete support or reporting. |
As a reference point, providers like Verito build environments where this mapping is already done, so firms can demonstrate how their IT stack meets IRS and FTC expectations without starting from a blank page.
3. What security frameworks and certifications back your environment (for example SOC 2 Type II)?
Certifications and audits are one of the few objective signals you can rely on. SOC 2 Type II, in particular, shows that an independent auditor has tested the provider’s controls over time, which matters directly to GLBA, cyber insurance, and your own vendor due diligence.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We operate on SOC 2 Type II audited infrastructure, and we can share a summary or SOC 3 report under NDA. Here is how those controls apply to your firm.” | No audited frameworks at all, or only generic statements like “we take security very seriously.” |
| Clear link between frameworks and real safeguards: access management, change control, incident handling, physical security, and data retention. | They rely entirely on the data center’s certifications and have no documented processes of their own. |
Verito, for example, builds VeritSpace on SOC 2 Type II infrastructure and aligns its managed IT operations with that control mindset, which is the level of rigor you should expect any CPA-focused IT provider to meet.
4. How will you help us build and maintain a Written Information Security Plan (WISP) that actually matches our systems?
The WISP is where regulators, insurers, and examiners will look first. It should describe how your real systems protect client data, not just repeat generic language. Since your IT provider designs and runs those systems, they must play an active role in building and keeping that plan accurate.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We provide an IRS-compliant WISP template, customize it to your environment, update it when your stack changes, and review it with you at least annually.” | “We can give you a sample WISP, but you are on your own to fill it out.” |
| They explicitly show how their controls map to IRS 4557, IRS 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule inside the WISP itself. | The document is generic, does not mention your applications or hosting, and is never revisited after onboarding. |
Your IT provider should be able to show exactly how their controls map to IRS Publication 4557, IRS Publication 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule, not just hand you a boilerplate WISP template. Verito’s IRS-compliant WISP template and VeritShield WISP service are an example of what that level of vendor supported WISP ownership can look like.
Category B: Uptime, performance, and tax season resilience
5. What uptime do you guarantee, and what have you actually delivered during tax season in the last few years?
For CPA firms, uptime is not just a “nice to have”. If staff cannot get into QuickBooks, Lacerte, Drake, UltraTax, or your document management system in March, you lose billable hours and risk missed deadlines. A generic “we try to keep things up” is not enough.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| A clear SLA target, such as 99.99 percent or better, plus historical data showing delivery in busy months like February through April. | Only a generic uptime promise, no numbers, or refusal to share historical metrics. |
| Specific examples of how they monitor tax and accounting applications and alert on issues before users are blocked. | “If there is a problem, just call the helpdesk” with no proactive monitoring story. |
As a benchmark, providers that build performance-first private cloud for accountants, like Verito with VeritSpace, typically aim for 100 percent application uptime and can back that up with multi-year data.
6. How do you keep our systems fast and stable when workloads spike three to five times between January and April?
CPA workloads often triple during peak season. More concurrent users open more returns, run larger QuickBooks files, and hammer your document management and e-file tools. A provider that designs only for off season loads will see slow logins, timeouts, and freezing tax apps just when you can least afford them.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We baseline usage outside tax season, then size CPU, RAM, and storage IOPS for three to five times that load. We can show you how we scaled similar firms last March and April.” | No mention of capacity planning or specific handling of busy seasons. |
| Discussion of load testing, resource bursting, and application-specific tuning for multi-user QuickBooks Desktop and large tax databases. | Blaming performance problems on your software vendor or your staff instead of their hosting design. |
A CPA-focused IT provider should be able to explain how they keep tax and accounting applications fast when workloads spike three to five times between January and April, with real examples from firms similar to yours. Verito’s VeritGuard managed IT wraps this planning into its standard onboarding for accounting firms.
How your environment is carved up on the backend has a direct impact on performance, isolation, and GLBA aligned safeguards. In many generic clouds, dozens of unrelated customers share the same resources. When one customer runs a heavy workload, others feel it as lag and timeouts, known as the “noisy neighbor” problem. For CPA firms holding sensitive taxpayer data, that is both a performance and a risk issue.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “Your firm runs on dedicated private servers or an isolated private cloud, with compute and storage reserved for your users only. We can show how your data is logically and physically separated from other clients.” | “We put you in our shared environment with other small businesses” and no clear explanation of how resources and data are isolated. |
| Clear explanation of how isolation supports performance, GLBA, and FTC Safeguards Rule expectations, including access control and logging boundaries. | They dismiss isolation as unnecessary or focus only on cost savings from heavy multi-tenancy. |
Ask whether your firm will run on dedicated private servers or pooled infrastructure. For CPA workloads and GLBA compliance, dedicated environments with complete data isolation are safer than generic shared hosting. Verito’s VeritSpace dedicated private servers for tax and accounting applications are an example of this model in practice.
Category C: Support, response times, and real accountability
8. What are your real-world response and resolution times, and how do you measure them?
In a CPA firm, every minute staff cannot access tax or accounting systems cuts into billable work. You need an IT provider that treats response and resolution times as measurable commitments, not vague promises, and that can show how they perform during peak tax season, not just in August.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “Our SLA is under 15 minutes to first response, with an average under 1 minute for calls and chats. We track first response and resolution times in our ticketing system and can share monthly reports, including January to April.” | “We respond as quickly as we can” with no numbers, no SLAs, and no ability to show historical performance. |
| Breakdown of issues by priority, with clear expectations for critical outages versus minor requests, plus examples from other CPA firms. | They cannot separate urgent outages from low priority tickets, or treat all issues as “best effort.” |
Look for evidence of sub one-minute response times and high first-touch resolution, not vague promises about “fast support.” Providers like Verito publish these metrics and review them with firms regularly, which is the level of transparency you should expect.
9. Do you offer 24/7 and 365 days support with CPA-fluent technicians, or are nights and weekends covered by a generic after hours team?
Tax work does not stop at 5 p.m. or on weekends, especially near deadlines. If your systems stall at 10 p.m. in March, talking to a script driven call center that does not understand tax software, portals, or busy season pressure is almost as bad as no support at all.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We provide 24 x 7 x 365-days support staffed by our own technicians. After hours, you still reach engineers who support CPA firms and tax applications every day.” | Only “business hours” coverage, or a third-party answering service that can do little more than log a ticket for the next day. |
| Examples of handling after hours incidents during filing deadlines, with clear escalation paths and incident communication. | No specific examples, or comments like “we rarely get calls at night” that ignore how CPA firms really operate. |
Ideally, the same team that supports you at noon in February should be backing you up at midnight in April, with full access to your environment, documentation, and context.
10. How many issues are resolved on first-touch rather than bounced between tiers?
Every handoff adds delay and frustration. For CPA firms, that often means staff repeating the same context about Lacerte, QuickBooks, or your portal to multiple people while clients wait. First-touch resolution is one of the clearest signs that your provider’s front line team actually understands accounting environments instead of acting as a triage layer.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We resolve most tickets on first contact. Our first-touch resolution rate is above 70–80 percent, and we track it monthly for continuous improvement.” | No idea what their first-touch resolution rate is, or admission that most tickets are escalated to higher tiers. |
| A clear explanation of how they equip front line technicians with tools and authority to fix common issues without handoffs. | Heavy reliance on rigid tiering, where front line staff can only reset passwords or log tickets. |
As a reference point, Verito’s support model is built around CPA-fluent technicians and high first touch resolution, which is why many firms see quick closure on common issues rather than long email chains. Whatever provider you choose should be able to show similar metrics and processes.
Category D: Accounting software, remote work, and daily operations
11. Which tax and accounting applications do you actively support, and how often do you work with them during the busy season?
For most firms, the real “system of record” is the tax and accounting software stack: QuickBooks Desktop, Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax, CCH, ProConnect, Sage 50, practice management, and portals. If your IT provider does not understand how these behave under load, how they update, and where they break, you will end up bouncing between vendors whenever something goes wrong.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| A clear list of supported tax and accounting apps, plus how many CPA firms they support on each, especially during the busy season. | “We can support anything” with no specifics, or only light experience with basic bookkeeping tools. |
| Familiarity with common problems like multi-user QuickBooks performance, Lacerte network paths, or UltraTax database issues. | They treat your software stack as a black box and insist you open tickets with each vendor yourself. |
Providers like Verito design their managed IT services specifically around tax and accounting applications, so the helpdesk sees the same patterns across many firms and can solve issues without finger pointing. For more context on scope, understanding core IT services every accounting firm needs will help you understand the primary IT services required for your CPA firm’s seamless functioning.
12. How will you keep our remote and hybrid staff connected securely without constant VPN problems?
Many firms now run with a mix of in-office staff, remote preparers, and seasonal workers. If your IT model depends on fragile VPN tunnels into a local server, you will see disconnects, slow performance, and security gaps thanks to employees’ work-from-home networks and shared devices.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We provide secure remote access using modern methods such as private desktop hosting or zero trust style access, with MFA and device policies. VPNs are used carefully and monitored, not left open everywhere.” | A single site-to-site or client VPN that everyone uses for everything, with no segmentation, monitoring, or MFA. |
| Explanation of how they balance security with performance for remote preparers, including printing, scanning, and portal access from home. | Blaming remote work problems on staff internet connections while ignoring architectural issues on their side. |
A CPA-focused IT provider should be able to describe exactly how remote users log into tax and accounting applications, what they can access, and how that access is secured and audited, without making your team fight with VPNs every day. Verito uses private desktop hosting in its VeritSpace environment for this reason, giving remote staff full access without dragging performance through a home VPN.
13. How do you handle multi-office environments, new office openings, and staff onboarding and offboarding?
Growth introduces its own risks. New locations, seasonal hires, and staff turnover all change who can see client data and from where. If your IT provider does not have a structured approach to multi-office networking and user lifecycle management, it becomes very hard to prove you are controlling access in line with GLBA and your WISP.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| A clear playbook for adding new offices and users: standardized configurations, documented checklists, and consistent policies for access, MFA, and device setup. | Handling each new office as a one-off project with ad hoc decisions, or expecting you to coordinate everything yourself. |
| Defined onboarding and offboarding processes, including account creation, access assignment, license management, and timely removal when staff leave. | No formal offboarding process, or delays in disabling user accounts and remote access when someone exits. |
Your provider should be willing to show you their onboarding and offboarding checklists and explain how these tie back to your WISP and cyber insurance representations. Verito, for instance, folds user lifecycle management into its VeritGuard managed IT program so firms know that every staff change is handled the same way across locations.
Category E: Backups, ransomware, and recovery time
14. How often do you back up our servers and endpoints, and where is that data stored?
If backups are incomplete or misconfigured, a hardware failure or ransomware event can turn into a permanent data loss incident. For CPA firms, that means lost tax returns, QuickBooks files, and client documents that you are legally expected to safeguard. You need clarity on backup frequency, scope, and storage locations.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We perform automated, encrypted backups at least daily for servers and critical data sets, with more frequent snapshots for key applications during tax season.” | “We back things up regularly” with no schedule or list of what is actually protected. |
| “Backups are stored in separate, secure locations, immutable or write once copies that ransomware cannot encrypt.” | Backups stored on the same network or devices as production systems, which can be hit by the same ransomware. |
A CPA-focused provider should treat backup scope and locations as part of your WISP and GLBA safeguards, not an optional add-on. Verito, for example, uses encrypted backups and isolated storage in its VeritSpace private cloud to keep tax and accounting data recoverable even when primary systems are impacted.
15. When was the last time you performed a full restore test, and how long did it take?
A backup that cannot be restored quickly is no better than no backup at all. Regulators, insurers, and clients care about how long it takes you to return to service after an incident, not just whether files exist somewhere. For CPA firms, recovery time directly affects filing deadlines and client confidence.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We run scheduled restore tests at least quarterly. Here is when we last restored a full environment for a client like you and how long it took to get them productive again.” | No record of recent restore testing, or vague comments like “we tested it some time ago.” |
| Clear recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) for your core systems, with different targets for the busy season if needed. | They cannot state any RTO or RPO, or assume that you will set expectations with clients without data. |
Ask to see evidence of recent test restores, including how long it took to bring tax and accounting applications back online. Providers like Verito build restore testing into their service process so firms are not discovering issues for the first time during a live incident.
16. What is your playbook if we are hit by ransomware during tax season?
Ransomware is now one of the top risks for financial services and professional firms. For a CPA practice, an attack in March or April can lock up tax returns, QuickBooks data, and engagement files at the worst possible time. You need a provider that has a clear, repeatable incident response playbook, not one that starts improvising under pressure.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| A documented incident response plan that covers detection, isolation, communication, forensic support, restore steps, and assistance with regulatory or client notifications. | “We will do our best to clean it up” with no documented process. |
| Specifics on how they use immutable backups, segmented networks, and endpoint protection to contain damage and restore clean systems without paying ransom. | No mention of isolating affected systems, or reliance on hoping antivirus will catch everything. |
Your IT provider should be able to describe how they will help you meet FTC Safeguards and IRS expectations after an incident, including log review and support for any required notifications. Verito’s VeritGuard program, as one example, integrates endpoint protection, backup strategy, and response coordination so CPA firms are not navigating a ransomware event alone.
Category F: Pricing Clarity, Contracts, and Exit Strategy
17. How does your pricing model work month-to-month, and what will our bill look like in March versus August?
For CPA firms, IT spend has to be predictable. Spikes in March from surprise “projects,” add-on fees, or overage charges can wipe out busy season profits. You need to know exactly what is included in your monthly fee and how costs behave when you add seasonal staff or grow the firm.
What good looks like vs red flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| Clear per-user or per-device pricing that covers day-to-day support, monitoring, backups, security tools, and hosting for your core applications. | Low base price that excludes essentials like backups, security, or tax season performance tuning. |
| Transparent explanation of how temporary staff, storage growth, and new applications change your invoice, with examples for peak season. | No ability to estimate your March bill, or answers like “we will see when we get there.” |
| Regular reviews of usage and cost so you can adjust licenses and capacity ahead of the busy season. | You only find out about new charges when the invoice arrives, with no prior discussion. |
Verito’s approach, for example, is built around transparent per-user pricing for CPA firms, with clear scope so the busy season does not come with unexpected IT surprises. That is the level of clarity you should expect from any serious provider.
18. Do you require long-term contracts, or can we work month-to-month?
Contract structure tells you a lot about how confident a provider is in their service. CPA firms often hesitate to switch IT because they fear getting trapped in a multi-year agreement with penalties if the partnership does not work. Shorter terms give you leverage and flexibility as your firm evolves.
What good looks like vs red flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| Month-to-month or short initial terms with simple cancellation language and no punitive early termination fees. | Three to five-year contracts with automatic renewals and steep penalties for leaving early. |
| Reasonable notice periods (30–60 days) and clear rules around price adjustments, with advance written notice. | Vague language on renewals, or clauses that allow frequent price hikes without meaningful notice. |
Transparent, month-to-month pricing with no long-term lock in is a strong signal that the provider expects their performance to keep you, not their contract. Many CPA-focused IT providers, including Verito, operate on this model so firms are never stuck in a relationship that no longer fits.
19. Who owns our data, configurations, and documentation, and what is your offboarding process if we decide to leave?
An overlooked part of IT provider due diligence for CPA firms is planning for the day you might switch again. Regulators, insurers, and clients care that you remain in control of your data and can move it securely if needed. If your current provider holds the only copies of configurations, passwords, and network diagrams, you are effectively locked in.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “You own your data and we will assist with secure export of file shares, application data, and backups. We will also hand off documentation, network diagrams, and credential records needed for your next provider.” | “We can talk about exports if that ever happens” with no defined process, or claiming that key scripts/configs are proprietary and cannot be shared. |
| A written offboarding checklist and timeline, including revoking their access, securely transferring admin accounts, and confirming data destruction on their side. | Large “exit fees” to get your own data, or reluctance to cooperate with a successor IT provider. |
Your WISP and vendor management records should include this exit strategy so you can show examiners and insurers that you remain in control of client information across the vendor lifecycle. Providers like Verito document offboarding steps upfront for this reason, so firms know they are never dependent on a single vendor’s goodwill.
Category G: Strategic Fit and Proof
20. How will you measure success in our relationship over the next three years, and how often will we review performance and roadmap?
For a CPA firm, IT is not a one-time project. Your stack, security obligations, and staffing model will change over the next three years. If your provider is only thinking ticket-to-ticket, you will drift out of alignment with your WISP, cyber insurance commitments, and growth plans. You need a partner that treats your firm like an ongoing program with clear KPIs and a roadmap, not just a queue of support requests.
What Good Looks Like vs Red Flags
| What a strong answer sounds like | Red flags to avoid |
|---|---|
| “We run quarterly business reviews with CPA clients. We review uptime, ticket volume and types, SLA performance, security incidents, and upcoming changes in your firm or in IRS/FTC expectations.” | No structured review cadence. They only talk when there is a problem or at renewal time. |
| Defined success metrics: reduced downtime, faster onboarding, fewer recurring issues, clean cyber insurance renewals, no missed IT related audit findings. | Success is defined only as “your systems are up” or “we close tickets.” |
| A simple 1 to 3 year roadmap that accounts for remote work, application upgrades, and security improvements tied to your WISP. | No roadmap at all, or vague assurances that they will “keep up with technology” without specifics. |
Ask how they will incorporate your firm’s goals and compliance posture into these reviews, and whether partners or firm administrators will be in the room. Providers like Verito typically pair managed IT services with regular strategic reviews, using KPIs and a clear roadmap similar to what you would expect from a guide to managed IT services for accounting firms. That kind of ongoing alignment is what turns an IT vendor into a long-term partner.
How to Use These Questions With Potential CPA IT Providers For Your Firm
Treat this list as a structured part of your selection process, not an informal chat. The most efficient approach is to send all 20 questions to each potential provider in advance and ask for written answers. That forces them to think carefully, gives you something concrete to compare across vendors, and makes it easier to spot vague or recycled language.
When you meet live, use their written responses as the starting point. For any answer that feels generic, ask for specific examples: “Show me when you did this for another CPA firm,” “Walk me through how this worked during March last year,” or “Can you share a sample report or screenshot?” A provider that genuinely understands CPA environments will have no trouble moving from talking points to real stories, metrics, and artifacts.
Many firms find it useful to convert these questions into a simple scoring sheet. Give each answer a 1 to 5 score based on clarity, CPA relevance, and evidence, then total scores by category:
- Security and WISP
- Uptime and Tax season performance
- Support quality
- Software expertise
- Resilience
- Pricing
- Strategic fit
This makes it easier to discuss options with partners and operations staff without getting lost in technical details.
If you want a baseline, you can start with a free security and IT assessment from Verito and compare every other provider’s answers to the same questions, using Verito’s IT support for accounting firms as a reference point for what a CPA-focused environment and support model looks like in practice.
FAQ
1. What is the difference between a CPA IT provider and a generic MSP?
A CPA IT provider is built around tax and accounting workflows, busy season loads, and regulations like GLBA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, and IRS Publications 4557 and 5708. A generic MSP usually focuses on basic small business IT without deep knowledge of tax applications, WISP requirements, or how January to April affects performance and risk.
2. Should a small solo practitioner hire a managed IT provider or stick with a local tech?
Once you handle sensitive taxpayer data, remote access, and e filing, ad hoc support from a local tech is rarely enough. A managed IT provider with CPA experience can standardize backups, security, updates, and WISP alignment so you are not guessing about compliance or losing time to DIY fixes, even as a solo practitioner.
3. How much should a CPA firm expect to pay for managed IT services?
Most CPA firms pay a recurring per user or per device fee that covers support, monitoring, security tools, and often hosting. Basic support arrangements sit on the lower end, while fully managed environments that include private cloud for tax and accounting apps cost more but replace server ownership and reduce downtime risk. Focus on total cost of ownership, not just the monthly fee.
4. How do I know if my current IT provider is keeping us compliant?
You should have an up to date WISP that matches your real systems, regular security and patching reports, enforced MFA, clear access controls, tested backups, and a documented incident response plan. If your provider cannot show how their controls support IRS 4557, IRS 5708, and the FTC Safeguards Rule in writing, you are likely exposed.
5. When is the best time for a CPA firm to switch IT providers?
The best time is usually outside peak tax season so migrations and testing do not risk filing deadlines. If current issues are severe, it can still be safer to move sooner, provided the new provider offers a detailed cutover plan that covers timelines, rollback options, vendor coordination, and staff communication.
tl;dr
- For CPA firms, the goal is simple: IT that just works, securely, in every season.
- Generic MSPs rarely understand GLBA, FTC Safeguards, IRS Publication 4557 and 5708, or how peak tax season really affects CPA firms.
- Use a structured list of 20 questions to test any provider on security, WISP ownership, uptime, tax season performance, support quality, and exit flexibility.
- Expect clear mappings between the provider’s controls and your WISP, cyber insurance requirements, and PTIN related security attestations.
- For infrastructure, ask directly whether you will be on dedicated private servers with full data isolation and how they avoid noisy neighbor performance problems.
- Demand hard numbers on uptime, response times, first touch resolution, backup schedules, and restore tests, not vague promises about “fast support” or “reliable systems.”
- Insist on transparent pricing, month to month terms with no long term lock in, and a documented offboarding process that keeps you in control of your data and configurations.
- Use the 20 questions as a scoring sheet across vendors so partners can compare CPA IT providers on facts, not just sales pitches.
![IRS Publication 4557 & WISP Compliance for Accounting Firms [FULL Guide]](https://verito.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IRS-Publication-4557-WISP-Compliance-for-Accounting-Firms-FULL-Guide-380x220.jpg)
