WageTime is payroll for CPA and public accounting firms: one office, an exempt tier and a non-exempt tier, two busy seasons a year. WageTime prices the overtime the routine-work tier is owed and runs the whole firm even when it is two EINs.
Offices of certified public accountants run about 63,533 US establishments (NAICS 541211, BLS QCEW Q4 2024), and roughly 86% of CPA practices employ fewer than ten people (Vertical IQ). That small firm carries a partner or two, a bench of staff and senior accountants, and a routine-work tier of bookkeepers and clerks, all on payroll all year. The exempt line runs through the middle of it, the license-and-CPE deadlines never stop, and the org chart is increasingly two entities instead of one.
The FLSA learned-professional exemption is written for accounting, but it does not cover everyone at the firm. 29 CFR 541.301 holds that certified public accountants generally meet the duties test, and staff doing similar advanced work often do too, while “accounting clerks, bookkeepers and other employees who normally perform a great deal of routine work generally will not qualify.” So one office runs an exempt tier and a non-exempt tier side by side, and only one of them is owed overtime for the 60-hour weeks.
Calendar-year 1065 and 1120-S returns are due March 15, individual 1040s and C-corps April 15, then the extensions land again at September 15 and October 15. The same people work both crunches: this is not a roster that triples in February and vanishes in May. The lever is overtime for the non-exempt tier, PTO and bonuses for the exempt one, run on a headcount that barely changes between peaks.
A CPA license is not a PTIN. Each state board sets its own continuing-education rule: commonly 40 hours a year, 80 over two years, or 120 over three, with a minimum floor each year and a mandatory ethics course, counted in 50-minute credits. Miss the hours and the license lapses; miss the firm’s own permit renewal and the practice itself is offside. A firm with CPAs licensed in three states is tracking three CPE calendars plus one firm permit.
Independence rules push growing firms into an alternative practice structure: the licensed CPA firm that signs attest work and a separate advisory or services entity, each its own legal company with its own EIN. The private-equity wave rolling up accounting firms since 2021 makes that split the norm at the top of the market. A manager paid partly by each entity, benefits that span both, and filings owed per EIN are now an ordinary payroll, not an edge case.
The pipeline of new CPAs shrank hard: first-time exam candidates fell to about 28,082 in 2024 from 42,626 a year earlier (AICPA/NASBA Trends). Busy-season premiums, referral and retention bonuses, and realization-tied comp are how firms hold a team, and on per-run-priced payroll every one of those off-cycle checks is another invoice that pushes the bonus into a batch nobody wants to run.
Are your staff accountants exempt from overtime? It depends on duties, not titles: 29 CFR 541.301 draws the line right through a CPA office, and WageTime holds the classification you set, salary for the exempt tier and priced overtime for the clerks.
| Person | Classification | Period pay |
|---|---|---|
| Priya Anand, CPA tax managerSalary, no OT | Exempt learned professional | $5,600.00 |
| Marcus Deel senior accountant, CPA candidateSalary, no OT | Exempt | $3,750.00 |
| Rosa Iglesias bookkeeping-service staff80 + 18 OT hrs | Non-exempt | $2,675.00 |
| Tara Nguyen AP/AR clerk80 + 11 OT hrs | Non-exempt | $2,123.00 |
Replaces the April reconstruction of which busy-season Saturdays the clerks were never paid time and a half for.
How do you keep every CPA licensed and every CPE hour logged before the board’s deadline? Each license, state, and CPE balance lives on the WageTime employee record, alerted on that state’s own cycle, with the firm permit tracked right beside them.
| Person | CPE progress | Next deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Priya AnandCPA · Texas | 116 of 120 hrs 3-yr, ethics done | 90 days |
| Grace BellCPA · New York | 32 of 40 hrs annual, ethics outstanding | Ethics flag |
| Marcus DeelCPA candidate · 150-hr track | 2 of 4 exam sections passed | Next window opens Jul 1 |
| Firm permitFirm registration · Texas | Not applicable | Firm permit renews Jun 30 |
Replaces the December spreadsheet of who still owes ethics hours before their license lapses.
How do you run payroll across an attest firm and a separate advisory entity? Each is its own company in WageTime, with its own run, filings, and GL under one login, so the independence line holds on the payroll side too.
| Entity | People paid | Period gross |
|---|---|---|
| Hollingsworth & Ford CPAs PLLC attestEIN ••2841 | 9 | $52,400.00 |
| Hollingsworth Advisory LLC advisory & CASEIN ••7192 | 14 | $88,150.00 |
| Hollingsworth Wealth LLC servicesEIN ••5530 | 4 | $26,300.00 |
Replaces the second and third payroll logins a roll-up accumulates, one per EIN, that never reconcile into a group number.
What does the audit practice actually cost to staff, and what does tax season cost? WageTime answers it from payroll itself: hours coded to audit, tax, and advisory engagements, so each practice lands on its own line instead of a blended guess.
| Engagement | Hours | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|
| Audit & assurance AUD6 people | 1,120 | $47,600.00 |
| Tax compliance TAX-1040/112011 people | 1,940 | $71,780.00 |
| Advisory & CAS ADV5 people | 760 | $34,200.00 |
| Firm admin ADMIN3 people | 420 | $11,340.00 |
Replaces the quarterly guess that blends every salary into one rate and calls it the cost of the audit practice.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoIt depends on duties, not the job title. Under 29 CFR 541.301, certified public accountants generally meet the learned-professional exemption, and staff doing similar advanced work often do too, but accounting clerks, bookkeepers, and others doing routine work generally do not. Whether a specific role qualifies is your and your advisors’ call. WageTime holds the classification you set and computes overtime automatically for the non-exempt tier.
Yes, and there is no seasonal exemption that changes it. A non-exempt clerk or bookkeeper working 60-hour weeks through the March or September deadline is owed time and a half. WageTime tracks the hours with attestation and locking, folds any nondiscretionary bonus into the weighted-average regular rate, and prices every overtime hour on what the person actually earned.
Each person’s license, state, and CPE progress lives on the employee record with 30/60/90-day expiration alerts, and CPE completion is tracked with certificates stored for a board audit. Because one state runs a 40-hour annual cycle and another a 120-hour three-year cycle, alerts fire on each person’s and each state’s own clock. The firm’s permit to practice is tracked the same way.
Yes. Each entity keeps its own EIN and files its own federal, state, and local returns automatically, while one login spans the group and reporting runs per entity or combined. The licensed attest firm and the advisory or services entity each get their own run and GL, so the independence separation holds on the payroll side, and a new EIN from an acquisition joins the same login.
Bona fide partners are generally not W-2 employees of their own firm, so partner pay typically flows as guaranteed payments on a K-1, while an S-corp shareholder takes reasonable W-2 wages before distributions; how you structure that is your CPA’s call. WageTime runs everyone else in one payroll, exempt staff and the non-exempt tier and 1099 specialists, and an associate’s W-2 record closes cleanly when they make partner.
$50 a month for the company plus $10 for each person actually paid that month, so a 15-person firm is $200 in a normal month. Runs are unlimited, so weekly busy-season payroll, the September extension push, and off-cycle bonus checks all cost exactly what the formula says. No long-term contracts, and you cancel anytime.
The exempt CPAs and the non-exempt clerks, the CPE deadlines nobody is watching, and the attest firm and advisory entity that used to be one company: bring them. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo firm, and you will see a busy-season run price the non-exempt overtime, a license board flag the missing ethics hours, and two EINs settle under one login.
Book a 20-minute demo