Human Resource
2 months ago
Tech Startups
The CPA Firm Built for Startup Founders and Tech Companies
You are building a company. Somewhere between the first hire, the first real customer, and the first term sheet, the finance side stopped being simple — and your accountant did not keep up.
R&D spend that never turns into a credit. Equity issued without an 83(b) election filed on time. A Delaware C-corp with franchise tax calculated the expensive way. Sales tax obligations in eight states you did not know you had. Books that look fine in your dashboard and fall apart the moment an investor asks for a data room.
SG Inc CPA works with founders, software companies, hardware and device startups, and technical services firms who have moved past the side-project stage. We bring your company, your equity, and your personal tax picture into one coordinated plan — so the finance function supports the raise instead of delaying it.
Led by Shweta Garg, CPA, CTC — Certified Tax Coach.
Serving founders in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley from our Milpitas office, and in DFW from our Plano office. Remote clients welcome.
What a Generic CPA Misses With a Startup
Most CPA firms can file an 1120 and reconcile a bank feed. What they usually cannot do is handle the things that are specific to a venture-backed or bootstrapped tech company: research credits, equity compensation, multi-state nexus, deferred revenue, and financials that survive investor diligence.
Without SG Inc CPA
- Research spend treated as an ordinary expense and nothing more
- No guidance on Section 174 research and experimental treatment
- Equity grants issued with no tax follow-through
- No conversation about Qualified Small Business Stock
- Entity choice never revisited after formation
- Sales tax ignored until a customer or acquirer raises it
- Books that reconcile but are not investor-ready
- Founder personal return handled separately from the company
With SG Inc CPA
- R&D tax credit study run each year, including the payroll tax offset that lets a pre-revenue company monetise the credit against employer payroll taxes
- Section 174 domestic and foreign R&E costs tracked correctly and reconciled against the credit claim, with amended-return opportunities reviewed for prior years
- 83(b) election deadlines tracked, ISO versus NSO consequences explained before grant, and AMT exposure modelled before an exercise
- QSBS eligibility reviewed at formation and monitored as the company grows, so the five-year clock and the gross asset test are not failed by accident
- LLC, S-corp, and Delaware C-corp structure reviewed against your funding path, so the structure fits the raise you are actually planning
- Economic nexus reviewed by state as revenue grows, including how each state treats SaaS and digital products
- Accrual financials, deferred revenue schedules, and a clean chart of accounts that hold up in a data room without a three-week cleanup
- Company and personal planning coordinated, so equity events, distributions, and salary decisions are modelled together
What Changes When You Work With Us
Founders who move to SG Inc CPA describe the same shift: fewer surprises, faster closes, and a finance function that is ready when the round, the audit, or the acquirer shows up.
What You Gain
- Credits actually claimed
- Equity handled correctly
- Investor-ready books
- Runway you can see
- Multi-state exposure contained
- One coordinated plan
What It Means in Practice
- R&D activities documented as they happen rather than reconstructed in March, so the credit is defensible and the payroll offset is available when you need the cash
- Elections filed on time, exercise decisions modelled before you act, and grant paperwork that matches what the cap table says
- Monthly accrual close with revenue recognised properly, so diligence requests are a download rather than a fire drill
- Burn, runway, and gross margin reported monthly against plan, so the fundraising timeline is a decision rather than a reaction
- Nexus reviewed as you hire and sell across state lines, so registration happens before penalties and voluntary disclosure become the only option
- Company tax position, founder compensation, and personal return managed together instead of by three parties who never speak
See what your current CPA may be missing
- Our Services
Services for Tech Companies and Founders
We provide the full financial stack a growing tech company needs — from clean books and accurate filings to credit studies, equity planning, and advisory support between raises.
01
Tax Planning
Year-round strategy across the company and the founder’s personal return, built around your funding stage rather than a year-end checklist.
02
R&D Tax Credit Studies
Identification and documentation of qualifying research activities, including the payroll tax offset available to eligible small businesses with little or no income tax liability.
03
Entity Structuring
LLC, S-corp, and Delaware C-corp review against your funding path, cap table, and state footprint — including conversion timing before a priced round.
04
Equity and Founder Compensation
83(b) election support, ISO and NSO planning, AMT modelling before exercise, and reasonable compensation analysis for founder salaries.
05
Startup Bookkeeping
Monthly accrual bookkeeping with a SaaS-appropriate chart of accounts, deferred revenue schedules, and burn and runway reporting.
06
Investor-Ready Financials
Financial statements packaged for diligence, board reporting, and lender or investor review, with supporting schedules that stand up to questions.
07
Multi-State and Sales Tax
Economic nexus review by state, SaaS and digital product taxability, registration, and voluntary disclosure where exposure already exists.
08
Payroll Services
Payroll setup and compliance for the first employees, multi-state teams, and contractor classification review before it becomes an audit issue.
09
Business Tax Preparation
Federal and state returns for C-corps, S-corps, and partnerships, plus Delaware franchise tax filed on the calculation method that costs you less.
Who This Is For
We work with a specific profile of founder — one who is past the idea stage and now carrying real financial complexity. If you recognise yourself below, this page was written for you.
01
Seed and Series A founders
- You have raised outside capital, you have a board or an investor update to write, and you need financials and a tax position that hold up under scrutiny.
02
Bootstrapped SaaS operators
- You are profitable or close to it, revenue is recurring, and the questions are now about entity structure, distributions, and sales tax across states.
03
Pre-revenue R&D-heavy startups
- Most of your spend is engineering. The R&D credit and its payroll offset can return real cash while you are still pre-revenue.
04
Hardware and device companies
- You carry inventory, tooling, and equipment alongside research spend, which changes how depreciation, credits, and cost accounting need to be handled.
05
Technical services and dev shops
- You run an agency, consultancy, or contract engineering firm with project revenue, contractor payments, and multi-state clients.
06
Founders with an exit on the horizon
- You are preparing for an acquisition, secondary, or liquidity event, and QSBS eligibility, basis, and clean historical books determine what you actually keep.
How to get
Started
Business & Tax Review
We review your entity structure, current return, owner compensation setup, bookkeeping quality, and how your business and personal taxes are currently interacting.
Gap Identification
We identify missed deductions, entity structure issues, coordination gaps between business and personal income, and any planning opportunities your current CPA has not addressed.
Coordinated Plan
We build a tax and financial plan that covers your full picture — business, personal, retirement, and entity — not just what needs to be filed, but what can be done before year-end.
Year-Round Partnership
We stay engaged throughout the year with quarterly check-ins, mid-year projections, and accessible advisory support for compensation decisions, major purchases, and business changes.
How to get Started
Company Review
We map your entity structure, cap table, revenue model, state footprint, and research spend, including how the company and your personal return currently interact.
Gap Analysis
We identify unclaimed credits, missed elections, nexus exposure, entity mismatches, and the reporting gaps that would slow a diligence process.
Coordinated Plan
We build a plan across the company and the founder: credit strategy, equity and compensation decisions, filing calendar, and the monthly reporting cadence you will actually use.
Ongoing Support
Quarterly check-ins, mid-year projections, and responsive support for raises, hires, state expansion, and equity questions between filing seasons.
What Founders Typically Achieve
Results vary by stage, entity structure, and starting point. These are the outcomes most commonly reported by founders who have moved their accounting to SG Inc CPA.
- Research credits claimed and documented properly, including the payroll tax offset where the company qualifies
- Equity elections filed on time, with exercise and grant decisions modelled before they are made rather than explained afterwards
- A monthly accrual close that produces board-ready financials without a scramble
- Deferred revenue and revenue recognition handled in a way an investor or acquirer will accept
- Sales tax and payroll registrations in place in the states where they are actually required
- An entity structure that matches the funding path, reviewed before the round rather than during it
- QSBS eligibility understood and tracked, so a future liquidity event is not the moment it gets checked for the first time
- One coordinated plan across the company and the founder’s personal return, so nothing falls through the gap between the two
- Tax Coach
Led by a Certified Tax Coach
SG Inc CPA is led by Shweta Garg, CPA, CTC — a Certified Tax Coach with experience in entity structuring, multi-entity coordination, and proactive tax reduction for high-income owners and operators.
The CTC designation means Shweta has completed specialised training in proactive tax reduction strategies that go well beyond standard CPA preparation. For founders, that difference shows up in the decisions made before the year closes: how equity is issued, when research spend is documented, which entity holds what, and how a liquidity event is prepared for years in advance.
What our clients say
Frequently asked questions
Do you only work with venture-backed startups?
No. We work with venture-backed companies, bootstrapped software businesses, hardware startups, and technical services firms. What matters is complexity rather than funding source: research spend, equity, multi-state activity, and recurring revenue all create planning opportunities regardless of whether you have raised outside capital.
We are pre-revenue. Can we still benefit from the R&D tax credit?
Often yes, and this is one of the most useful things we do for early companies. Eligible small businesses can elect to apply a portion of the research credit against employer payroll taxes rather than income tax, which means a company with no taxable income can still convert the credit into cash. Eligibility depends on your gross receipts history and the nature of the work, so it needs to be assessed before the return is filed.
What is Section 174 and why does it keep coming up?
Section 174 governs how research and experimental expenditures are treated for tax purposes. The rules changed in recent years and changed again with the 2025 federal tax legislation, which restored immediate deduction of domestic research costs and provided relief for smaller businesses for earlier years. The treatment of foreign research costs is different from domestic. We review your position, confirm what applies to your filings, and evaluate whether amending prior years is worth doing.
I missed the 83(b) election deadline. What are my options?
The 30-day window is strict and there is no general extension. What can be done depends on how far past the deadline you are and what the grant looked like, so it is worth reviewing rather than assuming nothing can be done. More importantly, we make sure it does not happen again for future grants by tracking elections as part of the engagement.
Should we be a Delaware C-corp or an LLC?
It depends on whether you plan to raise priced equity rounds, who your investors will be, and how you want profits taxed in the meantime. Institutional investors generally expect a Delaware C-corp. A bootstrapped company that intends to distribute profits may be better served elsewhere. The cost of converting later is manageable but the timing matters, and QSBS eligibility is affected by the path you take.
We sell software to customers in multiple states. Do we owe sales tax?
Possibly. Most states now assert economic nexus based on sales volume or transaction count, and states differ significantly on whether SaaS and digital products are taxable at all. The exposure builds quietly and usually surfaces during diligence. We review your footprint state by state, register where required, and use voluntary disclosure where past exposure already exists.
Our investors want monthly reporting. Can you handle that?
Yes. We run a monthly accrual close and produce financials with the schedules investors and boards ask for: revenue recognition and deferred revenue, burn and runway, gross margin, and headcount cost. The point is that diligence becomes a download rather than a cleanup project.
When should we start thinking about QSBS?
At formation, and then again at every financing and structural change. Qualified Small Business Stock rules include a holding period, a gross asset threshold at issuance, and qualified trade or business requirements. Founders most often lose eligibility by accident, through a conversion, a redemption, or an asset test failure that no one was tracking. Reviewing it early costs very little and is difficult to fix retroactively.
- Related Resources
Related pages and guides
Ready to Stop Leaving Money on the Table?
Start with a confidential review of your company and your personal tax position. We will identify unclaimed credits, missed elections, nexus exposure, and reporting gaps — and show you what a coordinated plan actually looks like before you commit to anything.