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Small business accounting and insurance agent recommendations (Bay Area)

Page history last edited by Bestow 10 years, 8 months ago

Compilation of Bay Area small Business accounting and insurance agent recommendations (Feb, '07):

 

a co-worker/friend of mine has used a smaller firm, called Sweet and Baker in SF http://www.sweetandbaker.com

 

when I worked for a startup, we used:

 

•Mohler, Nixon and Williams

www.mohlernixon.com

635 Campbell Technology Parkway, Suite 100, Campbell 95008-5088

I never took accounting, and their accountant set us up on QuickBooks online. I would enter everything, and she would do the month-end reconciliation/financials for the board meetings. Their tax accountants also did our quarterly and annual taxes.

 

•Terrance Insurance

http://www.terranceinsurance.com

Linda Jacobs, lindajacobs@terranceinsurance.com, principal

Hindy Ganeles, hindy@terranceinsurance.com, office manager but can usually help if Linda is unavailable

1350 Dell Ave. Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008, 408.871.2000

They helped with our medical/dental/vision insurance and general other HR-type issues. They were not able to get us proper general liability insurance as we were an online, kind of gaming company. Not sure if they can help with your product liability insurance.

 

•Marsh (http://www.marsh.com)

For our other insurance (non-employee/HR related), we were referred through one of our VCs. They are in NY and are a pretty big broker, but they were quite responsive (maybe through the initial introduction to a specific offer/person) and definitely knew our industry. They can provide professional, general liability and E&O insurance.

Try Stanford (and fellow Band) alumna Becky Jensen, www.2prosper.com. She’s a Quickbooks CPA and helped me back when I was freelancing.

 

I just started talking to a CPA in the city named Lou Battilana. (http://morling.com/) He came highly recommended

RE accounting - you might talk to Andy Andrikopoulos. I have used him for 10 years and he has done good work. I am not sure if he employs any bookkeepers though. He might have some recommendations. He is located in Palo Alto - 322-9445. Let him know I sent you if you end up using him

Our CPA (who was recommended by a fellow PD/ME grad), is great, fun and pretty affordable. He also recommends bookkeepers that are used to working with him for monthly, weekly, or quarterly data-entry. He is avail for questions/clarifications and does year ends (not sure about quarterly since we don't have that requirement). His name is Bill Ehardt, and you can certainly tell him Jane from Craft Gym sent you.

 

Contact info is:

William E. Ehardt, CPA

45 Hoffman Avenue

San Francisco , CA 94114-3123

Phone: (415) 824-2012

ehardtcpa@att.net

 

Our small biz insurance agent did a great job helping us, too. (We just have property, liablity, & workers

comp.) Not sure if he does product, but he is a good guy and could probably refer you if its not his cup of tea. His name is Al Zeidler, and you can certainly tell him Jane or Jackie from Craft Gym sent you.

 

Contact info is:

415.883.2039

zeidlerins@sbcglobal.net

 

Last note:

My boyfriend really likes his business & personal accountant and says he is good and pretty aggressive.Don't have specifics re: contact name, etc -- but the website is: http://www.taxbuddha.com/

 

I was having a lot a trouble with product liability insurance because toys for kids with special needs is so risky and specific. I finally found someone that seems to be working out well...at least so far....hopefully I will never have to find out how well they work in case of a claim!

 

Tom Quirk

Garland Sturges and Quirk

6085 Snell Ave

San Jose, CA 95123

408-227-9991

website: gsq.com

Here are some insurance reps that I have been meaning to call to get general liability for my business. It has been pretty hard to find someone that will cover my biz. I think they keep falling into the trap of a blanket product liability policy and when they hear I work on med devices too, they totally freak out.

 

So, I’ve learned it’s important to frame your needs (and what you do) in a very specific way. They are basically looking for any reason why NOT to cover you.

 

Here are the folks:

 

Acordia Insurance:

800-310-7213

http://www.acordia.com/

 

Joseph DeLucchi

CAL Insurance and Associates, Inc.

415-661-6500

jdelucchi@cal-insure.com

www.cal-insure.com

 

These are the folks I spoke to but wouldn’t cover me:

 

Karina French

Allwest Insurance Brokers

408-626-6100 ext 267

 

Kurt Klemm

Insurance by Allied Brokers

630 Cowper Street

Palo Alto, CA 94301

650-328-1000

 

 

Accountant Specific

<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">************************************&nbsp;</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">a friend of mine who has his own web design company use this person in sunnyvale:</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">betsy smith</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">little &amp; co.</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">408-245-3921</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">333 W. El Camino Real, Ste. 280</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Sunnyvale</span><span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">, CA 94087-8127</span><span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">&nbsp;</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Catherine Sun</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">************************************&nbsp;</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">I've worked with Melonee Hawkins of Hawkins &amp; Co. for both personal and business accounting and taxes for many years. She's based in San Jose: 408 286-7355 </span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us"><a href="mailto:melonee@hawkinscpa.com" _mce_href="mailto:melonee@hawkinscpa.com">melonee@hawkinscpa.com</a>.</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">-Tony Hu MSPD '92</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">************************************</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">I've been using Bert Torres from Irvin Abrahamson located on California Avenue in Palo Alto for both business and personal taxes.

Louis Hsiao

PD-91</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">************************************</span><span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">&nbsp;</span>

I've been very happy with mine:

 

 

 

 ************************************

<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">I LOVE our CPA for Speck.<span>&nbsp; </span>We have used her for 8 years.<span>&nbsp; </span>She is in San</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Jose though.<span>&nbsp; </span>Her info is attached.</span>

Tony Lillios

<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">************************************&nbsp;</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">I have used Bill Ehardt (415.824.2012) for REM as well as my own taxes for the past 6 years or so.<span>&nbsp; </span>He is friendly and knowledgable and charges one flat fee per</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us"> year which includes tax preparation and unlimited "tech support". For corporate taxes I believe the fee is $800, for personal taxes I believe it is $325.<span>&nbsp; </span>He is in SF.</span>
<span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Chuck@remdesign.com</span>&nbsp;

********************************

 

 

Andy Andrikopoulos

650-322-9445

Near California Ave in Palo Alto

 

- JP Labrosse

 

********************

 

I really like my accountant and she was recommended to me by someone who was running their own small product design consultancy.

 

Laarni von Ruden

Palo Alto, CA

laarni@lvr.netbox.com

 

-Valerie Green

 

End of compilation

 

 

 

Gary Goldberg

Foster City

650-349-5678

 

- Dan Lythcott-Haims

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