WELCOME, THIS SITE HAS TWO OVERALL OBJECTIVES

1. To provide the latest business news for what we call "Big Snow Country" which consists of the following counties that are on the South shore of Lake Superior: Gogebic, Ontonagon, Houghton, Keweenaw, Baraga, Marquette, Alger, and Luce.

2. To provide extensive details about the Quest Accounting and Business Services, which are a set of high quality but remarkably discounted capabilities available to Big Snow Country businesses. We mostly are interested in serving very small and new businesses that are shunned by the big money operaters like the venture capital companies and the huge accounting companies. Specifically, we are most interested in businesses with less than a million dollars in assets and less than a million dollars a year in gross revenues. Even if your assets and revenues are less than $100,000, Quest welcomes the opportunity to provide you with the kind of service you will never get from the much larger companies serving the much larger businesses.

We have the capability and intention to provide "the little guy" with as good or better business service as he could obtain from the "big companies" that definitely don't need and most likely don't want the little guy as a client. We are doing so right now and we have room for a few more clients.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the little guy should not want a business service company that mostly services multi-million dollar companies because the relationship would be like two ships passing in the night and because the prices will be very high relative to what the small business can and should pay.

We invite you to check out the details using pages and posts on this page and of course we also invite you to try a service. You can even try a service for free and see for yourself whether this is "too good to be true" or not.

CLIENT LIMITATION MONITOR FOR QUEST ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS SERVICES

Currently our work load is roughly 50% of capacity. There is room for a small number of additional clients. The client limit is NOT currently expected to be reached within the next four months. In other words, four months from now, we will most likely still have room for a new client.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Rates and Discounts for Quest Business and Accounting Services

QUEST BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTING SERVICES
RATES, AND DISCOUNTS
Effective 2010 AND 2011

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
The first two hours of my work are free to you. You can try a service for free, evaluate the results, and then decide whether to continue at cost. Calling and asking questions and/or ordering service is not only free but does not count toward the free two hours of actual service that you can get if you try Quest Services. In fact, you are never charged for simply asking questions about services or for the time spent ordering services.

Also, if you quit services at any time after paying for service, the last one hour of my work is free to you. The last two hours are free if your business is not operating at the time you quit services.

RATE CATEGORIES
There are three categories of rates and three categories of clients. So in total there are nine hourly rates but virtually all clients will have just one or two hourly rates that apply to them. The three categories of rates correspond to these categories of services:

--Professional services
--Semi-professional services
--Processing services

The three categories of clients are:

--Big Snow Country start-up business owners
--Big Snow Country existing business owners
--Business owners outside Big Snow Country

Start-up businesses are any business that has not started revenue making operations and any business that has started but is less than three years old. Big Snow Country consists of the following counties along the south shore of Lake Superior:

-Gogebic
-Ontonagon
-Houghton
-Keweenaw
-Baraga
-Marquette
-Alger
-Luce

BIG SNOW COUNTRY START-UPS BUSINESS HOURLY RATES
These are rates for businesses not yet up and running and for businesses up and running but less than three years old located in any of the counties shown just above. Along with new operating businesses these rates are for businesses that are planned some of which, unfortunately, will never actually begin day to day operations.

These rates apply to both the planning phase and the early operations phase. For example, if it takes two years to plan a business and you hired Quest for all of this time to help you start it, you would get these rates for a total of five years (two years before and three years after day to day operations begin). There is no limit on the number of years you can get these extremely low rates while we are planning the start of actual operations for your business.

The rates for Big Snow Country start-ups are:

-Professional Services $10 per hour
-Semi-Professional Services $8 per hour
-Processing Services $7 per hour.

As you can see, if you are a start-up business in one of the targeted counties, you will get high quality, exacting, professional services at "ridiculously low rates". You won't find lower rates than ours at any quality, yet our quality level is at least as high as that of the big, traditional, expensive business service companies. The service you get from Quest Services will be the same high quality you would get if you paid twice or three times as much from the traditional companies.

And satisfaction is always guaranteed so you can see for yourself at very little or no risk that these claims are true; see the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" section above for details.

BIG SNOW COUNTRY EXISTING BUSINESS HOURLY RATES
These are rates for businesses that have been up and running for more than
three years old located in any of the counties above.

The rates are:
-Professional Services $14 per hour
-Semi-Professional Services $11.50 per hour
-Processing Services $9.50 per hour.

STANDARD HOURLY RATES
These are rates for businesses that do not fit in the two categories above. These rates are still roughly 20% less than average rates charged around the country. The same satisfaction guarantee with the no risk opportunity to try one or more services at little or no cost applies.

The standard rates are:
-Professional Services $20 per hour
-Semi-Professional Services $17 per hour
-Processing Services $14 per hour.

RATE CHANGES
Rates for existing clients can never increase by more than 10% in a year but rates for new clients are subject to change beginning for 2012. How much rates change for new clients in 2012 and beyond will depend on to what extent our work load capabilities are reached by customers who start out in 2010 and 2011. In other words, it will be sort of a first come first serve basis for the extremely low Big Snow Country rates.

We can and definitely will also simply shut the door on new clients once existing clients use up most or all of our work load capabilities.

Existing clients will never be subject to big price increases. If we increase rates for existing clients at all, we won't increase them by more than 10% a year. If you think the very, very low rates shown above are some kind of "bait and switch," that will quickly rise by large amounts, you are completely mistaken.

Moreover, all clients are guaranteed the exact rate schedule they started with for two full years plus for the year they started. Clients new in 2010 will have the 2010 rates shown above until at least the end of 2012. Then in each successive year beginning in 2013, clients starting in 2010 will pay no more than 10% more per hour than they did the year before.

Since 2011 rates will be the same as 2010 rates, clients new in 2011 will also have the extremely low rates shown above until at least the end of 2013. Then in each successive year beginning in 2014, clients starting in 2011 will pay no more than 10% more per hour than they did the year before.

WHY NOT "NAME YOUR OWN PRICE" AND BREAK OUT OF THE FLAT FEE OR RATE PRISON YOU MAY BE IN?
Most business service companies charge flat fees for particular projects and/or they charge flat monthly rates. Quest Business and Accounting Services, as a deep discount business service enterprise custom designed for the troubled economy, allows you to "name your own price". Before each new project and/or on a bimonthly basis, a quick little negotiation between you and Quest Services establishes how many hours of work will be put into your project and, using the rates that apply to your business (that for Big Snow Country businesses are heavily discounted) the amount that you will owe when the month is over is known by both sides in advance.

This scheme is heavily in favor of the customer which of course is why most other business service companies don't do it this way. Unlike with other companies you are not in effect being charged for work that is never actually done. Rather, each month you get exactly the work that you and Quest agreed upon at the exact cost that was agreed upon.

Moreover, if it takes longer than Quest thought it would to produce the end
product(s) of the project(s), then the extra time that was needed is provided free to you. You read that correctly; cost overruns are "eaten" by Quest Accounting and Business Services!

THE MAXIMUM YOU WILL PAY IS WHATEVER YOU SAY IT WILL BE IN ADVANCE
For each service for each statement period the maximum you will be charged will be whatever you say it should be in advance. Based on what you want done Quest will give you my best estimate of the minimum number of hours needed to do that work. If that minimum number of hours multiplied by the applicable rate is acceptable to you, then we are good to go.

If on the other hand the minimum Quest needs for the job exceeds the maximum you want to pay for, there are three possibilities:

--Quest can agree to reduce what it would really want to do down to the
maximum you are willing to pay for. There is much more flexibility to do this with some services than with others. For example, there is very little flexibility to cut work time that goes into tax accounting, but much more flexibility to cut work time that goes into promotion or to business planning.

--You can agree to increase the maximum that you are willing to pay.

--You can quit services and try to find someone else who will meet your
requirements.

If and when your maximum is less than the Quest minimum, one of these three
resolutions is necessary for Quest to proceed. I will help you decide between them in any way I can.

Remember, by focusing on hours of service, Quest gives you a much "better deal" than you would get from another company that simply quotes and charges you a flat fee for service(s). For one thing, you know exactly how many hours of work you are getting from Quest, whereas with other companies that charge a flat amount you are left in the dark about how much or how little work is actually being done for you.

LONG TERM CLIENTS
If and when a "steady state" is reached, where the amount of work needed for your business doesn't vary much from month to month, there will be no need for a bimonthly agreement about what you will get and pay for; a long term agreement (which will usually be informal and unwritten) will be in effect where the amount you owe stays the same month after month. In this case there is little difference on the surface between how Quest does business and how other companies that have flat cookie cutter rates do business. But under the surface, unlike with the other business service companies, the amount of actual work provided for your business is guaranteed to stay the same month after month.

WHAT YOU GET IS CAREFULLY TRACKED AND DOCUMENTED
Quest has a uses "time accounting" worksheets to carefully keep track of how much work is being done for you and we don't cheat because, for one thing, since everything is agreed to in advance and also since unlike other businesses we are not out to make every dollar possible, we have no motivation to cheat.

LOYAL CUSTOMER DISCOUNT
This is an additiional 5% discount on top of all other discounts.

If and when your total all-time paid charges exceed $1,000, you get $50 in
services for free. And for each additional $1,000, you get another $50 in
services for free. This means for example:

--If you get and pay for $1,000 in services you will actually receive $1,050 in services.

--If you get and pay for $5,000 in services you will actually receive $5,250 in services.

--If you get and pay for $10,000 in services you will actually receive $10,500 in services.

And so on. Each free $50 is given at whatever your usual rate is. For example, if you are charged the Big Snow Country start-up rate of just $10 per hour, you get five hours of free services for each one hundred hours or $1,000 of services you get and pay for.

BIG SNOW COUNTRY ARTICLES

MONEY YOU CAN SAVE WITH QUEST


Money you Save if you use Quest Accounting and Business Services

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