Your entire year compresses into ten weeks, and during those ten weeks nothing can be down. On top of that, tax preparers now carry an explicit federal obligation to maintain a written information security plan, and most of the plans we review were downloaded, filled in once, and never implemented.
Cloud Guardian provides managed IT services and cybersecurity to accounting firms, tax preparers, bookkeepers, and financial advisory practices in New Jersey. Work covers written information security plan development and technical implementation under the FTC Safeguards Rule at 16 CFR Part 314 and IRS Publication 4557, multi-factor authentication, encryption, secure client file exchange, tax software and hosted-desktop performance during filing season, retention and archiving, and incident response readiness including the FTC's 30-day breach notification requirement.
From assessments of accounting and advisory practices across Central New Jersey.
Downloaded from a template, dated two years ago, naming a security coordinator who has left. It describes controls that were never configured. Under the FTC Safeguards Rule, a plan you are not executing is worse than no plan, because it documents exactly what you failed to do.
W-2s, K-1s, full Social Security numbers, and bank statements arriving as unencrypted attachments, then living in a mailbox forever. Business email compromise in this sector usually starts by watching that mailbox and then sending a very convincing wire instruction.
Hosted desktops sized for October, network bandwidth shared with everything else, and a server that was adequate two seasons ago. Nobody notices until the week the returns have to go out and every screen takes eight seconds to redraw.
Client data kept indefinitely because deleting felt risky. Every additional year retained is additional breach scope. Retention is a security control, not just a filing habit.
Controls, not adjectives. Each of these is something we configure, document, and can show you evidence of.
Legacy providers price like it is 2014 because their stack is from 2014. We run a modern, automated, AI-assisted operation, which costs us less to deliver and costs you less to buy. Same room, better outcome, roughly half the invoice.
| Typical legacy MSP | Cloud Guardian | |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring | Alerts nobody reads until you call them | AI triage that opens, correlates and often closes the ticket before you notice |
| Response | Tier 1 reading a script, escalation next business day | Senior engineer on the first touch, 24/7, no phone tree |
| Documentation | Lives in one technician's head | Written, versioned, and handed to you, you own it, not us |
| Tooling | The same RMM they bought in 2014 | Current EDR, current identity stack, current automation, reviewed quarterly |
| Billing | Per-seat minimums, 36-month lock-in, surprise project fees | No minimums, no long lock-in, scope and price in writing before work starts |
| AI | Not in the stack, and not in the roadmap | Used to cut ticket volume and audit every action, with logs you can read |
The services accounting and finance clients use most. Everything else we offer is available too.
We write the technical sections and implement every control they describe, then hand you the document and the evidence. The administrative and training portions need firm ownership because they describe what your people do, and we will draft them with you rather than for you.
UltraTax, Lacerte, ProSeries, Drake, CCH Axcess, ProSystem fx, TaxAct Professional, QuickBooks Desktop and Online, Sage, Xero, and hosted-desktop environments from Rightworks and similar providers. We manage the environment those run in and the performance of it during season.
Yes, and it is usually the highest-value single change we make in this sector. A secure client portal with authenticated upload, expiring links, and a record of who accessed what, integrated into how your staff already works so it actually gets used.
Our Small Business plan starts at $20 per user per month for baseline security coverage with incident response at $90 per hour, and fully managed IT is quoted after a free assessment. Firms switching to us from a legacy MSP typically land near half their prior spend for broader coverage, because our delivery is automated rather than staffed with escalation layers.
Yes. We produce the technical documentation those requests ask for, including control descriptions, configuration evidence, and backup verification records.
Book a free assessment. We audit your accounting and finance environment, show you exactly what is exposed, and quote what it should actually cost.