Kruze Consulting: Providing sophisticated tax advice to startups

Vanessa Kruze, Founder & CEO

The CFOs and CEOs of venture capital-funded technology startups today are looking for two things— automation that reduces their workload and strategic advice that helps them drive enterprise value. “CFOs are constantly stretched for time, so the more tasks we can help them automate, the more time they have to tackle high-level questions with the help of our experts,” states Vanessa Kruze, the founder and CEO of Kruze Consulting. The company has created a number of in-house tax technologies that save CEOs time come tax season. By combining proprietary technology with deep domain and tax expertise, Kruze provides sophisticated tax advice to venture capital-funded technology startups.

The first part of Kruze’s solution comprises of online calculators that quickly estimate common tax questions. The company’s tax return cost estimator allows a CFO to reduce the involved time and cost as if they are shopping for tax filing work. Additionally, through their R&D tax credit calculator, executives can oversee if conducting an R&D tax credit study is worth it for their early-stage company.

Since Kruze serves venture-funded startups, often the CPAs and Controllers at Kruze fill the role of the startup client's CFO at a fraction of the cost. “Kruze is the leading expert in instituting scalable, highly-automated accounting systems and practices, so we’re often the perfect fit for early-stage, funded startups,” mentions Vanessa. At its core, Kruze delivers automated tax software, like TurboTax for startups, which makes it easy for CEO or CFO to fill their tax returns easily. “From a startup’s perspective, getting corporate taxes done has historically been a pain. It takes too much of the startup’s executive’s time, so the Kruze Tax team created software that, from the client’s perspective, only takes a few steps,” mentions Vanessa.

The client fills out an online questionnaire, uploads key documents, and then gets a quote.

Kruze is the leading expert is instituting scalable, highly-automated accounting systems and practices, so we’re often the perfect fit for early-stage, funded startups

Once the quote is approved and signed (all online), Kruze’s CPAs start preparing the return. The client can track the return’s progress online, and once it’s ready, can sign it and e-file with no requirement of meetings or back and forth of documents—fast and easy. On the tax technology side, Kruze also delivers an app that is almost like “Turbo Tax for startups” as it makes collecting the documentation needed for federal and state tax returns much easier. This online interface is available to Kruze Consulting tax clients, and reduces the back and forth needed for most corporate tax work. “All this automation and technology opens up more of our tax CPAs time to deliver tax advice. This year we’ve delivered advice on numerous exits, helping our clients make tax-efficient decisions while their companies were acquired,” states Vanessa. Additionally, Kruze’s tax advice is helping the clients save over 3 million dollars in cash burn rate this year—a serious runway extension for cash-flow negative, VC funded startups.

Having carved a unique niche through its investment in automation, and by providing experienced tax experts and advice to startups at a very reasonable price point, for the future, Kruze Consulting will be hiring qualified accounting and tax talent all over the United States in 2020. The company is also actively investing in the systems that they need to provide strategic tax advice and compliance help to startups. “I believe that Kruze Consulting has the best team of accountants, CFOs, tax experts, and operating executives available to VC funded companies,” informs Vanessa. “Our focus, our team, and our systems make Kruze Consulting the best startup tax firm in Silicon Valley and beyond. I’m proud of the work my team has done to reinvent what startups can expect to get from accounting firms and the way we’ve leveraged cutting-edge technology to do it.”

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Company
Kruze Consulting

Headquarters
San Francisco, CA

Management
Vanessa Kruze, Founder & CEO

Description
Kruze Consulting combines proprietary technology with deep domain and tax expertise to provide sophisticated tax advice to venture capital funded technology startups. The first part of Kruze’s solution comprises of online calculators that quickly estimate common tax questions. The company’s tax return cost estimator allows a CFO to reduce the involved time and cost as if they are shopping for tax filing work. Additionally, through their R&D tax credit calculator, executives can oversee if conducting an R&D tax credit study is worth it for their early-stage company