The things firm owners ask us first.

Tech Guru is SOC 2 Type 2 audited.

When someone on your team contacts us, by phone, Microsoft Teams, or our client portal, a real person is on the other end ready to help live. No queues, no call trees. We start working on the request instantly, and when an issue calls for it, support escalates straight to a System Administrator. Because we work exclusively with accounting firms, our support model is built around your rhythm: busy season, filing deadlines, a client waiting on documents. And we guarantee it in writing: a live member of our team responds within 15 minutes, any day, any hour. If we ever miss that, tell us and we credit you $100 on your next invoice. In practice, our average initial response is under ten minutes.

As with any request, you or a member of your team messages us on Microsoft Teams, calls our toll-free number, or submits a request in our portal. Our support team reviews it by type and urgency and either handles it directly or routes it to the right person on our team, 24/7/365. If the request is for a future date, like a new hire’s start date, we schedule the work and confirm the timing with your team.

A member of your team submits a new hire form in our client portal, which gives us everything we need to prepare your new hire’s first-day experience. We keep your inventory of computers at our operations center, stage the machine in advance so it is ready to use almost immediately, and ship it to arrive a few days before the start date. On day one we hold a New Hire Technology Orientation: we enroll the person and their device, set up MFA, and complete every technology onboarding task from the checklist we maintain and refine over time based on your input and our experience. Have your own app, permission, or device setup checklists? We work from those as the starting point.

In the United States. Tech Guru’s Accounting Cloud runs in a data center in Minneapolis, MN, and every client’s hosted servers, Microsoft 365 tenant, backups, and our service management platform live in United States regions. Our team administers those systems remotely over authenticated, encrypted connections; the data does not move, and we do not store client data outside the United States.

Tech Guru is a United States company headquartered in Wayzata, Minnesota, with executive leadership in the US and operations centers in Minneapolis, Tampa, Cape Town, and Manila. Our technical delivery, security, and compliance teams are employees of our affiliated entities in the Philippines and South Africa, not contractors or staffing-agency workers. Every team member is background checked before access is granted, signs confidentiality obligations, completes security awareness training, and has signed a written acknowledgment that IRC Sections 7216 and 6713 apply to them. Because we build and run a global team, we know how to help you hire, manage, and secure one.

They administer the systems that hold your files; they do not open your files. No one at Tech Guru holds a working login to any tax or accounting application. Where we host your tax software, we hold an administrative credential used only for installs, updates, and user administration, configured so it cannot open, print, or export client returns; where your vendor hosts it or it runs in the browser, we have no access at all. Our team members are not members of your client file libraries, are prohibited by policy from opening client content, and work from managed devices that do not retain client data. Because a tenant administrator has the technical ability to reach any site, that ability is narrowed to the smallest set of accounts, logged, and alerted, and every account that could reach your data belongs to a person who is personally subject to Sections 7216 and 6713. The one exposure we name plainly: during a remote support session your staff member requests, client information can be momentarily visible on screen, and our rules require the user to close it first and the technician to look away and retain nothing. Firms that want a technical barrier on top of the policy one can request client-only membership on file libraries, alerts on administrative access, or encryption with sensitivity labels. Our IRC Section 7216 Position Statement, written for your counsel and your WISP vendor file, describes all of this in detail; ask your Client Success Manager for a copy.

Tech Guru’s position is that no disclosure or use of tax return information occurs through our services, because our personnel do not view or use it, so a consent is not required for our work. We nonetheless recommend that firms obtain a consent from each client naming Tech Guru and its affiliated entities as a safeguard, so your firm never relies on that position alone, and we provide a template built on Treas. Reg. 301.7216-3 and Rev. Proc. 2013-14 along with sample engagement letter language. Whether to adopt either is a decision for you and your counsel. Our controls protect the data the same way in every case.

Yes. Tech Guru exclusively serves accounting firms. It is all we do, and it is the reason we understand your software, your busy season, and the data you are responsible for.

We work with accounting and CPA firms, typically 5 to 150 people. Whether you are a small firm scaling up or an established practice modernizing, the platform flexes as you grow.

No. Most of the firm owners we work with are not technical, and that is the point. We explain things in plain language, we do the technical work for you, and we never make anyone feel small for asking a question.

We resolve about 99% of issues remotely, usually faster than someone could drive to you. When hands on site are genuinely needed, we are part of a service network and can get boots on the ground anywhere in the country. Onsite visits are a flat $200 per visit, scheduled during business hours and always approved by you first.

We deploy, manage, and monitor an enterprise platform for each layer: enterprise endpoint protection and threat detection built into Microsoft 365 Business Premium, so it replaces standalone antivirus at no extra license cost; privileged access management that controls admin rights on every machine; remote monitoring and management for system health and patching; and multi-factor authentication across your computers and the Accounting Cloud. All of it is included in the monthly service, and every quarter we test and deploy improvements to the platform’s technology and security toolset.

Yes. The security software we utilize requires Windows 11 Pro or current macOS. To ensure your team’s consistent productivity, we require computers be less than four years old so we can effectively manage and support them, with 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB hard drive, and an Intel i5 or Core 5 processor. We have found that computers that do not meet these requirements frequently drag down user productivity, and we will work with you to cost-effectively align your team’s computers with them. We also require that each staff member have their own login, with no shared logins, and that anyone accessing confidential PII work from a dedicated, managed work device. We do not support on-premise servers: we lift your apps and data to the cloud, and if your server hardware has value remaining, we help you sell it.

We do not just advise. We write your WISP during onboarding and keep it current year-round; every aspect of our service delivery model is built around it, so your firm stays aligned with the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS requirements. The first step, included in the Security and Technology Foundation service, is an audit of your systems: we identify the gaps and implement the changes to put the safeguards the Rule requires in place. Requirements and threats change, so every quarter we review your safeguards against the latest FTC and IRS guidance and update whatever needs updating. We also write your AI and other technology policies and help your team follow them.

We have worked with other hosting providers, and their platforms generally do not fit the way we deliver and secure the rest of the service, so we migrate firms to our Accounting Cloud. The exception is Thomson Reuters Virtual Office, which we support because its licensing model can make external hosting impractical for smaller practices. The benefits of hosting with us are real: one team and one technology platform, hosting fully integrated with the rest of our services and fully supported by us, files synced with OneDrive so they are always at your fingertips, and full environment visibility for your quarterly Strategic Technology Planning. When anyone on your team needs help with anything technology-related, they reach out on Teams and we handle it, with no third party tying our hands. And the migration requires zero downtime: we build your new environment while you keep working on the current platform, one member of your team completes validation testing, and we switch everyone over overnight.

No, and we do not need to be. Tech Guru is not an Intuit-authorized hosting provider and does not resell or sublicense tax or accounting software. Your firm keeps its own licenses, and we install and run your licensed copies on infrastructure we provide, under your license. Before we host an application, you confirm that your license permits the way it will be used, such as multi-user or remote access, and we help you check. Some vendors limit support for hosted configurations: we support the hosted environment and provide first-line application support, and the vendor remains responsible for the software itself.

It starts with a simple introduction: you send an email to your current IT vendor, copying us, introducing Tech Guru as your new provider. From there we coordinate the transition with them directly, so the back-and-forth never lands on your team. We schedule a kickoff meeting with your primary point of contact for project planning, then spend a few weeks auditing your systems, installing the security tools, enrolling your team, upgrading security policies, building your Accounting Cloud environment, and migrating the data. We meet weekly for 30 minutes to stay aligned on timelines and progress, all migrations are scheduled outside business hours, and we own the whole process end to end, so the demands on your team stay minimal.

Most firms are up and running in about four weeks. We spend the first week on kickoff and discovery, the next two building your secure foundation behind the scenes, and the fourth going live. Your only standing commitment is about an hour a week from one person.

Pricing is per person, per month, with everything included, and our live estimator at techguruit.com/pricing shows you a number in 30 seconds. We confirm the exact figure on a short discovery call and send a full proposal within 24 hours. No long-term contract, no hour caps, no minimums, and a 60-day cancellation any time.

We learn your goals, look at where technology is helping or holding you back, and give you recommendations you can act on whether or not you work with us. You get detailed pricing on the call and a full proposal within 24 hours. Daniel is on the call.