Ceterus

As a Threshold Brands franchisee, I was hopeful when Ceterus was introduced as a vendor. Their advertised discount for franchise partners seemed like a helpful gesture—especially in a space as vital as bookkeeping and accounting. Before moving forward, I did my homework and found enough concerning reviews to raise a few red flags. Still, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and scheduled a discovery call. Unfortunately, the experience only confirmed my concerns. Despite openly discussing the franchise discount, the initial quote omitted it entirely. It took four rounds of revisions to get a correct proposal—frustrating, and frankly, it started to feel less like a mistake and more like a tactic. When I asked for referrals from sister brands, I was met with silence—or worse, vague unease. Not exactly a vote of confidence. Bookkeeping is not the place to gamble. If you want to sleep well come tax season, I would strongly urge you to explore other options. There are too many reliable alternatives to settle for confusion and inconsistency.

RUN! I hesitated to share this publicly, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer. Like many business owners, when I opened my business, I outsourced several services to focus on training employees, managing inventory, and being present in the business. Unfortunately, that decision almost cost me everything. The issues started with sales taxes: For three months, I received filing confirmations but no withdrawals. Despite countless emails and requests for copies of the returns, I got no response. Meanwhile, my balance sheet showed thousands in sales tax payable, and I knew something was off. Then, the bookkeeping quality declined rapidly. Errors not fixed for months, recurring expenses miscategorized month after month, and lots of time on my end correcting their mistakes. My calls and emails were ignored. Then, the nightmare heated up when I fired them in July. Retrieving my records was excruciating, uncovering a disaster: My 2022 federal and state tax returns were never filed despite receiving a signed return and sending them e-file authorizations. last month I received a certified tax notice for $5K in penalties for the 2022 returns, and then another notice today with a notice of intent to seize my property… For months post firing, I begged for my sales tax returns. When I finally got them, they’d filed $0 in sales for three months, and no sales tax was paid. I now owe the state nearly thousands in back taxes, penalties, and interest. At this point, I’ve re-done all of their work and lost sleep and countless hours on the phone with the IRS. Trust me... don't go with the cheapest option.

The team at Ceterus is absolutely amazing. They take care of all our accounting and tax needs and have very few questions for us each month. They enable us to focus 100% on our business instead. Every time we have any questions, we just book a quick meeting and we can always get them on a conference call within 1-2 days if not the same day. Highly recommend.

I'm a franchisee with a large franchise system. A few years ago, we were recruited to work with Ceterus on a combined monthly fee book keeping/ tax filing deal. The deal seemed good. Customer service has been a 2 out of 5 starts, and the tax piece has been ok, not great. Issues: 1) You really need another additional accountant to do tax planning with you. This is not the place to do it, and it will cost me dearly. 2) There are frequent mistakes on the expense reconciliation/ book keeping end, and those are hard to find. When found, a lot of them have to be changed because the systems are set up to be automated. For us, we have had to keep our book keeper on staff because we still need her to double-check all of Ceterus' work, three years later. Double-expense. All in all, this is a fast-growing company, where sales are high, but they just have not yet build mature systems to support franchisees the way that good book keeping/ accounting support should look like. Imagine a teenager: Growing fast, but just not mature... that's Ceterus to me. And with similar and worse experiences, I know many franchisees in our system have moved away from Ceterus, and I have considered often but figured I'll finish out the year. UPDATE: After I left, I received several notices of tax assessments and tax lien threat. Despite the urgency on these items, the tax department took its sweet time to get back to me after 30 days, even though they are the ones responsible for this situation. They initially called notices of assessment "normal" .... so normal I never had it in 12 years of being a business owner. Downgrading to 1-star until this is resolved.

I am writing this review after multiple attempts at trying to get this company to explain bookkeeping that they performed for me. I guess since I am no longer a client they feel they have no obligation to explain anything. This is very unprofessional especially since they messed up my books. Please be warned that this organization cares nothing about their clients and apparently their reputation. They miscoded basic accounting entries. I would never recommend them to any business or individual and plan to file an official complaint against them.