For CPAs, enrolled agents and small accounting firms
Microsoft 365 and business email for CPA and accounting firms in St. Louis and St. Charles County
You just asked a client to email you their Social Security number. If the address you asked from ends in gmail.com, that number is heading into a free consumer inbox. Managed Microsoft 365 puts everyone at your firm on your own domain, whether you're coming off a personal address, your internet provider, or a registrar mailbox nobody has looked at since 2014.
What your clients notice about your firm's email
The parts of a firm's email that only show up as a problem in February.
The address you ask from
A prospect comparing two accountants sees the email address before they read anything else about either one. It's the first thing in front of them that either matches the firm name or doesn't.
Where the documents land
When client paperwork arrives at one person's personal inbox, the firm can't get to it when that person is out. During filing season, that's a return that doesn't move.
Whether it arrives at all
Mail from a domain with no SPF, DKIM or DMARC published gets treated with suspicion, and the client who never got your message assumes you never sent it. This is fixable, and it starts with checking what your domain publishes today.
What managed Microsoft 365 covers
Mailboxes on your domain, and the parts around them a firm only notices during filing season.
Everyone on the firm domain
Real Microsoft 365 mailboxes on your own domain, with calendars and contacts, at $6 per user per month. The price works the same whether you're on your own or there are twelve of you.
Seats planned around your season
Headcount in an accounting firm is not flat, and the mailboxes shouldn't be an afterthought when it moves. Tell us how your staffing changes between January and May and we'll set the plan up around it. When a preparer moves on, the firm keeps their mail instead of losing it with them.
A shared mailbox for client documents
One address like taxreturns@ or documents@ that several people open with their own sign-in, so nobody is sharing a password, and it doesn't cost you a paid seat. Client paperwork lands somewhere the whole practice can reach.
Aliases you don't buy by the seat
An alias routes into a real mailbox instead of being another sign-in you pay for, so payroll@, admin@ and your own name can all reach the right person. This is also how a retired partner's address keeps catching the IRS notices and client mail still addressed to them, without the firm paying for a license nobody uses.
Multi-factor authentication, set up as standard
A second factor on every mailbox, switched on during setup and not sold back to you as an upgrade. An accounting firm inbox is worth real money to whoever takes it, and a stolen password on its own shouldn't be enough to open it.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC, published and checked
The three DNS records that let receiving servers tell your mail from somebody impersonating your firm. We publish them, and our monitoring re-checks the posture on your domain every day, not once at setup and never again.
How the move works
The cutover is where this goes wrong if it goes wrong, so here's the order it happens in.
- 1
1. We look at what you have now
A short call about where your mail lives today, how many people need a mailbox, and which addresses clients already have for you. Gmail, an internet provider address and a domain registrar's mail are all normal starting points.
- 2
2. We build it before we touch anything live
Your domain gets set up in Microsoft 365 and the mailboxes get created while your existing mail carries on working exactly as it does now. Nothing about your day changes at this stage.
- 3
3. Mail comes across and the DNS cuts over
Existing mail and folders are migrated, then we move the DNS records so new mail arrives in the new mailboxes. We schedule this around your calendar, which for an accounting firm means not during the last week before a deadline.
- 4
4. We keep looking after it
Adding a preparer, retiring a mailbox, adding an alias: you email us and we handle it. That's what managed means here. The DNS posture on your domain stays monitored, and you aren't the one keeping track of it.
Questions accounting firms ask
Ask us anything that isn't covered here. The number is +1 (636) 362-6221 and the address is yourfriends@adamsdigital.com, and both go to the people who would do the work.
How much is Microsoft 365 for a small accounting firm?
Managed business email is $6 per user per month on your own domain. You pay for the people who need a mailbox, so a sole practitioner pays for one and a six-person firm pays for six. Adding a preparer later is a request, not a project, and full plan details are on our pricing page.
How do I move business email from Gmail to Microsoft 365?
Four steps, and none of them are yours. Your firm domain gets set up in Microsoft 365, the mailboxes get built while your current mail carries on working, existing mail is migrated across, and then the DNS records move so new mail lands in the new mailboxes. You keep your address. What changes is what sits behind it. Moving off an internet provider address or a registrar's mailbox works the same way.
Will we lose our old emails when we switch to Microsoft 365?
Where your old mail sits on a server we can reach, it comes across with the folder structure around it, so a message from a client four years ago is still there and still searchable. Some setups are more awkward. mail that only exists on one desktop, an account your provider trims after a fixed window, or a personal address with fifteen years of family email mixed in. Say so early and it shapes the plan. It's a fair thing to ask any provider to answer in writing before you commit.
Can you add Microsoft 365 seats just for tax season?
Seasonal staffing is a normal thing to plan around, and it's worth raising on the first call because the answer depends on the billing term you pick. Tell us how your headcount moves between January and May and we'll set the plan up around it instead of leaving you to discover the constraint in March. Separately, when a preparer moves on, their mailbox doesn't have to leave with them. We can convert it so the firm keeps the mail and whoever picks up those clients can still search it.
What is a shared mailbox, and should our firm use one?
It's one address, something like taxreturns@ or documents@, that several people open with their own sign-in. Nobody shares a password, and it doesn't consume a paid seat. For a firm it means client paperwork lands somewhere the whole practice can reach. That matters most in February, when the person who normally watches it is out and the returns still have to move.
How many email addresses can one mailbox have?
We don't put a number on it, and the count isn't what you're billed on. An alias is another address that routes into a real mailbox rather than being a separate sign-in, so one person can answer to payroll@, admin@ and their own name at once. You pay per person, not per address. Each address has to be unique on your domain, so two people can't both hold info@. It's also how a retired partner's address keeps catching IRS notices and client mail still sent to them, with nobody paying for a seat that nobody signs into.
How do we turn on MFA for our firm email?
We switch it on as part of the setup, so it isn't something you have to go and enable later. An accounting firm inbox is worth real money to whoever takes it, and a stolen password on its own should not be enough to open it.
Is email actually secure enough to send a tax document?
Partly, and the distinction is worth having straight. Mail between modern providers travels encrypted, and we publish and monitor SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain so someone else has a much harder time sending mail that looks like it came from your firm. What that doesn't do is protect a document after it lands in somebody's inbox, or stop a client forwarding it to their spouse's work address. For the sensitive documents themselves a portal beats email, and plenty of tax software already includes one. What we look after is the mailbox layer underneath it.
What does DMARC do?
It tells the receiving mail server what to do with a message that claims to come from your domain but can't prove it. That is the mechanism behind somebody impersonating your firm to a client mid-engagement. It's genuinely worth having, and it's also not a force field: DMARC says nothing about mail sent from a lookalike domain that isn't yours, and it won't catch a message a real person at your firm sent by mistake.
Do you provide email archiving or litigation hold?
No, and we'd rather say so than let you assume. The Microsoft 365 plans we resell cover mailboxes, not retention policies or legal hold, which need licensing above what we sell today. If your firm needs mail preserved to a retention schedule, raise it on the first call so we can be straight with you about where that leaves us.
What is an IRS WISP, and do you write one?
A Written Information Security Plan is the document the IRS expects a tax practice to keep describing how it protects client data. It's your firm's document and we don't write it or sell one. What we can do is tell you plainly what the email side of your setup looks like, so whoever writes it isn't guessing: who has a mailbox, whether multi-factor authentication is on, and what's published in your DNS.
What happens to our email and domain if we leave?
You take them. We help you move the domain out, and the mailboxes go with it to whoever you move to. Plenty of firms have found out too late that a former vendor held the domain and wouldn't release it, which is a bad thing to discover in the middle of filing season.
Tell us where your firm's mail lives now
We're in St. Charles County and we've looked after local businesses' websites and hosting since 2010, first as Rogue Networks and as Adams Digital since 2021. Tell us what you're on today and we'll tell you what moving it involves. Plan details are on our pricing page. If you're a law firm rather than an accounting practice, the same service is written up over on Microsoft 365 for law firms.