Bergen · Passaic · Essex · Morris · since 2004
NJ Accounting Temps is a North Jersey co-op built around one stubborn premise: the solo practitioner and the two-partner tax shop are the hardest firms in the state to staff, and they deserve a network that treats temp-to-perm as the point, not the fallback. Our members work your book for six to sixteen weeks, and if the fit's right you hire them direct on the back end — no conversion fee, no non-compete, no markup games.
Every engagement scoped to a firm owner, a start date, and a conversion window. If you need a return signed or a firm of record, you need a CPA with a PTIN and a shingle — that's not us and we'll tell you so on the phone.
Our flagship engagement. A member works your book for 8–16 weeks with the explicit option that you hire her outright at week 12. No conversion fee. No non-compete. If the fit isn't there, she rotates back to the bench and nobody wastes a month pretending. Over half our engagements start this way.
Your full-charge bookkeeper is out eight to twelve weeks. Member shows up Monday 8am, finds the GL before the 10:30 coffee break, and runs the book the way your regular bookkeeper runs it — not the way our member runs her own. We read your close checklist before we show up; if you don't have one, we write one the first week.
Feb 1 through Apr 15, for solo and two-partner tax shops only. Members prep 1040s and simple 1120S returns to review-ready; you or your partner sign. Three members hold PTINs and can e-file under your firm's EFIN if you want to route returns that way. Most firms don't; most firms would rather the partner stay the signer.
You're a solo CPA, a prospect walks in with eighteen months of uncategorized QBO transactions and a chart of accounts that grew like ivy out of an unsupervised bookkeeper. You don't want to do the cleanup yourself and you don't want to turn down the client. Member handles it before you onboard, one month at a time, and leaves you a written close checklist for the incoming year.
Every January, six members run a 1099-NEC and ST-50 assembly line out of a shared member's basement office in Wyckoff. North Jersey construction GCs, dental practices, real-estate LLCs. If your firm's book grew past 200 vendor-payees and you're still running them by hand on Dec 30, that's the call to make on Jan 3.
A member steps in for four to twelve weeks while a family-owned shop searches for a permanent controller. Board reporting, cash forecasting, bank covenant schedules, the quiet handling of an ownership transition. Two of our senior members specialize in this — ask Marlene to tell you about the HVAC outfit in Mahwah.
What the co-op has actually been doing. Names changed; numbers rounded.
| Date | Member | Engagement | County | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 08 | Anita K. | 1099-NEC run, 84 vendors, construction GC | Bergen | 22 |
| Jan 14 | Ray H. | Form 990 workpapers, arts nonprofit | Essex | 38 |
| Jan 21 | Dan P. | Cleanup, 14 months, dental practice | Morris | 61 |
| Feb 03 | Sofia V. | Year-end inventory, two-location deli | Passaic | 19 |
| Feb 10 | Joe T. | WIP schedules, mechanical contractor | Bergen | 27 |
| Feb 24 | Marlene R. | Audit PBC prep, private school | Essex | 44 |
| Mar 04 | Anita K. | Maternity cover, full-charge, law office | Bergen | ongoing |
| Mar 17 | Ray H. | Grant tracking rebuild, family-services agency | Passaic | 31 |
Posted by Marlene after each coordinator meeting. Ledger current through the Apr 14 rotation call — next meeting is the Tuesday after the potluck.
Back in '03, three of us were sitting in a diner off Route 17 complaining that every good bookkeeper we knew was either overworked or being low-balled by some out-of-state placement outfit. By the time the check came we'd sketched the whole thing out on a paper napkin: keep it local, keep it fair, split the work among people we'd trust with our own grandmother's QuickBooks file.
Twenty-some years later, the napkin is framed in a member's basement office in Wyckoff and the co-op still runs on the same idea. Members pay a small annual share — currently $180, set at the spring meeting — and the coordinator matches incoming work to whoever in the network fits the job and the commute. That's the whole trick.
Our controller broke his ankle the week before year-end. One of their members showed up Tuesday morning, figured out our chart of accounts by lunch, and had the trial balance cleaned up before the auditors arrived. She even made coffee.
— owner, family-run HVAC contractor, Bergen County
Coordinator answers the phone before 9am weekdays. The rotation's full for 1040 support through Apr 15, but temp-to-perm intakes for May onward have two open seats. If a member, a client, or your uncle Sal at the Paterson firm sent you, say so on the call — it changes where you land in the queue.
How a call goes