IT Services for Accounting Firms in Dallas
IT services for accounting firms in Dallas protect client tax files, partner email, and the seasonal staff who need both. Uprite runs them from North Dallas, with a five-minute average response and fully managed IT from $138 per user.
SOC 2 Type 1 audited in 2023. The Dallas arm of our CPA and accounting IT services across Texas, built for CPA firms, tax practices, and advisory shops in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Talk to a Dallas Accounting IT ExpertIn Texas Since 1999 | SOC 2 Type 1 (2023) | 5-Minute Average Response | 120-Day Satisfaction Guarantee
Talk to a Dallas Accounting IT Expert
Recognized Across Texas for Managed IT and Security
The Dallas Pattern
Dallas CPA Offices Average Nearly 27 People, and the Number Keeps Climbing
Start with the size of the office.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts firms by payroll, and its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for 2025 lists 512 CPA offices in Dallas County with 13,677 people on payroll. That works out to 26.7 people per office. Harris County, with 694 offices and 10,896 jobs, comes in at 15.7. Texas as a whole averaged 10.2 in the 2024 data. The gap is wide.
Five years ago the picture looked different. In 2020 Dallas County had 529 CPA offices and 12,098 people working in them, or 22.9 each. Since then the county has lost 17 offices and gained 1,579 jobs. Add Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties and the four-county total climbed from 15,271 jobs in 2020 to 17,778 in 2025, up 16 percent, spread across 1,114 offices. That’s real growth.
Firms are getting bigger, not more numerous.
A 27-person office isn’t a sole practitioner with a laptop and a Dropbox folder. It has partners, managers, a staff tier, an admin team, and probably a second location or a remote contingent. Every one of those people has a login that touches Social Security numbers, bank statements, and signed returns. The average pay at Dallas County CPA offices was $142,352 in 2025, the highest of the four counties, and the clients behind those files aren’t small either. It adds up fast.
Federal rules don’t scale down for the little guy, and they don’t scale up for the big one. Under 16 CFR 314.2, an accountant or tax preparer in the business of completing returns is a financial institution, and the Safeguards Rule follows. We keep the thresholds and the paragraph-by-paragraph duties on our Texas CPA and accounting page, so this page can stay on the systems instead of the statute.
A Dallas firm that has grown past 25 people has usually outgrown the IT it started with. A part-time contractor and a neighbor who knows computers both worked fine at eight people. They don’t scale. At 27 they leave gaps nobody sees until a partner asks who can open a client folder and no one can say.
Inside the Firm
What Accounting Firm IT in Dallas Has to Cover
Picture a 30-person firm off the Dallas North Tollway on a Tuesday in March.
Partners have email open in one window and a tax package in another. Six staff accountants are working in client folders on the shared drive. Two seasonal preparers started last week on laptops borrowed from the training room. The receptionist is scanning W-2s to a mailbox everyone can see, and a bookkeeper in Plano is signed in over remote desktop from a home PC. Nobody planned any of it. Every piece touches client data.
The workpapers matter as much as the software. A client file holds returns, bank logins, payroll reports, and sometimes a decade of history. Texas expects the firm to protect all of it and to say quickly whose file was exposed. Rule 501.75(d) of the State Board of Public Accountancy makes backup part of that duty, telling licensees to maintain a back-up system “in order to be able to immediately identify and notify clients of a loss.”
That makes backup a notification tool, not only a recovery tool.
Most IT contracts treat backup as a checkbox. A job runs at night, a green light shows, and nobody restores anything until the day it matters. Green lights prove little. On the fully managed plan we test a restore every quarter from a real client folder, so the answer to which clients were in that folder exists before anyone has to ask.
That’s why accounting IT in Dallas starts with who and where, not with hardware. Who is signed in, from which device, to which client folders, and what happens to all of it on the day someone leaves? Hardware comes second.
Our SOC 2 Type 1 examination was completed in 2023, and we’ve been working with Texas businesses since 1999. For an accounting firm we build the program around one identity per person, enrolled devices, tested backup, and a paper trail you could hand an insurer or an examiner without a scramble.
What That Looks Like for a Dallas Accounting Firm
One Identity for Every Partner, Preparer, and Seasonal Hire
Each person gets one Microsoft 365 account with multi-factor sign-in. Shared logins and the spreadsheet of passwords on the office manager’s desktop go away, and so does the argument about who used the account last.
Tax and Accounting Software Left to Its Vendors
We support the Windows machines, servers, and access paths underneath QuickBooks, Sage, Lacerte, and ProSeries. Updates get scheduled outside filing deadlines, and the software vendor keeps supporting its own product.
A Client Portal and Secure File Exchange
Clients send documents through an encrypted portal instead of plain email attachments. Links expire, access is logged, and a returned file lands in the right folder.
Backups That Can Name the Clients Affected
Microsoft 365 data and the file server are backed up outside the primary environment, with retention the firm sets. On the fully managed plan, a restore gets tested every quarter.
A Written Plan With Evidence Behind It
The IRS expects a written information security plan. We keep the evidence the plan points to, from multi-factor reports to access reviews, which is the work in our guide to a WISP for Dallas CPA firms.
Phones and Remote Access for Two Offices or Twenty
Business VoIP on a platform like 3CX, secure remote access for staff who work from home in March, and one phone system across locations after a merger.
Partners sometimes ask whether each department can keep its own tools. Technically yes. In practice, a firm where tax, audit, and advisory each pick their own file sharing ends up with three places to search after a breach and three places to close when someone leaves. Pick one. Write it down.
The Risk
Client Tax Data Is What Attackers Come For
A tax file has everything an identity thief needs.
The IRS reported that nearly 300 data breaches at tax professional offices were filed in the first half of 2025, affecting as many as 250,000 clients, and it hasn’t published a newer count. Payment fraud keeps climbing alongside it. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report counted $3.05 billion in business email compromise losses nationwide, and Texas ranked second among the states with 97,912 complaints and $1.83 billion in reported losses. Neither figure is small.
A fake wire request is the visible part. Behind it sits a quieter problem, which is somebody else logged in to a partner’s mailbox. From there an attacker can read engagement letters, see which clients are waiting on refunds, and write to them in the firm’s own voice. It looks routine. The client sends a payment, or uploads a bank statement, to the wrong place.
One stolen password starts it.
Texas puts clocks on what follows. Under Section 521.053, a business has 60 days to notify the people affected and 30 days to tell the Attorney General once 250 or more Texans are involved. The accountancy board’s rule is faster, because it requires a licensee to notify affected clients in writing immediately. We line up the federal and state deadlines in our guide to financial services cybersecurity in Dallas, and the security work underneath them is our cybersecurity services in Dallas.
Multi-Factor on Every Login
The Safeguards Rule calls for multi-factor authentication for anyone accessing an information system, unless the firm’s Qualified Individual approves an equivalent control in writing. We turn it on for email, the portal, tax software, and remote access.
Logs That Show Who Opened Which File
Section 314.4(c)(8) asks firms to monitor and log what authorized users do. We keep the audit trail on mailboxes and shared folders so a question about one client’s file has an answer.
Mailbox Rules Watched Overnight
Managed detection flags hidden forwarding rules and impossible-travel sign-ins, the first moves in most mailbox takeovers, while the partners are asleep.
A Client Notice Plan Ready Before You Need It
Who calls whom, in what order, with which letter. The plan is built around the immediate written notice to clients and the Texas 60-day and 30-day deadlines.
The Seasonal Swing
Dallas Tax Preparation Offices Add About 1,660 People Between August and February
Then the season starts.
BLS monthly data for tax preparation services in Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties shows 4,407 jobs in February 2025 and 2,748 in August. That’s a gap of 1,659 people, a swing of 60 percent. It’s gone by summer. CPA offices move far less, from 18,241 jobs in February to 17,323 in September, about 5 percent. So the surge lands mostly in dedicated tax practices and in firms that run a tax department beside audit and advisory.
Each of those extra people needs an email account, a laptop, a seat in the tax software, and access to the client files they should see and nothing more. Then they leave. The accounts they used need to close the same week. Hundreds of small hires, none of which looks risky on its own.
What We Do Before and After the Rush
Accounts Created in One Pass
New hires get accounts, multi-factor enrollment, and a device in one scheduled session instead of fifteen separate requests in the second week of January.
Access Tied to the Client Assignment
Seasonal staff see the clients assigned to them. A temp who needs 40 files doesn’t get the whole share.
Pooled Laptops, Wiped Between Seasons
Seasonal laptops are enrolled and encrypted, then reimaged when the season ends, so nothing from last year’s returns sits on a spare machine in a drawer.
Offboarding on a Calendar
Accounts and devices for seasonal staff close on a set date after April 15, and again after the October extension deadline. The checklist fits on one page.
A Help Desk That Expects the Rush
Our help desk averages five minutes to first response, and an engineer can come to your office from North Dallas when a scanner or workstation quits in a deadline week.
Storm Season and Deadline Season Planned Together
A North Texas hailstorm doesn’t wait for April 15. Failover, cloud backup, and remote access are planned with our disaster recovery in Dallas team before the season starts.
Readiness is a scheduling problem.
Most of the work fits into November and December, when nobody is busy, and the firms that do it then spend January on clients. We walk through the full calendar, from the first seasonal hire to the October extension deadline, in our guide to tax season IT readiness for Dallas CPA firms. Waiting costs billable hours.
Set up the seasonal team in December, not in the first week of the rush.
By the Numbers
The Numbers Behind Accounting Firm IT in Dallas
A quick word on sourcing. The job counts come from BLS files we downloaded and added up ourselves. The breach figure belongs to the IRS, the fraud losses to the FBI, the notice rule to the Texas accountancy board, and the price is whatever our pricing page says this month.
26.7 people
Average payroll per CPA office in Dallas County in 2025, against 15.7 in Harris County.
+16%
Growth in CPA office jobs across Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties from 2020 to 2025, while offices grew 3 percent.
+60%
Gap between the February peak and the August low in tax preparation jobs across those four counties in 2025.
Nearly 300
Tax professional data breaches the IRS said were reported in the first half of 2025.
$138
Starting price per user per month for Uprite’s fully managed plan in Dallas, on-site visits included.
| Metric | Data Point | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CPA offices in Dallas County | 512 in 2025 (529 in 2020) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, private, annual averages |
| People on payroll at those offices | 13,677 in 2025 (12,098 in 2020) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, private, annual averages |
| People per CPA office, Dallas County vs. Harris County | 26.7 vs. 15.7 | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, 2025 annual averages |
| CPA offices and jobs, Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties | 1,114 offices and 17,778 jobs (1,079 and 15,271 in 2020) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, 2025 and 2020 |
| Average annual pay at Dallas County CPA offices | $142,352 (Collin $99,376, Tarrant $103,566) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, 2025 annual averages |
| Tax preparation jobs in those four counties, February vs. August | 4,407 vs. 2,748 (up 60 percent) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541213, monthly employment, 2025 |
| CPA office jobs in those four counties, February vs. September | 18,241 vs. 17,323 (up 5 percent) | BLS QCEW, NAICS 541211, monthly employment, 2025 |
| Tax professional data breaches reported to the IRS, first half of 2025 | Nearly 300, affecting up to 250,000 clients | IRS news release IR-2025-88, August 26, 2025 |
| Business email compromise losses, United States | $3.05 billion in 2025 (Texas: 97,912 complaints, $1.83 billion) | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 report |
| Notice duty when client records are lost or exposed | Affected clients, in writing, immediately | Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, 22 TAC 501.75(d) |
| Uprite published starting prices in Dallas | $138 fully managed, $100 co-managed, $40 security, $110 or $91 remote-only | Uprite pricing page, November 2026 |
Tell us how many people you have in January and how many in July.
Then we can map the firm before you commit to anything.
Talk to a Dallas Accounting IT ExpertGetting Started
How We Onboard a Dallas Accounting Firm
The filing calendar sets our schedule, and we plan around it.
Step 1. Count Every Login, Not Every Desk
We start by counting logins, since desks tell you very little. That means partners and staff, last winter’s seasonal hires, shared mailboxes, the tax software, the client portal, the payroll vendor, and the outside accountant who still has a key. You keep the list whether or not you ever hire us.
Step 2. Business Technology Assessment
Next the list becomes a ranked plan. Whatever touches client files or money goes first, which usually means closing accounts that belonged to last year’s seasonal staff before anyone looks at a monitor.
Step 3. Close the Doors Before Moving Anything
Before we move a single mailbox, we switch on multi-factor, remove access for people who’ve left, turn on mailbox auditing, and take a full Microsoft 365 backup. Doing it in that order means a bad migration can’t make anything worse.
Step 4. Bring Everyone Into One Environment
Then email and files move into the firm’s own Microsoft 365 and shared storage. Devices get enrolled, and each person gets a short walkthrough booked well away from deadline weeks.
Step 5. Operate It and Keep Proof
After that it runs. We monitor around the clock, the help desk answers in about five minutes on average, and every quarter we review who has access to what. The records that come out of it are what you’d show an insurer or an examiner.
Size changes the timeline. A 12-person bookkeeping and tax practice already on Microsoft 365 is a short project. A 60-person firm with offices in Plano and Dallas, two file servers left over from a merger, and a dozen seasonal laptops takes longer, and we’ll put that timeline in writing before you sign anything.
Honest Fit Check
Who This Program Is Built For
| Right fit |
|---|
| Dallas-Fort Worth CPA firms, tax practices, and bookkeeping or advisory shops with roughly 10 to 150 people |
| Firms that hire seasonal preparers every winter and can’t say who still has a login in summer |
| Practices that merged or acquired another firm and now run two networks, two phone systems, or two file servers |
| Firms with a written security plan on paper but no multi-factor reports, access reviews, or restore tests behind it |
These are the firms we had in mind when we put the program together. Not sure your firm qualifies? Ask anyway. Your first call is free.
Before You Switch
What Dallas Partners Ask Before They Switch
Managing partners raise the same four objections on almost every first call. Here’s how we answer them.
“We’re too small for anyone to come after us.”
The rules don’t agree. A tax preparer is a financial institution under the Safeguards Rule whatever the headcount, and IRS Publication 5708 says tax and accounting professionals are covered “regardless of size.” Criminals aren’t counting heads either. They go after whichever mailbox holds the files.
“Our last IT provider only showed up when something broke.”
One Texas CPA firm was in that spot before it hired us. Two established practices were merging, about 25 people between them. One had been stuck with unresponsive break-fix support, and the other couldn’t keep its growing client data organized. We began on a break-fix basis, moved them to fully managed IT, and ended up with both offices on one 3CX phone system and shared cloud-based Microsoft environments. The full story is in our case study on modernizing IT for a growing CPA firm.
“Can’t we just buy the cheaper remote-only plan?”
Sometimes the remote-only plan is the right call. In Dallas, IT Essentials starts at $91 per user per month for teams under 12, and IT Pro starts at $110 for teams of 12 or more. A firm with a scanner room, a server closet, and a deadline week usually wants someone who can drive over, so we often suggest fully managed IT at $138. The per-seat math is in our look at what accounting firm IT costs in Dallas.
“We already have an IT person.”
Then keep them. Co-managed IT begins at $100 per user per month and exists for exactly that situation. Your person holds the relationships and the history, and gains monitoring, backup, security tools, and a bench of engineers for the Saturday in March when a partner’s mailbox gets taken over.
Definition
IT Services for Accounting Firms in Dallas, Defined
Why Dallas Accounting Firms Choose Uprite
Plans That Match How You Staff
Fully managed IT for firms with no IT staff, co-managed IT beside the person you already have, and security-only coverage with firewall, SIEM, and SOC monitoring for firms that run their own systems.
Prices on the Website, Not Behind a Call
Every Dallas price sits on our pricing page. Fully managed IT is $138 per user per month, with co-managed at $100 and security augmentation at $40. The remote-only plans run $110 and $91. We lock your rate for the first year, back the start with a 120-day satisfaction guarantee, and don’t add fees you haven’t seen.
Five Minutes to First Response, From North Dallas
Come see us at 5757 Alpha Road, Suite 530, in North Dallas. First response averages about five minutes, remote support settles most tickets, and when the scanner room goes dark two days before a deadline, an engineer drives over.
What Clients Say
Texas Clients on Working With Uprite
Hector and Kareem are super helpful! They are always willing to take on my computer problems even if its small. I had my mouse disappear off my screen, it was an user issue but Hector didn't make me feel small or "dumb" for this error. We love uprite!
Gerardo Sanchez was very helpful & professional. Uprite Services has great customer service and outstanding technicians. We have used them for several years and will continue our business with them.
I had been having trouble with an IT matter that I didn't think would be fixed but Arvin Ebueng from Upright took his time with me and worked with me until we were able to resolve the issue. The issue was an internal issue with the way the program was written, but Arvin came up with a great work around so that I am now able to do what I need to do at my job. Long story short, he got me access to both things that I need access to simultaneously and daily. Thanks 😊 Arvin, you are much appreciated 👏 💐 🥳.
I’ve been extremely satisfied with Uprite Services and would recommend them without hesitation. They consistently deliver reliable, high-quality work and truly feel like a true partner rather than just another vendor. A special thank you goes to Arvin Ebueng, he is always quick to respond to our needs and incredibly easy to communicate with. No matter how busy things get, Arvin makes sure we’re taken care of promptly and with a smile. His responsiveness and clear communication have made every interaction smooth and stress-free. Thank you, Arvin and the entire Uprite team, Peerless Equipment is a customer for life!
I'm am not a "tech" person, however the team at Uprite gets me through the technological side of computers and software so that I can function on a daily basis... but the most enduring quality is that they care. Special shoot out to Mary, Sergio, Eufemio, Hector, and Jeff just to name a few... I appreciate each of you and the help you give me.
Great service by Juan and Jacob. Always helping us out at Alamo City Trailer Sales. We have been using this company for over 10 years and always happy with the work they do.
FAQ
What Dallas Accounting Firms Ask First
They cover Microsoft 365 and email security for partners, staff, and seasonal hires, support for the environments that tax and accounting software runs on, secure client file exchange, tested backup of client files, a written security plan with evidence behind it, and network protection. Uprite adds around-the-clock monitoring and a help desk with a five-minute average response, run from North Dallas.
Yes. We create accounts, multi-factor enrollment, and enrolled laptops in one scheduled pass before the season, limit each person to assigned client folders, and close everything on a set date after the filing deadlines. Pooled laptops are wiped between seasons, so nothing from last year’s returns stays on a spare machine.
Yes. Uprite is a managed service provider with an office at 5757 Alpha Road in North Dallas, and accounting and tax practices are among the industries we build programs for. We completed a SOC 2 Type 1 examination in 2023, and our pricing is published before you ever call us.
Uprite publishes its starting prices. Fully managed IT with on-site support is $138 per user per month, co-managed IT is $100, and security augmentation is $40. Remote-only plans start at $110 for teams of 12 or more and $91 for smaller teams. Ask how seasonal hires would be counted before you sign, and we’ll put it in writing.
Under State Board of Public Accountancy Rule 501.75(d), a Texas CPA firm has to notify affected clients in writing immediately after learning client records were lost or exposed, cybersecurity breaches included. Section 521.053 adds a 60-day notice to affected individuals and a 30-day notice to the Attorney General once 250 or more Texans are involved.
Yes, for the computers, servers, and remote access underneath them. We support the environments that run QuickBooks, Sage, Lacerte, and ProSeries and schedule updates around filing deadlines. The software vendor still supports its own product, so when the program itself is failing we open the ticket with them. Tell us what you run and we’ll confirm.
Start Here
Find Out Who Can Still Reach Your Clients’ Files
Ask a Dallas managing partner how many former seasonal staff still have a working login, and you’ll usually get a guess. Nothing wrong with that. Few firms have ever counted.
The assessment fixes that. We go through email, user accounts, devices, access to the tax software, and the backups, then hand you a written list of who still has access, what’s exposed, and what we couldn’t restore if today were the bad day. There’s no charge, and you’re under no obligation to hire us afterward.
Seasonal rosters turn over every year. Access lists should too.
Know who is inside your network before the next deadline depends on it.
Prefer the phone? Call our Dallas office at (469) 699-8766, or use our contact page.
