IT Support for Accounting Firms in Garden City, NY
For CPA firms, tax preparers, bookkeepers and business advisers with offices along Franklin Avenue, Stewart Avenue and Old Country Road. NetSys keeps tax and practice-management software, the document store, scanners and client portals working through filing season, builds the controls your written security plan describes into the systems themselves, and puts an engineer in the office whenever equipment needs a person in the room.
The short answer
Garden City accounting firms get IT support and managed IT from NetSys: a help desk for partners, staff and seasonal preparers, managed workstations and laptops, Microsoft 365 with multifactor authentication, encryption of client files, ThreatDown endpoint protection, email security and backups restored before every busy season. The controls map to the FTC Safeguards Rule and the written information security plan the IRS says tax professionals must keep. Engineers handle cabling, printers and network gear in person, since the drive from our Park Slope office to Garden City takes about 45 minutes. The monthly fee is per user and is set after an assessment.
Work we have done for accounting firm clients
- Accounting firms
Corporate accounting firm
Migration of 2 TB of business data to Azure, secure remote access for 42 employees, and backup and recovery configuration.
Client names are withheld. These examples were chosen for the work involved, not for where the client is, so none is presented as a Garden City client.
Tax season in a Garden City practice
Garden City has long been one of Nassau County's professional addresses, and its accounting practices serve the owners of Long Island businesses, professionals who work in Manhattan, and families whose returns span several states. Client documents arrive every way at once: through the portal, by email, on paper dropped at the front desk and scanned, and as exports from bookkeeping software. In February and March a firm that normally runs with ten people may add seasonal preparers, and partners take work home to Garden City, Rockville Centre or Huntington in the evenings. Everything leaves electronically: New York requires preparers who prepared returns for more than ten taxpayers in the prior year and use tax software to e-file, so the software, the internet circuit and each preparer's credentials have to be working on deadline day. Payment fraud is a year-round concern. In 2019 even the Nassau County Comptroller's Office released more than $700,000 to an impostor claiming to be a county vendor (the money was recovered), and the same vendor-impersonation trick is aimed at firms that run client bill pay or payroll. The IT plan has to cover the busy weeks, the remote evenings and the money.
On-site and remote support through filing season
Preparers call the help desk when the tax software will not open a return, a scanner stops sending to the client folder, or a laptop will not connect from home. Most problems are fixed remotely within the call, which matters when every hour in March is billable. For anything that needs hands, an engineer drives to Garden City from Park Slope: setting up seasonal desks before February, replacing a failed workstation, fixing the copier's scan-to-folder settings, or rewiring a conference room for client meetings. Monitoring and emergency service run 24/7; the help desk is staffed seven days a week from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time. A preparer working at 6 a.m. before a deadline, or at 10 p.m. after one, still reaches an engineer, and ransomware or a lost internet connection skips the queue and rings your dedicated engineer directly.
Tax software, client files and the portal: what we manage underneath
Whether the firm's tax and practice-management software runs on a local server, a hosted platform or the vendor's cloud, the vendor looks after the application, and everything around it is ours to run. That means the server or Azure Virtual Desktop host the software needs, Microsoft 365 permissions organized by client and engagement, scanning profiles that file documents to the right place, and the client portal's sign-in and sharing settings. Client files are encrypted at rest and in transit, staff reach them only from managed devices, and Keeper stores the logins for state tax sites, payroll providers and bank portals so they are never kept in a spreadsheet. Backups capture the tax data, the document store and mailboxes, and before each season we restore a sample of last year's returns to confirm the backups actually work. Updates to the tax software are tested with you before they reach every preparer.
Seasonal staff, phishing and payment changes
Seasonal preparers are the easiest door for an attacker, because they are new, busy and not yet suspicious. Each one gets a named account, never a shared login, with access limited to the client folders they need and an end date set on the first day, so their access closes automatically when the season does. MFA is required before the first sign-in. KnowBe4 training runs before February, with simulated phishing that mimics the fake client document and fake tax software update messages preparers actually receive. Barracuda email protection filters impersonation attempts, and alerts fire if a mailbox suddenly gains a forwarding rule. For money, the rule is procedural: a client's new bank details are entered only after a staff member phones the client on a number from the file, never one taken from the email.
Everything else about how we serve the area, including coverage, how support is delivered and the honest answer about where our office is, lives on our location page for Garden City, NY.
Rules that shape IT in a Garden City accounting firm
FTC Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314)
The FTC lists tax preparation firms among the financial institutions the rule covers. Each firm needs a written information security program and a designated Qualified Individual who reports to leadership at least annually. MFA is required for anyone accessing customer information, which must be encrypted on your systems and in transit. A breach involving unencrypted information about at least 500 consumers must be reported to the FTC no later than 30 days after discovery.
The IRS expectation of a written security plan
In its August 18, 2026 release IR-2026-92, the IRS and Security Summit partners repeated that federal law requires tax and accounting professionals to create and maintain a Written Information Security Plan. IRS Publication 5708 is the template, and Publication 4557 covers the security steps behind it. We keep the plan matched to the controls actually running, not a document written once and filed.
New York's e-file mandate (Tax Law section 29)
Preparers who prepared authorized tax documents for more than ten taxpayers in the prior calendar year and use tax software must e-file them, clients cannot opt out, and a $50 penalty may apply for each return not e-filed without reasonable cause. Filing season therefore depends on the software, the circuit and each preparer's credentials working together, which is why we test all three before the first returns go out each January and keep a cellular backup ready for deadline week.
SHIELD Act safeguards and notice
Client returns are full of private information as New York defines it. Section 899-bb of the General Business Law expects reasonable safeguards, scaled to a small firm's size rather than waived, and section 899-aa sets a thirty-day clock, counted from discovery, for telling affected residents about a breach, with notice also going to the State Police, the Attorney General and the Department of State. This is general information, not legal advice.
This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with counsel.
Accounting Firms in Garden City: FAQs
Who provides IT support for accounting firms in Garden City?
NetSys provides managed IT and support for Garden City CPA firms, tax practices and bookkeepers from its one office, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We run the help desk, workstations and laptops, Microsoft 365, email and endpoint security, backups and the network, and we coordinate with your tax software and portal vendors so partners do not have to. Engineers work on site in Garden City and across Nassau. We have been in business since 1998, our agreements run month to month, and client retention runs at 98%.
Do you provide on-site IT support for accounting firms in Garden City?
Yes. The trip from Park Slope takes about 45 minutes outside rush hour, and Garden City is well within our on-site range. Engineers come to the office to set up seasonal workstations, replace hardware, fix scanners and copiers, install firewalls and switches, and handle moves or expansions. We schedule that work before filing season where we can, because February is the wrong time to rebuild a network. Day-to-day problems are handled remotely first, and the help desk fixes most of them while the preparer is still on the phone.
What does IT support cost for a CPA firm in Garden City, NY?
Each user is billed monthly at a rate set after our assessment, and seasonal preparers can be added for the months they work rather than all year. The figure depends on headcount, whether the tax software runs on a local server, a hosted desktop or in the vendor's cloud, the number of offices and home workers, licensing already in place and how much of the security program is documented. A project such as moving the tax software off an aging server is quoted on its own.
How do you help a Garden City CPA firm meet the FTC Safeguards Rule's written program requirement?
We start from the rule's required elements and map each one to a working control: MFA on every account, encryption of client data at rest and in transit, access limited by role, logging of who touched client files, secure disposal of old drives, vendor oversight and an incident response plan. NetSys can support your Qualified Individual with the technical evidence and annual reporting, and we keep your WISP, built from IRS Publication 5708 if you like, in step with what is actually deployed. Legal judgments stay with the firm.
Do you support the tax and practice-management software our firm uses?
Yes. Garden City firms run a range of tax preparation, practice management, document management and client portal products, some on local servers and some in the cloud. The software vendor supports its own application, and we work with them on installs, annual updates, performance and licensing problems. We handle what the software relies on: the server or hosted desktop, user accounts, mapped drives and permissions, scanners, browser settings for state and federal sites, and backups. Each year's update is tested on one workstation before every preparer gets it.
How should we set up seasonal preparers?
Create each seasonal preparer as a named user before their first day, with MFA enrolled, access limited to the client folders and software they need, and an account expiration date matching the end of the season. Give them a managed laptop or a hosted desktop rather than letting client files sit on a personal computer. Run security awareness training in their first week, before they open client email. When the season ends, the account disables itself, the laptop is wiped and reassigned, and their licenses are reclaimed so you stop paying for them.
Services behind this work
Related pages
Other industries in Garden City: IT Support for Law Firms in Garden City, NY · Healthcare IT Support in Garden City, NY · Medical Practice IT Support in Garden City, NY
Accounting Firms elsewhere: IT Support for Accounting Firms in White Plains, NY · IT Support for Accounting Firms in Westchester County, NY · IT Support for Accounting Firms in Nassau County, NY · IT Support for Accounting Firms in Melville, NY · IT Support for Accounting Firms in Brooklyn · IT Support for Accounting Firms in New Jersey · IT Support for Accounting Firms in New York City · IT Support for Accounting Firms on Long Island
Everything NetSys delivers in Garden City, NY.
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