IT Support for Accounting Firms in Nassau County, NY
From a three-partner practice in Rockville Centre to a regional firm on the Jericho Quadrangle, Nassau accounting firms depend on tax software, client portals and email that cannot fail between February and April 15. NetSys keeps those systems patched, backed up and reachable from home, writes the security plan around them and puts an engineer in the office when the work needs hands.
The short answer
NetSys supports Nassau County accounting and CPA firms with the full IT stack a tax practice depends on: managed laptops and Microsoft 365, ThreatDown detection on every device, Barracuda filtering on inbound mail, Keeper for shared credentials and backups we restore on a schedule. We also maintain the firm's Written Information Security Plan so it describes controls that actually exist, as the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS Publication 4557 expect. The county is inside our on-site area: remote fixes come first, and an engineer drives out from Brooklyn for scanners, network work and pre-season setup. Terms are month to month.
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 Nassau County client.
What tax season looks like for a Nassau practice
Nassau carries more accounting work than its size suggests. Bureau of Labor Statistics county data show accounting employment running about 1.6 times the national concentration, and the New York State Society of CPAs keeps a Nassau chapter of its own. Firms cluster along Jericho Turnpike and the Jericho Quadrangle, on Stewart and Franklin Avenues in Garden City, and in village offices from Great Neck to Massapequa. Their clients are often owners of closely held companies, medical practices and families with trusts, so one mailbox can hold K-1s, bank statements and Social Security numbers for hundreds of households. The calendar sets the IT workload. January brings seasonal preparers who need accounts, scanners and remote access within days. From February to April 15, partners finish returns at home in Manhasset or Merrick after dinner, and the October 15 extension deadline repeats the crunch in autumn. We script new-hire accounts so a seasonal preparer can work on day one and loses access on their last day, tune the tax software's server or hosted connection before January, and write down a recovery plan for the weeks when downtime would cost the most.
How support works for a Nassau accounting firm, remotely and in person
Remote work comes first because it is quicker. A help desk engineer can reset a locked account, repair a tax software update that failed overnight or reconnect a scanner to its shared folder in minutes. People answer our help desk from four in the morning until eleven at night Eastern on every day of the week, which covers the early starts and late finishes of filing season, and monitoring never stops. Ransomware, a dead server or a lost internet circuit skips the queue and goes straight to your dedicated engineer. When the job needs hands, the drive from Park Slope to Garden City or Jericho is about 45 to 50 minutes outside rush hour, so a visit is booked like any appointment: new workstations and second monitors, a firewall swap, a scanning station, or the December visit when we patch everything, test a restore and confirm each preparer can sign in from home.
Tax software, client portals and the files in between
A Nassau practice's stack usually has four parts. Tax preparation and practice-management software lives either on a server in the back room or with a hosting provider; a document management system holds workpapers; a portal lets clients upload W-2s and sign engagement letters; and Microsoft 365 carries mail, Teams and everything else. Each part needs different care. A server-based tax program needs patching, a nightly backup that gets restored on a schedule and a secure way in for partners working from home, and if that server still runs Windows Server 2016, its security updates stop on January 12, 2027, so the replacement belongs in this year's plan. Hosted programs need multifactor authentication and Entra ID Conditional Access so only firm-managed devices sign in. The portal keeps tax documents out of inboxes, and outbound filtering can hold or encrypt a message carrying a Social Security number. On application faults we work the ticket with the software vendor.
Impersonation, wire fraud and storm-season continuity
Accounting firms see two attacks above all. The first is impersonation: fake IRS notices, a message that looks like a client asking for a refund to go to a new account, or a hijacked thread with a client's controller that redirects a payment. Banners on outside mail, callback rules for any change to bank details and KnowBe4 simulations scheduled for November and December handle most of it. The second risk is losing the office. On the morning after Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020, the County Executive reported 135,000 power outages in Nassau, and Sandy came ashore on October 29, 2012, two weeks after that year's extension deadline, flooding offices from Long Beach to Massapequa. We keep client files in Microsoft 365 and the backup copy off site, put the firewall and switches on battery, add a cellular backup circuit and test that partners can work from home before the season starts.
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 page for IT services and managed IT in Nassau County.
Compliance rules for Nassau accounting firms
FTC Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314)
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act treats tax and accounting practices that handle client financial data as financial institutions. The rule requires an information security program overseen by a named qualified individual, a risk assessment (written, for firms holding information on 5,000 or more consumers), access controls, encryption of customer information, multifactor authentication and staff training. Since May 13, 2024, a firm must also notify the FTC within 30 days of discovering that unencrypted information on 500 or more consumers was acquired without authorization.
IRS Publications 4557 and 5708
According to the IRS, federal law obliges tax and accounting professionals to write and keep a Written Information Security Plan, the WISP. Publication 4557 sets out the safeguards checklist, and Publication 5708 is the Security Summit's template for writing the plan, aimed at smaller practices. A plan only helps if it matches how the office really runs, so we review it whenever staff, software or vendors change and record which controls are in place and when they were last tested.
New York SHIELD Act
Client files are full of private information as General Business Law section 899-aa defines it, such as Social Security and account numbers. A firm subject to and in compliance with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley rules counts as a compliant regulated entity under section 899-bb; other firms need reasonable safeguards scaled to their size. After a breach, affected New Yorkers must be notified within 30 days of discovery, and the Attorney General, the State Police and the Department of State are notified too.
New York tax preparer registration
Paid preparers who are not CPAs, attorneys, enrolled agents or supervised employees must register with the Tax Department every calendar year, and commercial preparers, generally those preparing ten or more New York returns a year, also pay a $100 fee and complete continuing education. The Department expects 2027 registration and course content to open in mid-November 2026 through Individual Online Services accounts, so each preparer needs a personal account with an unshared password. This is general information, not legal advice.
This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with counsel.
Accounting Firms in Nassau County: FAQs
Who provides IT support for accounting firms in Nassau County?
We do: NetSys looks after CPA firms, tax practices and bookkeeping offices in every corner of Nassau County from our Brooklyn office. We manage the computers, Microsoft 365, the network, security and backups, keep the Written Information Security Plan current and deal with the tax software vendor when something breaks. Engineers come to the office for hardware and network work. NetSys was founded in 1998, holds 98% client retention and signs month-to-month agreements, so the firm is never locked in past a bad season.
Do you provide on-site IT support for accounting firms in Nassau County?
Yes. Nassau is well within the radius we serve in person, so a visit to an office in Garden City, Jericho, Great Neck or Massapequa is routine work. Visits cover things that need hands: a new scanning station, workstations for seasonal staff, a firewall or switch replacement, cabling and the pre-season check in December. Everything else, from password resets to a tax program that will not open, is handled remotely first because your staff gets an answer sooner that way.
What does IT support cost for a CPA firm in Nassau County?
Support is a monthly per-user fee worked out after an assessment; scope sets it, so there is no price list. The fee moves with the number of partners and staff, how many seasonal seats you add each January, whether the tax software runs on your own server or is hosted, the number of offices and the documentation your Safeguards program needs. Projects such as a server replacement or a move to hosted tax software are quoted after scoping. Agreements run month to month.
How do you help Nassau accounting firms meet the FTC Safeguards Rule?
We start with the risk assessment, then put the required controls in place and keep evidence that they work: multifactor authentication on every remote and cloud sign-in, encryption on laptops and in transit, access limited by role, logging, and backups with tested restores. KnowBe4 covers staff training, Keeper handles shared credentials, and we keep the service-provider list the program needs. The Written Information Security Plan names your qualified individual and describes those controls, and its incident response section covers the FTC's 30-day notice.
Do you support our tax and practice-management software?
We support everything it runs on: the server or the remote connection to a hosting provider, the workstations, Windows updates, printers and scanners, Microsoft 365 integration and the backups. For faults inside the application itself, we open the case with the software vendor, give them access through a logged session and stay on until it is resolved, so your staff never has to sit on hold. We do not present ourselves as the vendor's support desk or claim certification on their product.
How do you handle seasonal staff each tax season?
We build the accounts before they arrive. Each seasonal preparer gets a named Microsoft 365 account with multifactor authentication, a managed laptop or a locked-down workstation, access to the folders their role needs and a short security briefing. Shared logins are not used, because the Safeguards Rule and the firm's own audit trail both depend on knowing who opened which file. On the last day we disable the account, collect or wipe the device through Intune and keep the mailbox for the retention period you set.
Services behind this work
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Everything NetSys delivers in Nassau County, NY.
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