Bookkeeping, Tax Preparation Support and Virtual CFO Services for Phoenix Businesses

The Department of Revenue publishes the rates in tables, and the January 1, 2026 edition flags Phoenix as one of the places with a change this year. The state's own rate is 5.6 percent. Combined with Maricopa County, the table lists 6.30 percent for retail sales, and the City of Phoenix adds 2.80 percent. The city's combined rate chart for January 1, 2026 puts the total at 9.1 percent on the first $14,338 of a single item and 8.3 percent on the amount above it, because the city charges 2.0 percent instead of 2.8 on that upper part. Voters approved the two-level rule with Proposition 104 in 2015, and the threshold is adjusted for inflation.

The city's July 1, 2025 increase was 0.5 percentage points for retail, restaurants and bars, construction contracting, commercial real estate rental, amusements and several smaller classifications. The City of Phoenix tells filers to report activity from before July 1, 2025 at the old 2.3 percent. For the ledger that means a tax code by classification and by transaction date, not a single Phoenix code, and it explains why a catch-up project covering 2025 has to split the year at the end of June. A business with several locations or business lines can license and report each location separately or use a consolidated license, at $12 for each license per location, and that choice decides how sales are tagged in the books.

Construction has the least obvious tax base of the Phoenix classifications. Under section 42-5075 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, the tax base for prime contracting is 65 percent of gross proceeds or gross income from the business. The statute takes certain amounts out first, including the sales price of land (not above fair market value), and the city's construction contracting rate is 2.8 percent since July 1, 2025.

That design puts work on the ledger. Each job needs gross billings, any land sales price and the other listed deductions kept as separate lines, so the reported base can be rebuilt from the file for any period. We set up job costing so each project carries its contract value, change orders, retention and the TPT fields together; the class and location tracking setup is where that lives. Homebuilders selling spec houses and owner-builders have their own classifications, and a company with mixed activities can need more than one classification in the same set of books.

Landlords and tenants should not assume that a rent tax repealed in some other state applies in Arizona. Phoenix lists commercial real estate rental, leasing and licensing as its own TPT classification, and the city rate on it rose from 2.3 to 2.8 percent on July 1, 2025. The city's January 2026 combined chart shows commercial rental and leasing at a city rate of 2.9 percent (the 2.8 percent plus an additional 0.1) and a county rate of 0.5 percent, for 3.4 percent in all.

The landlord is the vendor, so the landlord holds the TPT license and files the return. Where a lease passes the tax through, the invoice shows it as a separate line and the tenant books it with the rent. A property manager running several buildings needs rental income, pass-through tax and owner distributions kept apart per property. Owners of a Phoenix building that they also occupy through a separate operating company have an intercompany rent to book on both sides.

Arizona taxes corporations at 4.9 percent of net income for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2016, per section 43-1111 of the Arizona Revised Statutes. S corporation shareholders can also consent to be taxed at the entity level: the Department of Revenue says the Arizona pass-through entity tax is assessed at 2.5 percent of the income attributable to resident shareholders and Arizona-source income of nonresident shareholders, and the election has to be made by the due date or extended due date of the return. Where an S corporation elects, its entity-level payments need their own account so the preparer can reconcile them to what each shareholder reports.

The Arizona Corporation Commission handles entity filings, and it treats entity types differently. A for-profit corporation files an annual report, with a $45 fee, by its own due date, which differs from corporation to corporation. A limited liability company does not file an annual report at all, according to the Commission's FAQ. Because the due date is specific to each corporation, we record it per entity at onboarding rather than assuming a calendar date, and our state annual reports support keeps that register next to the monthly close.

Homebuilders, trades and remodelers need the job costing described above. Manufacturers and technology suppliers in the East Valley carry inventory, work in process and capital equipment, and their books need fixed asset schedules that tie to depreciation. Medical groups and senior-care operators need patient and payer receivables kept apart. Restaurants and bars are taxed under their own classification, at 2.8 percent by the city since July 1, 2025, with tip pooling and delivery-app deposits to untangle.

Property managers deal with the rental classification, and logistics operators moving freight along the interstate corridors deal with the transporting classification, which the city also lists at 2.8 percent. A young company coming from the Valley's startup scene wants investor-ready monthly statements before a funding round. For any of these, our monthly bookkeeping starts from a chart of accounts matched to the way you are taxed rather than a generic template.

BLS May 2025 estimates for the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro show a mean annual wage of $90,110 for accountants and auditors, against $94,750 nationally, with a median of $80,820. The metro has 21,360 jobs counted for accountants and auditors. For bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks the mean is $54,380 against $53,560 nationally, and for tax preparers it is $65,360 against $60,930. Financial managers average $164,060 here and $186,910 nationally.

Those are wages only. Payroll tax, benefits, software and the cost of recruiting come on top, and a single hire leaves a gap during leave or turnover. Finbryn's Essentials plan is $249 a month for businesses up to $50,000 in monthly expenses, and Growth is $549 a month up to $150,000, on the pricing page. Neither replaces a person who works from your office.

The engagement is remote from the first call, with no Phoenix office or local staff, and the accounting file stays in your name. At setup we load your TPT license numbers, the city code for each location and the classifications you report under, so each month's TPT figures come out of the ledger instead of a side spreadsheet. Documents travel through a client portal and bank feeds connect into QuickBooks Online or Xero. For tax work we prepare the books and supporting schedules, and the return is prepared for review and signature by the credentialed preparer.

Use the contact page and tell us which TPT licenses you hold, which cities you sell in, and whether your 2025 books were closed with the July rate change in mind. Catch-up work is scoped apart from the monthly ledger, and the terms go into an engagement letter before anything starts. If you also sell in Nevada, Las Vegas shows how that state's payroll tax works, and every metro is on the locations hub.