Quick Comparison
| Firm | Credentials | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Gary Mehta, CPA, EA (Four Brothers Financial) | Dual CPA and Enrolled Agent; Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; New Jersey and New York licensed | QuickBooks Online and Xero monthly bookkeeping for service professionals, real estate investors, restaurants, and small businesses across Hudson County |
| Sheth Tax, Inc. | Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; New Jersey licensed CPA practice founded by Arvind Sheth | QuickBooks setup, cleanup, and outsourced monthly bookkeeping for Jersey City and Hoboken small businesses, with cloud accounting and payroll layered in |
| Anjay Accountax | New Jersey CPA firm; Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on staff; CPA peer review provider | Bookkeeping, payroll, and outsourced controller work for medical, dental, hospitality, technology, retail, and nonprofit clients in the Jersey City and Hudson County market |
1. Gary Mehta, CPA, EA (Four Brothers Financial)
- Address: 101 Hudson Street, 21st Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07302
- Phone: (201) 252-6703
- Founder / Owner: Gary Mehta, CPA, EA
- Operating Since: 2007 (19 years)
- Credentials: Dual-licensed Certified Public Accountant and Enrolled Agent; Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; New Jersey and New York licensed
- Service area: Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Union City, and the broader Hudson County corridor, with extension into Manhattan and Short Hills
- Industries served: Service professionals in legal, medical, consulting, and marketing; real estate investors; restaurants and food service; e-commerce sellers; and high-income individuals and families
- Website: fourbrothersfinancial.com
Hudson Street Tower Anchor for Downtown Owners
The firm sits on the 21st floor of 101 Hudson Street, the glass tower that frames the Exchange Place skyline and sits a short walk from the PATH station. That location matters for downtown Jersey City founders who want a CPA they can meet face to face during a lunch break rather than only on a video call. Gary Mehta built the practice for owner-operators who want a single accountant handling monthly books and year-end returns from one Jersey City address.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor Bench Across Online, Desktop, and Xero
The bookkeeping team holds Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor status on QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, and the firm also supports Xero and Peachtree files when a client arrives on a different platform. New clients moving from spreadsheets typically receive a QuickBooks Online setup with bank feeds, receipt capture, and integrated payroll, which lets owners drop documents from a phone and review profit and loss reports between site visits. Existing files with miscoded transactions or stale reconciliations get a structured cleanup before the monthly close cadence begins.
Real Estate and Restaurant Specialty in a High-Cost Market
Jersey City’s commercial mix runs heavy on Newport waterfront condos, Journal Square mixed-use, and Grove Street restaurants, and the company’s client roster reflects that geography. Real estate investors with rental portfolios, restaurant owner-operators with multiple locations, and service professionals with side ventures all benefit from a CPA who already understands New Jersey sales tax for prepared food, the Hudson County rental market, and the city’s payroll tax surcharge for larger employers.
Bookkeeping Plus CFO Layer for Growth-Stage Clients
Owners who outgrow basic monthly books can layer in CFO advisory work without rebuilding the relationship. Cash flow forecasting, budgeting, lender-ready financial packages, and pre-acquisition due diligence run from the same QuickBooks file, which keeps reporting consistent when a Hudson County small business approaches a Small Business Administration loan, a private equity buyer, or a New Jersey Economic Development Authority program.
2. Sheth Tax, Inc.
- Address: 3285 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, 2nd Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07307
- Phone: (201) 420-1100
- Founder / Owner: Arvind Sheth, CPA
- Operating Since: 1997 (29 years)
- Credentials: Certified Public Accountant licensed in New Jersey; Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; small business accounting practice with cloud and outsourced delivery
- Service area: Jersey City, Hoboken, North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken, and the wider New York metropolitan corridor including Manhattan
- Industries served: Small to medium-size businesses across professional services, retail, hospitality, e-commerce, real estate, and immigrant-owned ventures, plus individual income tax clients
- Website: shethtax.com
Heights Office Built for Long-Tenure Client Relationships
The firm runs out of a JFK Boulevard office in the Heights, a neighborhood that has held a high concentration of family-owned shops, professional offices, and immigrant-led businesses for decades. Arvind Sheth founded the practice in 1997 and has kept the same name and the same client-first model through three rounds of QuickBooks platform shifts and two recessions. That stability is the reason many Jersey City and Hoboken owners have stayed for fifteen or twenty years.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor Discipline From Setup Through Cleanup
The firm holds the Jersey City Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor designation and runs a documented intake for new files. Chart of accounts setup, opening balance verification, bank and credit card linkage, sales tax mapping, and payroll integration all happen during onboarding rather than getting pushed into a future cleanup. For owners arriving with a tangled file from a prior bookkeeper, the shop rebuilds the file rather than patching around the errors.
Cloud Accounting and Outsourced Back Office for Lean Teams
Many Hudson County small businesses cannot justify a full-time bookkeeper but still need monthly reconciled statements and a payroll workflow that withstands New Jersey Department of Labor scrutiny. The firm delivers cloud-based QuickBooks Online access, document portal exchange, and outsourced accounting packages that bundle bookkeeping, payroll, and sales tax filings into a fixed monthly fee. The model is designed for owners who want to focus on revenue rather than manage three vendors.
Bilingual and Cross-Border Capacity for Immigrant-Owned Businesses
The firm maintains a second office in Mumbai and serves a meaningful South Asian client base across Jersey City and the wider New York metro region. That dual-office model matters for Hudson County owner-operators who manage family interests on two continents, want bilingual conversations about tax planning, or need cross-border guidance on remittances, foreign account reporting, and entity structuring. The bookkeeping work flows from the same cultural fluency.
3. Anjay Accountax
- Address: 591 Summit Avenue, Suite 203, Jersey City, NJ 07306
- Phone: (201) 656-2000
- Founder / Owner: Harish Hathiwala, CPA
- Operating Since: 1997 (29 years)
- Credentials: Certified Public Accountant licensed in New Jersey; Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on staff; CPA peer review service provider
- Service area: Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Secaucus, North Bergen, and the broader Hudson County and tri-state metropolitan region
- Industries served: Medical and dental practices, technology and IT consulting firms, nonprofit organizations, hospitality and restaurants, retail businesses, and professional services
- Website: anjayaccountax.com
Journal Square Address With Multi-Industry Client Base
The Summit Avenue office sits in the Journal Square corridor, the historic civic and commercial center of Jersey City and a hub that draws medical practices, dental offices, and small professional firms from across Hudson County. Harish Hathiwala launched the practice in 1997 and has built an unusually wide industry mix for a firm of this size. Medical, dental, technology, nonprofit, hospitality, and retail clients each receive bookkeeping treatment that reflects their specific revenue and expense patterns.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor Cleanup and Reconciliation Workflow
The team holds Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor status and runs both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop engagements. New clients with neglected files receive a structured cleanup that catches up bank feeds, reclassifies miscoded transactions, and reconciles every account before the practice takes over the monthly close. Owners who arrive mid-year for catch-up work can land in a clean monthly cadence by the end of the quarter, which is the kind of rhythm a New Jersey Division of Taxation notice or a lender package needs.
Outsourced Controller and Managed Accounting Bundles
Beyond transactional bookkeeping, the firm offers part-time controller and CFO-style support for Jersey City businesses that have outgrown a pure data-entry shop but cannot justify a full-time finance hire. Managed Accounting Services bundle bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax, and monthly financial reporting into a low monthly fee, which gives owners predictable cost and a single point of contact rather than three separate vendors. The model fits medical practices, technology firms, and nonprofits that need clean books for grant audits or board reporting.
Peer Review Practice Signals CPA Quality Standards
Few Jersey City practices of this size run a CPA peer review service, but Anjay does. Peer review is the AICPA-mandated quality control inspection that other CPA firms must pass to retain accounting and auditing licensure, and providing it requires a documented quality system, partner-level technical depth, and clean files of the company’s own. For bookkeeping clients the takeaway is indirect but real. A practice that audits other practices generally maintains tighter internal documentation and review procedures than one that does not.
Reference Notes
Jersey City is the second-largest city in New Jersey and the financial center of Hudson County, and its bookkeeping market reflects three overlapping client populations. The first is the downtown Exchange Place and Newport waterfront cluster, where service professionals, fund managers, real estate sponsors, and tech founders operate from glass-tower offices that were built to catch the spillover from Lower Manhattan. The second is the Journal Square and Heights corridor, where family-owned medical practices, dental offices, restaurants, and immigrant-led small businesses anchor a longer-tenure commercial base. The third is the Bergen-Lafayette and West Side neighborhoods, where smaller service firms, contractors, and food businesses fill in the long tail.
For independent founder-led bookkeeping firms, the durable advantage in Jersey City is local presence plus QuickBooks discipline. National rollups and venture-backed virtual bookkeepers compete on price and onboarding speed, but they rarely understand the Hudson County payroll tax employer surcharge for businesses above the wage threshold, the New Jersey sales tax treatment of prepared food, or the specific filing rhythms that the New Jersey Division of Taxation expects from a Hudson County retailer or restaurant. Owner-operators who plan to refinance, sell, or apply for Small Business Administration credit benefit from a local bookkeeper whose name appears on the file.
A useful diagnostic for Jersey City owners evaluating a bookkeeping firm is to ask three questions during the intake call. Does the shop hold an active Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor designation and run both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop engagements? Does the practice operate a documented monthly close calendar with a fixed report-delivery date rather than a vague “we will get to it” schedule? And will the named partner or founder remain involved in the relationship after the onboarding call, or will the work shift to an offshore team the owner has never met? Firms that answer all three cleanly tend to produce financial statements that hold up under lender review and buyer due diligence.
Selection Methodology
This guide applies four filters to surface independent, founder-led, full-service bookkeeping providers anchored in Jersey City, NJ.
- Independence and founder leadership. Every firm listed is privately held, family-owned, or founder-led. Gary Mehta leads Four Brothers Financial, Arvind Sheth leads Sheth Tax, and Harish Hathiwala leads Anjay Accountax. No franchise outlets, no private-equity rollups, and no national service factories appear in the guide.
- QuickBooks ProAdvisor credential. Each firm holds active Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor status, the baseline credential for serious small-business bookkeeping in 2026. ProAdvisor certification signals annual continuing education on QuickBooks Online and Desktop platform updates and reasonable familiarity with the software owners are actually running on their laptops.
- Five-year minimum tenure. Each firm has been in business at least five years, and the listed firms range from 19 years to 29 years of continuous operation. Tenure filters out shops that have not yet survived a full economic cycle, an Internal Revenue Service examination season, or a New Jersey Division of Taxation audit cycle.
- Bookkeeping focus, not pure tax preparation. Each firm operates a documented bookkeeping practice with monthly close, reconciliation, and reporting workflows rather than treating bookkeeping as a feeder for tax returns. Pure CPA-tax shops were excluded even where they listed bookkeeping on a services page without a documented monthly close offering.
National rollups and venture-backed virtual bookkeeping services were excluded by policy. The excluded providers include Bench, Pilot, QuickBooks Live, BELAY, Bookkeeper360, Bookminders, Supporting Strategies, Bookkeeper.com, and 1-800Accountant. These services may suit some Jersey City owners but fall outside the independent founder-led scope of this guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should a Jersey City small business expect to pay for monthly bookkeeping?
Pricing in Jersey City and Hudson County typically runs from $300 to $900 per month for a basic service business with one or two bank accounts and under $500,000 in annual revenue. Practices with inventory, payroll, multiple entities, or New Jersey sales tax filings commonly land between $900 and $2,800 per month. Firms that bundle payroll, sales tax filings, and 1099 work usually price higher than pure data-entry providers, and downtown waterfront firms tend to price above Heights and Journal Square shops because of office cost structure.
Do Jersey City bookkeepers also handle tax preparation?
Most independent Jersey City firms can take a client from monthly books straight through federal and New Jersey income tax filings because the leading practices are CPA-led and dual-licensed. Four Brothers Financial, Sheth Tax, and Anjay Accountax each handle both functions inside one firm. Owners who want one-stop service should still ask whether the partner who signs the return is also the partner reviewing the monthly books, since some larger practices split those roles across teams.
What is the difference between a bookkeeper and a CPA for a Jersey City business?
A bookkeeper records daily transactions, reconciles bank and credit card accounts, runs payroll, and produces monthly financial statements. A Certified Public Accountant is a state-licensed credential that adds the ability to sign audited financial statements, represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service in examination matters, and provide formal tax planning and entity structuring advice. Many Jersey City owners need a bookkeeper monthly and a CPA only at year end, which is why dedicated bookkeeping practices remain valuable even where CPA firms offer bookkeeping as well.
Should a Jersey City owner pick a downtown firm or a Heights or Journal Square firm?
The geography matters less than the workflow and credential mix. Downtown Exchange Place and Newport firms tend to attract service professionals and real estate sponsors who want a tower address near the PATH and Manhattan ferry, while Heights, Journal Square, and Bergen-Lafayette firms tend to attract long-tenure family businesses and immigrant-owned ventures. The better filter is whether the firm runs a documented monthly close, holds an active QuickBooks ProAdvisor designation, and lists the founder as the partner the client will actually speak to over the relationship.
Editorial Note
Researched and published on 2026-05-11. Firm details including addresses, phone numbers, founder names, year of formation, credentials, and service scope were verified against firm websites, LinkedIn company pages, Yelp business listings, the Better Business Bureau, the New Jersey Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, and public business directories. Readers should confirm current pricing, scheduling availability, and credential status directly with each firm before engagement, as small-firm staffing and service mix can shift between annual review cycles.