Our firm began in 1970 when Ward Halla started a solo accounting practice soon after graduating from Southern Methodist University. The Firm has grown steadily over the years and is now comprised of three partners who along with our staff provide a full range of highly personalized accounting, tax, and small business consulting services.
Ward B. Halla
Kenneth T. Coutant
Ken has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance and a Master of Science degree in Accounting with a specialization in Taxation. Both degrees were from the University of North Texas. Ken started his career with Ernst & Young in the tax department where he developed a specialty in oil and gas taxation as a senior tax accountant. He left public accounting to work for a real estate syndication company developing financial projections of potential investments and monitoring the operating results of the firm’s assets. Ken has been with Halla Marlowe Coutant & Company for the last twenty years.
James P. Marlowe
Jim has his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Southern Methodist University.
Client Base
Our business clients are small to medium size with up to $10,000,000 in sales or collections. Roughly fifty percent of our business clients are medical practices ranging in size from solo practitioners to ten doctor specialty practices. The other fifty percent of our business clients involve architecture and law firms, restaurants, retail stores and construction companies and other small businesses.
Our individual clients range from executives just starting out to large family groups with multiple trusts and family partnerships. We have clients that have moved across the country and we have a specialty handling the tax compliance needs of non-resident artists living overseas.
Philosophy
Our goal is to provide the highest level of personalized client service possible. We want to be your business advisor not just your accountant preparing your tax returns and financial statements. To achieve that goal we have to be readily accessible with the experience necessary to provide you with business solutions that will allow your business to reach its full potential and for our clients to pay the least amount of tax.
To that end, each client’s main contact is with a partner each with over twenty years of public accounting experience. We take all your calls directly, and we return messages promptly. We know that your time is valuable and we try not to waste it by giving you a direct line into each partner’s office.
This direct partner contact avoids one of the biggest frustrations we hear from new and prospective clients. Clients coming to us from larger firms sometimes feel frustrated because their contact person keeps changing or the contact person is newly-hired and doesn’t have the experience to help them solve their problems. Each of the partners have been with the firm at least nineteen years and have the experience in both public accounting and industry to help you confront any situation that may arise. In addition, with our firm you will avoid the potential problem with solo-practitioners of your partner contact being on vacation. At our firm, a partner is always in town and available to help with any situation that may arise.