This is a negative review. I'm sorry to have to w...

This is a negative review. I'm sorry to have to write it, but it's critical that potential clients review the experience of long term former clients before making a business decision to choose an accounting firm. Stay away from this one.
I know Joe Montgomery and his firm Montgomery & Company very well. They served my personal accounting needs and those of my three medical practice entities very well for over 10 years until I fired them last month. I first engaged the firm during a very difficult period for our businesses caused by the recession of 2007-9. We were barely surviving, our business accounting was a mess, and I needed the services of a top notch accounting firm to partner with me to shore things up. Joe and his junior associates balanced my books and taught me to use QuickBooks to take financial charge of my medical practices. Joe was front and center during this process, and freely offered his considerable expertise in conjunction with junior associates to meet my needs. We turned things around and became profitable. As we grew, our finances became more complex and our needs for accounting advice and guidance became greater, but Joe became harder to reach. He required that we first engage the junior associates, who usually had to consult with him to answer any questions. The frustration grew as the delays in problem resolution became greater, and Joe was nowhere to be found. He tried to replace hands on service and time with clients with the latest techno gadgets and computer toys, with no real guidance on how to use them. It flopped. He became too busy to interact with clients or to protect the business he had so painstakingly built through client service and personalized care. Clients started leaving, staff started leaving, delays got worse, needs could not be met, excuses multiplied, and the quality of work tanked. I wasn't happy, but he was too "busy" to listen. His solution to losing clients and staff was to start pushing "monthly contracts" and higher fees. He invited me to his spanking new office to show off and press some flesh, and gave me 4 pages worth of service promises as a monthly agreement. My annual accounting bill went from $12-14,000 to $18,000, but nothing else changed. The leader was a no-show when accounting services were needed. I asked for a meeting, and he gave instructions to schedule one "if I am available." What??? I told him that if he wasn't "available", there would be no meeting. The final straw came when I simply asked that our bill be sent out in the name of a different one of our three companies, and Mr. Montgomery (Joe Sr.) allowed the operations manager to dismiss my request because in their opinion it didn't need to be done, and allowed her to remind me that I should remember how fortunate I was that they were bending over backwards to keep me as a monthly client (Joe's idea, not mine). I shared some harsh words with her and fired them the next day. Joe's response to lost clients is to threaten former junior associates with lawsuits when those disgruntled clients seek them out for personalized accounting service. When I left, he failed to timely transfer master admin rights and billing responsibility for my QuickBooks files within the 10 business days he promised. When he finally did 13 days later, the QB account had become inactive and unusable for non-payment of the fee. I cannot prove that he did it on purpose, but I do have my suspicions. In my opinion as a former long term client, the great business Joe built has gone. What it has become is not worth having. If you want premium priced nothing and a bunch of hot air and broken promises, call them. If you want hands on, personalized, professional accounting services to meet the demands of your growing business, go elsewhere. Buyer beware.