At J. Baer & Associates, we help make businesses more profitable and individuals wealthier. We use our years of combined experience to offer not only the traditional accounting services but we take service one step further and develop long term relationships with our clients. We make the commitment to understand our clients businesses and individual situations so we can help them make decisions to improve their business or individual financial position. Our goal is for our clients to feel like we are their partners as well as their accountants.

Please take a moment and read more about our people, our history, our credentials, our areas of specialization. If you have any questions or would like more detailed information about how we can help you, don't hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to serve you.

Jeffrey G. Baer, CPA, graduated with honors from Murray State University in 1991. Upon graduating, he worked for two local accounting firms until he joined our current firm in January of 1994. On November 1st, 1995, he was offered a partnership in the firm and became the sole owner in December of 2001 when his partner retired. Mr. Baer relies on his years of public accounting experience when serving his client’s needs and he specializes in business consulting as well as tax planning.

Dana S. Steffens, CPA, graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Missouri-St Louis in 1988. That same year she began her career at a large national public accounting firm in the auditing department and remained with them for four years. She then worked in the private accounting sector for five years including the healthcare and manufacturing industries. Mrs. Steffens joined our firm in 1997 and she specializes in audit, review, and compilation services as well as QuickBooks setup and consulting. On January 1, 2006, Mrs. Steffens became a partner in J. Baer & Associates.

Jeffrey W. Slinkard, CPA, graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in May of 1995. He worked for a CPA firm in Jackson, MO for six years. He then worked in the private accounting sector for 3 ½ years as a director of accounting and finance in the healthcare industry. He specializes in preparing individual income tax returns, governmental and industry audits, payroll and financial statement preparation as well as QuickBooks implementation and consulting.

Gail J. Kamp, CPA, graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in December of 1973. She worked for a public accounting firm in Illinois for 10 years before returning to this area. Her career continued for another 15 years with local public accounting firms. She joined the firm in October, 2005 after working for almost 6 years in the construction industry. Mrs. Kamp specializes in tax planning, corporation and individual income tax preparation, financial statement preparation and QuickBooks consulting.

Angela P. Miskell, Staff Accountant, graduated from Jackson High School in 1979 and was hired part-time at a CPA firm through the COOP program. She attended Southeast Missouri State University on a one year business program and then was hired on full time in 1981 at the CPA firm, which eventually became part of our current firm. Her knowledge of accounting and tax preparation has been gained through experience and CPE courses over a period of twenty + years. Ms. Miskell specializes in individual income tax preparation as well as payroll and financial statement preparation.

Melanie Wilson, Staff Accountant, graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in December of 2004. Over the past few years, she has worked for a private company in Southeast Missouri, assisting clients with tax planning and tax preparation. She joined the firm in October 2004.

J. Baer & Associates have handpicked a support staff that share and support our idea of building long term relationships. Each member of our support staff is an expert in his or her area and we are proud of their consistently high levels of performance. Each member of the team at J. Baer & Associates is committed to providing invaluable assistance, which is the standard of excellence that is our trademark.

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Our current firm began on November 1, 1995 when R. Clifford Smith and Jeffrey G. Baer started Smith & Baer, LLC. The firm began with two locations and offered individual and corporate tax preparation as well as general accounting services. As our firm began to grow, we started offering new services to our existing clients in an effort to help them grow. We now offer a wide range of business and individual consulting services as well as our traditional accounting services. In December of 2000, the two locations were combined and we moved into the new building located at 2842 Sappington Drive in Jackson, MO. Mr. Baer's partner retired in December of 2001, and the name of the firm was changed to J. Baer & Associates on August 1, 2003. We continue to build our firm on the principle of helping to make businesses more profitable and individuals wealthier.

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Our firm participates in the Peer Review program prescribed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants. Our firm was last reviewed in October of 2001. The resulting report stated that all of our accounting practices and procedures complied with or exceeded the standards of the industry.

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Our firm is committed to serving all our clients needs regardless of whether they are small or large. From this foundation, we offer the following services: Individual and corporate tax planning and preparation, QuickBooks installation and maintenance, payroll writing, bill paying, payroll tax report preparation, financial statement preparation, compilations, reviews, audits, estate planning and business consulting. We have clients in almost any industry imaginable but we specialize in the fields of construction, medical, trucking, publishing, distributorships, and rental properties.

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