Firm Profile

We believe in the value of relationships. We view every client relationship like a partnership, and truly believe that our success is a result of your success.


We are committed to providing close, personal attention to our clients. We take pride in giving you the assurance that the personal assistance you receive comes from years of advanced training, technical experience and financial acumen. Our continual investment of time and resources in professional continuing education, state-of-the-art computer technology and extensive business relationships is indicative of our commitment to excellence.

Knowledge and Expertise You Can Trust

Kobayashi and Company was founded January 1980, specializing in retail automobile dealerships with a wide range of services.  The firm was formed after 10 years of specialized experience in auditing and reviewing automobile dealerships, while providing full services to automobile dealerships and their owners.  We perform audit and review engagements for the dealerships, as well as various consulting engagements such as buy-sell agreement, acquisition consulting, franchise termination, and lost profit computation.  We take into consideration, the automobile dealerships and their owners are tied closely in the financial, income tax, estate gift tax and emotional aspects of business ownership.   We consider the overall affects of the business transactions rather than a fragmented approach.  We are not a score-keeper of the business that looks back and reports, but a forward-looking advisor who can assist in future decisions of the dealership, based on past records, as well as the current market trend. We consider ourselves the coach and trainer for the automobile dealerships.

Our clients are franchised dealerships—both domestic and imports.  Our clients’ average annual gross sales range from $40 Million to over $150 Million. We have dealership clients located in California, Hawaii, Alaska, New York, Nevada, Washington, Georgia, and Florida.  We are familiar with various different state laws and regulations for income tax, sales tax, and DMV regulations.  We are also active in various states automobile dealers’ association activities and contribute our expertise in income tax, as well as related automobile dealership procedures.  Although we are a small CPA firm, we provide a full range of services deep in expertise -- audit and review financial statements, employee benefit plan audit, operational audit of dealership accounting system, and design of internal control systems.  In the past, we have been involved in developing an internal control system and financial reporting for Ford Motor Company-Dealer Development and GM Motor Holding dealerships.  These systems are still in use today.  We have several dealership groups who own in excess of 10 dealerships and we prepare consolidated financial statements as well as consolidated income tax returns for those clients.   

Kobayashi and Company merged with a national firm in 1988 in order to accommodate one of its clients seeking public ownership of a dealership group—14 dealerships, an advertising company, and a management company.  It gave Kobayashi and Company the ability to reach a higher professional standard and national exposure.   Two and a one-half years later, Kobayashi and Company re-established as a local firm, specializing in automobile dealerships, with a higher professional standard that matched or exceeded the national accounting firm.   Our associates and managers are trained to service and meet our clients’ needs.   We emphasize education, training, and promoting our associates from within.

As a part of our development of our clients, we were involved in organizing a self-insured Workmen’s Compensation company with membership that now exceeds 200 dealerships.  We are involved in running the day-to-day business needs of the self-insured group, as well as maintaining cash management/investments of over $28 Million.  We are also involved in developing finance companies that specialize in automobile retail financing.  In 1983, one of our clients’ started a financing company to enhance revenue by utilizing the income tax benefit from the installment sales reporting method.   This company then evolved from a single in-house finance company to a billion dollar business less than twenty years.   This company continues to operate more than thirty entities - including rental car companies with over $150 million in rental vehicle inventory, an insurance company, a computer software development, and a real estate syndication.

We have Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) credentials to meet our clients’ needs for Buy-Sell agreements and projection, and any investigation for embezzlement or fraudulent conduct of dealership employees.

Please refer to Ted Kobayashi’s resume to grasp an extent of our company’s capacities as well as our company’s mission for our automobile dealership clients.