CPA Trendlines: ‘The people CPAs need to follow’
“One of the profession’s most well-read and highly respected”
“One of the profession’s most well-read and highly respected”
Based on 150 top managing partner interviews, authors find four pillars to their success
by Marc Rosenberg
Author of What Really Makes CPA Firms Profitable?
At a monthly roundtable of 25 managing partners from most of Chicago’s largest local firms, several highlights emerged, including insights into:
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Jennifer Warawa, Vice President, Partner Programs & Channel Sales at Sage, says marketing isn’t just for larger firms. It’s just for firms that want to be successful.
Updated with responses from May 2013.
The latest update to the topline results for the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer shows additional confirmation of four key findings, beginning with the across-the-board problems of a late-starting season and buggy software.
How did your season compare? We’d love to hear. Send your comments, rants raves, ideas, or questions to me here. – Rick Telberg
Key Finding #1: Most practitioners, across all size firms, report a tougher 2013 than 2012. (See chart below for comparisons by size of firm.) READ MORE →
Especially in these trying times, partners must show leadership by accepting the consequences of their actions – or their inaction.

Aquila
Accountability is the essence of your success, according to management consultant August Aquila, author of “Leadership At Its Strongest: What Successful Managing Partners Do.”
“I don’t think that the average partner takes accountability seriously,” Aquila says. “If they did, they would take their individual goals more seriously and not let their fellow partners down.” READ MORE →

By Ed Mendlowitz
Author of “Implementing Fee Increases“
I received two related questions, which I’ll answer together.
First Question: I am nearing retirement and want to sell my practice to two longtime staff people, but they don’t get along, and I’m afraid to sell to them. What should I do?
Second Question: I have a large individual tax practice, but also have an audit practice that is handled by different staff in my firm. How do I sell this practice? None of the larger buyers want the tax clients and none of the smaller buyers want the audit clients. READ MORE →
What to do when democracy no longer works.
When firms are still small or just starting out, the partners often share a culture of democracy, shared burdens, personal freedom, and the opportunity for high earnings. But all that changes if the firm becomes successful.
In this article, Marc Rosenberg, author of “CPA Firm Management and Governance:”
Simple easy activities to boost your business.
By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator
Every working day, we’re all slammed with hundreds of things to do. We might need to occasionally slow down and ask ourselves whether we are working on the most profitable things we could for our business. Are we constantly fighting fires, dealing with urgent but not important client matters and neglecting the things that could grow our business?
Here’s how to move off this treadmill to create a “money maker hour” in your business: READ MORE →
Driving the client-driven practice.
By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0
The conventional wisdom is that it costs more to get a new client than to keep an old one. And for once, the conventional wisdom is correct.
Yet, many professionals too readily take clients for granted. Or don’t look for opportunities to increase revenues from perfectly satisfied clients.
Then there’s the classic story of the client who went to another firm for a particular service. “Why didn’t you come to me for that service?”
“Because I didn’t know you did it.” It happens too often. READ MORE →

Plus: Key considerations in evaluating a practice continuation agreement
By Ed Mendlowitz
Question: What I should do about merging? I need a specific answer.
Answer: I can’t give you an easy answer. I can give you a process to follow that should provide an answer. Actually, this works pretty well and I’ve gotten good feedback from many colleagues. I’ve also rethought it many times, and still think this is the way to go about it.
By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator
We all have far more sources of wealth available to us in addition to the assets we normally count as financial wealth. A great skill to add to our tool box is that of resourcefulness. Learning and practicing being resourceful has always come in handy for me while traveling, working, and making changes in my life.
As you go through the list, take an inventory and make a list of all of the resources you have available to you in one form or fashion. By the end of the article, you might be amazed at how wealthy you really are.
A new CPA Trendlines analysis of long-term tax season activity shows how tax professionals may be working harder and enjoying it less. We’ll let two charts speak for themselves.
– Rick Telberg
Even as tax professionals have been increasing the number of e-filed tax returns…
A real-world approach for the smaller firm.
By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0
There is much ado, these days, about niche marketing and target marketing and using mailing lists and knowledge management.
How does it all come together to make sense for the smaller accounting firm, particularly when there’s a limited marketing budget, and a limited opportunity to reach out to the marketplace?
More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: Who’s Better at Marketing? • Lawyers or CPAs? • Even a Random Disaster Can Be Controlled with Risk Management • Managing Risk in Client Relations • Your Clients Love You? What If You’re Wrong? • The Three Degrees of Risk • Four Essential Habits for Building Client Trust • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm •
In this report:

August J. Aquila
Standing out among the crowd of other CPA firms isn’t easy. But it may be necessary for long-lived success.
In this article, August J. Aquila, author of “Leadership At Its Strongest,” provides seven tactics used by high-performing firms to beat the competition.

Rosenberg
The position of firm administrator or COO is quickly gaining in importance, and just as quickly evolving.
According to Marc Rosenberg, author of “CPA Firm Management and Governance: The Managing Partner’s Guide to Running a CPA Firm Like a Business,” there are at least ten duties that are both critically important to the firm and that define the job of the COO.
They are:
By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer
Tax and accounting professionals of all shapes and sizes, ranging in size from the soloist to the regional leader, are reporting a filing season markedly more problematic than the year before, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer. The data for April, still coming in, shows majorities of firms in all class sizes reporting “somewhat worse” or “much worse” performance and results this year.
The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, now in it’s tenth year, is a real-time tracking poll of tax and accounting professionals’ sentiment, performance and results. As a reward for joining the survey panel, participants get early previews of top-line results and notifications.
In this report, we present the first wave of in-depth details, starting with a chart that shows the number of respondents reporting on busy season conditions.
Those reporting a “worse” season include:
And:
For complete busy season coverage, click here. And stay tuned to CPA Trendlines as we report on new developments in the data and analysis.
When David meets Goliath.
By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0
Great turbulence in the accounting profession, as well as in the business world itself, make these difficult and unusual times.
Public outcry against the misdeeds of a few accounting firms, corporations, investment bankers and others in government and the business community is tarring the innocent as well as the guilty. In the meantime, mergers and acquisitions are altering the competitive landscape for firms of every size.
It’s likely that the major CPA firms will accelerate a long-standing practice of reaching into the low end of the market – the very market of the smaller CPA firms. For the smaller firm, competition is coming from unaccustomed quarters.
Can the smaller firm successfully compete against the bigger firm?
History says yes, if the firm follows at least some of the following 10 points: READ MORE →
Hoisted from Comments.
In this article, Ed Mendlowitz takes issue with Worst Tax Season Ever and suggests five strategies for continuous improvement year after year.
Barry Melancon, CEO of the AICPA, and Tom Hood, CEO of the Maryland Society of CPAs, both said that they heard this was the worst tax season ever.
I don’t know if it was or wasn’t. For us it wasn’t that bad. This raises a thought. It’s supposed to get better – if not, then why do it, or why not make a serious effort to change what you are doing so it gets better? I am reminded by a remark by Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets.” He said, “Maybe this is as good as it gets!” I don’t buy that.
Here are five things that should be done to make tax season (and the rest of your practice or any business) better. READ MORE →