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Accountants expect to out-perform their clients. Is that a good thing?
By CPA Trendlines Research
The CPA Trendlines Business Barometer is turning up a few cases of COVID-19 that shut down CPA offices at the height of the season. And even where the infection hasn’t managed to muscle its way into the office, firms are taking draconian measures to keep operations up and running.
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The Busy Season Barometer is finding CPAs cautiously optimistic about their own futures. Only one percent think the next 12 months will shape up “much worse” for their firms and families. Some 15 percent think their firms will do “somewhat worse.” Twelve percent are similarly concerned for their families. About half foresee no change. About a third actually think their economic situation might improve.
But accountants turn quite a bit more pessimistic when they look a little farther from home. While only 16 percent think their firms will do worse over the next year, 36 percent think their clients will do worse.
Uh-oh! Can CPA firms do better if their clients are doing worse?
There are benefits to both.
By Anthony Glomski and Russ Alan Prince
Your $5-Million High-Net-Worth Practice
Accounting firms adopt one of two business models when it comes to offering financial products for fees or commissions. Either they do or they do not. A fancier way of saying this is that an accounting firm has adopted a product-neutral or product-inclusive financial product business model.
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A product-neutral financial product business model is built around the delivery of services in exchange for a retainer, project or hourly fee. The typical services offered via a product-neutral model tend to be administrative, wealth planning or lifestyle in nature and might include accounting and tax work, estate and succession planning, and concierge support.
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And how CAS drives up the demand.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
Tom, a CPA, has always been a curious person. For over 15 years, his tax practice was doing well. During the tax season, he had no time to think. But, oblivious to himself, with each tax return, he was depositing new questions in his subconscious.
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He is now a shared CFO of 12 companies. But he took up the CFO work accidentally.
How?
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Do you really need to go to that meeting?
By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals
Did you ever notice when you call an associate, a friend or a business of any type, more often than not he or she will always respond with “I’m really busy” or “I’ve been jammed up”? It does not matter the time of the year, much less the time of week or day.
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Has busy become too colloquial and is simply a throwaway line? What is actually meant by “busy”? Or, more specifically, what is the condition of “busyness”?
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The cloud has changed how firms budget for technology.
By Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley
The Accounting Firm Operations and Technology Survey
Technology is playing a growing role in the accounting profession, with 57 percent of firms saying they view technology as a competitive differential.
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That’s just one of the findings in the new Accounting Firm Operations and Technology Survey. In this post we cover file and data storage management, remote access, internet, telecommunications, technology spending, decision making, annoyances and trends, some of which might be surprising. For example, 35 percent of firms report using software to track the real-time availability of their staff.
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Remote workers still need to get together if possible.
By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud
With a brick-and-mortar company, there are a number of standard costs that you would expect to have, such as rent or mortgage, utilities, building repairs, furniture, technology, etc. The total amount of these kinds of costs typically falls in the range of 3-4 percent of the company’s annualized revenue. That amount can be pretty significant for a lot of companies.
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Some business owners may think they can save the company all of that money by going remote, but I personally believe that’s a terrible idea. While it’s true that a distributed company doesn’t have the costs that come with having a physical space, the very nature of a remote work environment results in a completely different and unique set of needs that should be considered in the company’s annual budget.
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5 ways to evaluate them.
By Anthony Zecca
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie, industrialist
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The above quote by Andrew Carnegie really puts a fence around the key responsibilities of your leadership team:
Don’t let marketing be an afterthought.
By Jassen Bowman
In an ideal world, every business day would feel like the movie “Groundhog Day.”
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The same things would happen at the same times, day in and day out. Your business would run like a well-oiled machine that simply puts out marketing, takes in clients and cashes checks.
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Why spend days or years doing things you don’t want to do?
By Bill Reeb
“Time passes anyway” is a phrase commonly tossed around at my mentor John’s martial arts school. It is the reminder that change comes from doing the work and therefore we need to make every workout count.
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Days will pass – 30, 60, 90 – in what feels like the blink of an eye, and when you make every day count, before you know it, you will be a lot better. Whether you use your days well or simply throw them away, know that time passes anyway and that time can never be reclaimed!
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