10 Hot Ideas for a Better Tax Season

Here are 10 ways to nurture happier, richer clients. Meanwhile: Check the Tax Season Stress-O-Meter.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

If this is tax season, it should also be personal financial planning season. Tax practitioners don’t need to be reminded about the personal financial planning opportunities that lie untapped in their legions of tax clients. Or do they? A remarkably large number of tax mavens remain quite content to fill in the blanks, file the forms and cash the check. But, except in some of the more complex situations, it doesn’t take all the acquired skills of an accomplished and experienced CPA to do that. Sure, CPAs do taxes, and they do them probably better, more accurately and more reliably than anyone else. But the super-CPA can do so much more. And, by the way, many CPAs working in private practice business and industry also have an important role to play. If you’re like most finance and accounting professionals, you have the ear of the owner and directors of your company. What kind of planning have they done for themselves? Or succession planning for the business? Read more

Posted on January 30, 2006
Filed Under BSG BUSINESS BUILDER | Leave a Comment

Enron Defense: ‘Blame the Accountants!’

Be worried: It could work

Ed Ketz

According to J. Edward Ketz, Jeffrey Skilling may get off the hook through his attorney’s “blame the accountants” strategy. Read the rest at SmartPros…

Read more

Posted on January 28, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

Executive Preview: How Hard Are YOU Working?

The preliminary answers are in.

And it appears that finance and accounting professionals are among the hardest working and most stressed-out white-collar workers in the nation.

KEY DATA POINTS:
 About two-thirds of finance and accounting professionals consider themselves ?frequently? stressed or ?at a crisis point!?
 About 38% would change jobs for better working conditions ? even it means a pay cut.
 Some 92% of professionals work more than 41 hours per week.

Download the FREE 24-page report here…
HowHardAreYOUWorkingExecPreview.pdf
 …and find out:

Click to Download PDF: ‘How Hard Are YOU Working?’

 Are things getting better or worse?
 How professionals spend their precious time.
 The latest busy season outlook.
 How bad will it be?
 Do you know the best techniques for time management and work-life balance?

MORE STUDIES INTO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES AND ATTITUDES
You may also be interested in these other (FREE) Bay Street Group reports:

Trends and Issues in Personal Financial Advisory Services:
BSGPFPTrendsExecPreviewNov05_wbdr.pdf

Small-Office and Home-Office Strategies for Peak Productivity:
 SOHOPreview.pdf

The CPAs’ Technology Wish List:
CPATechWishListOct05.pdf
Read more

Posted on January 24, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | 1 Comment

Kiss the Office Good-Bye

Do you have what it takes to go mobile, solo, or SOHO?

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Working from home may be the greatest thing since computerized spreadsheets, but it can wreak psychological havoc, according to the finance and accounting professionals who do it regularly.

You’re probably one of them. Most accountants and finance managers take at least some work home with them, and others work full-time at home or in a small office. Almost everyone is going mobile to one degree or another.

Technology often plays a key role in keeping people connected. But professionals say you also need the right psychological equipment too. Read more

Posted on January 23, 2006
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | Leave a Comment

Enron Emails Now Available for Public Analysis

Read it and weep.

Thanks to Gary Zeune, of The Pros & The Cons, for pointing us to more than 300,000 real Enron email messages. The emails were gathered and are being offered by MetaLINCS, a provider of E-Discovery software, whose demo version you first need to register for and download before attacking the mountain of material.

A few choice morsels from Ken Lay:

“I think the primary reason for Enron’s collapse was Andy Fastow and his little group of people and what they did.”

“But certainly I didn’t know he was doing anything that was criminal.”

“But I can’t take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.”

Read more

Posted on January 22, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

Bruce Marcus: ALL TOGETHER NOW — IT’S OUR CLIENT

The Client Service Team As A Growing Phenomenon

By Bruce Marcus
Excerpted from the MarcusLetter

Once a novelty, a growing number of firms have discovered the benefits of using the client service team as an approach to dealing with larger clients, for both better service and better client relations. Professional firms tend to be spare in accepting new ideas and concepts. But now, the time of the client service team has come. And as firms see other firms use them successfully, and begin to understand the value of the concept, they may seem willing to try it. They begin to understand that with client service teams, clients benefit from the combined brainpower of the well-chosen and well-run team, the firm benefits by both demonstrating the depth of its skills and by the extensive access to the client?s business, and the firm has a competitive advantage in its extended presence and greater ability to serve clients. With this access, the firm has greater rapport with the client, and more intensive access to the client?s thinking and response to the firm?s efforts.

Read the full article…
Read more

Posted on January 20, 2006
Filed Under BSG BUSINESS BUILDER | Leave a Comment

Top 10 CPA Career Stories of 2005

January 19, 2006

Despite great demand for their services, CPAs are increasingly concerned about staff recruiting, retention and work-life balance.

from AICPA Career Insider staff

https://www.cpa2biz.com/Career/Top+10+CPA+Career+Stories+of+2005.htm

The 2005 headlines were chock full of stories about the keen demand for experienced accounting and financial professionals - particular those with internal audit experience - but Career Insider readers and HR managers in the trenches of the number crunching world were not as enthused as one might think.

A lot of recent research indicates that CPAs may be more confident about their job security than at any time in recent memory, but their level of job satisfaction seems to be lacking. Over and over again in 2005, they shared with us their fears about burnout, their inability to keep up with an ever-increasing workload and generally feeling under-appreciated by their superiors. Senior partners maligned the perceived lack of dedication and commitment from younger colleagues and hiring managers lamented their inability to find (much less retain) experienced staffers to help them handle their workloads.

Here’s a look at our most popular stories of 2005 with links to our archives if you’d like to read them again. Our Reader Engagement Index (REI) measures how popular the story was relative to the average story (Index = 100) that appeared in CPA Career Insider in 2005.

Most Popular CPA Career Insider Articles of 2005
Story REI
Index*
6 Good Ideas for Happy Staffs 882
Boomers, X-ers and Y’s: CPA Generation Gap Is Real 485
Tips and Traps for Going SOHO 429
Why Are You Working So Hard? 402
What’s the Secret to Success for CPAs? 391
Happy Holidays … Now Get Back to Work! 344
Benefits: The New Weapon in the Battle for Staff 308
New Year’s Resolution #1: Find a New Job 301
CPAs Mull Work/Life Balance on Eve of Busy Season 280
Do You Need a Vacation? 274
Source: AICPA Insider 2005, Doubleclick DARTMail
* The AICPA Career Insider Reader Engagement Index (REI) assigns a relative measure of reader interest in each story published. A story with a median level of reader interest is assigned a value of 100. A story with an index of 150, means 1.5 times as many readers viewed it than the typical AICPA Career Insider story.

Read more

Posted on January 20, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

Maister: Passion, People and Principles

What makes a place a GREAT place to work?

David Maister, commenting on the Fortune list of Great Places to Work, has, as usual, his own unique and powerful take on the subject.

Here are some of Maister’s hypotheses:
– A high percentage of smart, energetic colleagues (no dummies.)
– A disproportionately high percentage of top-end assignments. (Only bring in challenging work.)
– An A client list. (Refuse to work for the rest.)
– Real mutual support and collaboration among partners (Get rid of the cowboys.)
– Practicing with others who share mutual interests. (Base teams around individual enthusiasms, not dry analytics.)
– Lots of help around (Real coaching from peers and group leaders)
– A willingness by the firm to provide the tools and support needed. (Avoid excessive cost-cutting)
– High standards, enforced with help and discipline. (Acting according to what we preach.)
– A clearly articulated set of values that everyone believes in. (A firm driven by principle, not expediency) Read more

Posted on January 19, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

The Do’s and Don’ts for a Happy Office

The knack of feedback doesn’t always come naturally.

by Rick Telberg
On Careers

If the finance and accounting people in your office work together like a well oiled machine, then consider yourself lucky.

Let me suggest you take them all out to lunch and raise a toast to their attitudes … Because without their skills and goodwill, you are no longer working in a firm or company. You are a solo practitioner.

Even if you’re not working in a traditional command-and-control hierarchical organization, you are, in the end, a professional. And you work with fellow professionals. Understanding how to trade feedback honestly, openly and without rancor is an essential ingredient to your successful work life.

Personnel who fall short on skills can usually be brought up to speed. All it takes is a little coaching and training. Read more

Posted on January 19, 2006
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | Leave a Comment

Who Ya’ Gonna Call?

Who ya gonna trust?

Ask entrepreneurs, as one research firm has done, about whose opinions they rely on for purchasing decisions — like technology, courier, financial, telecommunications and insurance products and services — and you’ll find that their spouse and employees may be the most-often consulted. But they trust their accountant more — more indded — than anyone else.

Primary Sources of Advice in Entrepreneur?s Decision to Purchase Products & Services

Source: Warrillow & Co.

The person consulted and the importance of their recommendations varied significantly depending on the product or service in question. Spouses, for example, were consulted most often for the purchase of laptop computers and least often for courier services. Friends rated a 5.7 (out of 7) for the importance of their wireless LAN recommendations but only a 3.3 for commercial mortgages.

“Not all small business influencers are created equal,” according to By Zach Vetter, a consultant at small-business researchers Warrillow & Co.

Key insights:
1) Business owners take different approaches for different products and services (even with the same category, such as telecommunications), therefore its necessary to look at influencers at a granular level.
2) Even in ?smaller? small businesses, employees are influencing purchase decisions.

“Consider widening your messaging to include not only the business owner but also other key players,” Warrillow advises. Read more

Posted on January 18, 2006
Filed Under BSG MARKETPLACE - Products, Services and Vendors | Leave a Comment

Need a Niche? Catch the ‘Drippies’

Boomers ? from Hippies to Yuppies to “Drippies” ? face a potential retirement catastrophe. Here’s what to do.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Do you know any Baby Boomers? You probably do. They’re all over the place. And so are their plans for retirement.

A lot of those plans, finance and accounting professionals say, are woefully inadequate. A lot of Boomers are in for a fall. And, this is 2006 - the year when (gulp) the first Baby Boomers turn 60 years old.

Ethan Fisher, a consultant with Deloitte Tax in San Diego, echoed the most common warning: “Too much reliance on Social Security.”

Maybe that’s just the default excuse. Respondents identified several reasons between here and 65: “Too much debt”; “Started too late”; “Unable to save”; “Just never got around to it, and here it is?”
Read more

Posted on January 17, 2006
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | Leave a Comment

Need a Niche? Catch the ‘Drippies’

Boomers ? from Hippies to Yuppies to “Drippies” ? face a potential retirement catastrophe. Here’s what to do.

by Rick Telberg/At Large

Rick Telberg

Do you know any Baby Boomers? You probably do. They’re all over the place. And so are their plans for retirement.

A lot of those plans, finance and accounting professionals say, are woefully inadequate. A lot of Boomers are in for a fall. And, this is 2006 - the year when (gulp) the first Baby Boomers turn 60 years old.

Ethan Fisher, a consultant with Deloitte Tax in San Diego, echoed the most common warning: “Too much reliance on Social Security.”

Maybe that’s just the default excuse. Respondents identified several reasons between here and 65: “Too much debt”; “Started too late”; “Unable to save”; “Just never got around to it, and here it is.?”

TODAY’S ACTION ITEMS
Sift out the high net worth clients.
Examine their tax returns.
Determine which of them need additional tax and/or financial planning services.
Introduce the idea in the tax-return discussion.
Stay in touch using informational materials.
Don’t forget to follow up after tax season.
Have some more good ideas worth sharing? Comments? Questions? Rants or Raves? Tell Rick at RickT@BayStreetGroup.com.

Fully 93 percent of finance and accounting professionals told Bay Street Group, in a poll conducted for the CPA Insider? that the Baby Boom Generation is not adequately prepared for retirement. Eighty-three percent say the Boomers suffer from under-funded retirement accounts, 60 percent say they’ll have to work longer than expected, 57 percent say they have unreasonably high expectations for their investments, and almost as many said that portfolios are poorly invested or poorly balanced.

When we asked about the various reasons these aging workers have been so lax, we got various answers.

Maybe it’s as simple as Vic Butcher, of Butcher Financial Services in Cordova, Tenn., says: “Pure laziness.”

Or it might be laziness compounded by “lack of planning.”

But it could also be a number of other simple roadblocks. “Failure to obtain professional advice,” says Gary J. Young, of Young & Company CPAs in Rochester, New York.

“Failure to plan at all,” says W. Patrick Harmon, of Harmon & Associates.

“Emotional incompetence to manage own investments,” says an anonymous commentator.

That sounds like a lot of people we know. We also know a few like this, contributed by an anonymous financial professional in Florida: “No plan, just misplaced hope.”

A lot of responses started with “Under-.” as in:
Underestimating cost of health care
Underestimating future cost of living
Underfunded regular savings accounts
Understanding how much money they will actually need
“Too” came up a lot, as in:
Too high an expected standard of living
Too much complexity managing financial portfolio
Too much debt
But the most common word was “Failure”:
Failure to get professional advice
Failure to have after-tax retirement investment accounts
Failure to invest additional amounts outside of 401(k)
Failure to live in present with reduced debt
Failure to live within current means
Failure to make plans
Failure to obtain professional advice
Failure to plan for beneficiaries of plans
Failure to seek professional advice
I hope you haven’t failed to see what this adds up to: Boomers are in desperate need of catch-up investment. Some have about a week to make up for lost time. Most have a matter of years. Some have a decade or more.

And all can use a little professional advice from somebody they can trust ? their mothers, for example, or, better, a financial professional - somebody who can crunch the beans and tell them whether to pay off the house, beef up their IRA, put a kid through medical school, vote Democratic, or shorten retirement by taking up cigarettes.

Boomers did a remarkable job of shifting from hippie to yuppie, but how willingly will they become Dreading Retirement Professionals? And there’s your niche: Drippies.

Quick. Help them. They need you.
Read more

Posted on January 17, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

A New Breed of Professional Services Firm for Accounting

Outsource Partners International Achieves Major Milestone of 1,000 Employees Worldwide

With the news that OPI, one of the leading finance and accounting outsourcing firms, has hit the 1,000-mark in staff, it’s clear that companies like OPI represent a new breed of professional practice.

It was controversial years ago when we started recognizing H&R Block and other tax chains as part of the business.

In the same way today, you can’t ignore OPI, or other non-CPA, non-audit firms as part of the competitive picture.

Start with any payroll company, add in the tax and accounting software outfits that handle some processing, and then go on to pacesetters like:
– Jefferson Wells
– Protiviti
– Accenture

And staffing outfits like:
– Robert Half
– Ajilon
– Spherion
– Adecco
– Hudson Highland
– Kforce
– Resources Connection

The result is a vastly broader marketspace — with exponentially more comoetition and opportunity — than anyone might have imagined only a few years ago.

Here’s the full OPI news announcement…
Read more

Posted on January 12, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

keep looking »