News Roundup

from bizjournals.com

Phoenix
Accounting firms feeling strain of job shortage
Cindie Hubiak, president and chief executive of the Arizona Society of CPAs, said she receives numerous calls every week from employers seeking accountants. “New regulatory measures have increased the demand for experienced CPAs, causing there to be a shortage nationally and in the Phoenix area,” she said.

San Francisco
Acquisitions fueling growth at Burr, Pilger & Mayer
The 250-person accounting, consulting and wealth management firm has acquired two competing firms in Walnut Creek and San Jose in the past four months and intends to expand to the North Bay next year.

South Florida
Ex-SEC official joins fast-growing consultancy
Charles Harper, who first gained recognition battling fraud as head of the SEC’s Florida office, has joined Navigant Consulting’s Miami office as a director for securities fraud and forensic investigations. Read more

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Posted on September 30, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

SurePrep Secures $3 Million in Funding

Newport Beach, CA [news release] – SurePrep LLC, a provider of tax outsourcing and workflow solutions, today announced it secured $3 million in funding from software entrepreneur Sheldon Razin. The funding will be used to introduce an onshore tax outsourcing service and a revolutionary new software application named 1040SCAN™.

Scheduled for release in January 2007, SurePrep says 1040SCANâ„¢ will be the first application to enable accounting firms to scan data from client source (e.g., W-2s, 1099s, 1098s, K-1s, Brokerage Statements, Organizer Pages, etc.) directly into their tax software. The result will be significant reductions in data entry time and errors.

“This technology is going to revolutionize tax preparation and I am very excited to be a part of it,” said Sheldon Razin who has been and continues as a Director of SurePrep. Mr. Razin is no stranger to revolutionizing an industry. In 1974 he founded, and to this day remains the Chairman and largest shareholder of, Quality Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII), the leading provider of electronic medical records software, with a market capitalization in excess of $1 billion. Mr. Razin also provided seed funding to ePace! Software whose product ePaceENGAGEMENT (now called ProSystem fx Engagement), an early entrant in the paperless engagement movement that has been sweeping the industry. Read more

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Posted on September 25, 2006
Filed Under BSG MARKETPLACE - Products, Services and Vendors | Leave a Comment

Who Keeps Clients . . . And How?

Answer: Service, service, service. Cost ranks second.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Landing a client is one thing — and not always an easy thing — but keeping a client is another.

A client is a valuable thing. In fact, Bay Street Group Research and Advisory Service estimates that three-quarters of CPAs typically keep a client at least five years. And one in three keeps clients an average of at least 10 years.

Not bad! Considering that half of the finance managers we’ve talked to wouldn’t recommend their CPA firm to their closest friends. The apparent stability of the client-auditor relationship is pretty impressive.

But the contradiction of statistics leaves us wondering whether a lot of clients wouldn’t mind hooking up with a new CPA firm. A lot of them complain about auditors who come in for the audit but never offer much else — no advice on how-to, no warnings of new accounting and taxation rules, no consultations on financial efficiency, no clues on how to run a better business. Read more

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Posted on September 24, 2006
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

CalPERS dumps Deloitte for local firm

Macias Gini & O’Connell LLP scores a coup, reports the Sacramento Business Journal.

The nation’s largest public pension fund, with $210 billion in assets switched from Deloitte, the world’s second-largest accounting firm, which had had the previous five-year audit contract. Macias Gini & O’Connell specializes in public-sector accounting and auditing and already audits dozens of public pension funds, including the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System. The company is in its second year auditing the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the nation’s second-largest public pension fund, with more than $140 billion in assets.
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Posted on September 24, 2006
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | Leave a Comment

11 Keys to Staff Retention

And only one of them is about money. Next question: What’s important to you in a job? Join the study; get the answers.

by Rick Telberg
On Careers

They say, “Money isn’t everything. But it helps!”

For finance and accounting professionals, salary and compensation, while important, don’t factor into job-satisfaction significance as much as intellectual challenge, meaningful work, a balanced life and a clear-cut career path.

Often, office-management style issues make the difference between keeping and losing a valued staffer. And that can be well within the control of partners and managers. Read more

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Posted on September 20, 2006
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | Leave a Comment

Who’s Gonna Hire You?

Answer: Business owners. But what’s the best way to reach them?

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Ever wonder who makes the decision on which CPA firm to hire? When we asked whom CPAs think the decision-maker is, only one clown said, “Wife of owner rules.”

Just about everybody else figured the decision-maker is the owner herself. Or himself. About eight in 10 of respondents agreed on that.

Only seven percent thought the CFO makes the decision, while five percent said it’s the CEO. Read more

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Posted on September 17, 2006
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PASSOnline Joins Thomson CPE Empire

Thomson Tax & Accounting has acquired PASSOnline, one of the pioneers in electronic CPE. PASSOnline and its inventory of 2,200 hours of CPE in 240 courses, joins other Thomson brands PPC, RIA, Gear Up, MicroMash, PPC-Bell Learning and Quickfinder. Its part of a Thomson push to become a one-stop-shop for technical information and software. Terms were not disclosed.
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Posted on September 13, 2006
Filed Under BSG MARKETPLACE - Products, Services and Vendors | Leave a Comment

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