The three reasons for the CPA shortage and how to fix it.
by Tom Hood, CPA.CITP
Executive Director & CEO
Maryland Association of CPAs, Inc.
I have been thinking about this a lot and we at the MACPA are working hard to fix this.
I think the shortage has three root causes:
1) We are now a Profession where our senior members (Partners and CFOs) READ MORE →
Wells Fargo’s new Gallup poll shows…
More than one-third of small business owners say their personal financial situation as a whole is getting worse.
Already, half have postponed a major purchase in the past three months, and nearly as many (44 percent) have reduced the amount of money they’ve deposited into savings, checking or a CD. Thirty-one percent have reduced the amount they have contributed to a retirement account.
Seventy-five percent have concerns about paying for gas. More than half (51 percent) are worry they will not have enough money for the next 12 months’ regular medical and dental expenses, and almost half (46 percent) fear they will not have enough money to pay for unforeseen medical emergencies.
Sounds like they could use some ideas from a good accountant. Send in your Money Tips here: CPA Trendlines Money Tips.
Over 400 CPAs share their practice-building strategies.
Get the seven keys to success. Take the survey.
by Rick Telberg/At Large
CPAs may know their dollars and cents, their rules and regs, their 1040s and 10-Qs and their QuickBooks and MAS 90, but when it comes to marketing, they’re too often learning by doing, which too often means learning by doing it wrong.
Marketing’s a profession unto itself, and the thread between it and the money-numbers game is long, thin and tenuous. Practitioners know they need to do it, but they don’t always know what works and what’s money down the drain. In this slowing economy, it may pay to know the difference.
I have a feeling a lot of practitioner-marketers share the frustration of Edward Gorz, a sole practitioner, who says, “I just started and not much has worked yet.”
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Get the Seven Keys to Success Take the survey. See the answers. (Free. Confidential.) |
Or, as Jim Peterson (pictured) suggests, Too Big to Save?
After following the proceedings at the U.S. Treasury’s Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, Peterson summarizes the clear and present perils: The Big Four are facing 27 legal cases with damage exposures above $1 billion, of which seven exceed $10 billion – with the estimated total between $100 and $140 billion. And says, “The large firms cling to their tactically sound but politically tone-deaf refusal to offer comprehensive data on their own financial condition, but the litigation potential to overwhelm their partners’ limited capital is unrebutted.”
Read about “futility in the face of catastrophic risk.”
Can you work in your pajamas?
by Rick Telberg/On Careers
Are you ready to ditch the office and work at home?
Two thirds of CPAs already are, to one extent or another.
Some two out of three accountants are regularly working from home these days-running a full-time home-based practice, a part-time side business or just lugging home the daily overflow from the office. And with gas prices busting $4 per gallon, it’s getting more attractive every day.
But it’s not for everybody. Working at home requires some very real and sometimes limiting conditions.
According to the CPAs whom I’m hearing from, five key factors are emerging as essential to working at home successfully: READ MORE →
2 in 3 CPAs call it “great!”
by Rick Telberg/At Large
The dog may be barking in the yard, the kids screaming upstairs and the spouse bugging you. But, what the heck, you’re working from home and the odds are you love it.
Two thirds of CPAs who work from home-running full-time practices, side businesses or handling overflow from their office day jobs-classify the experience as “great!”
Just the same, they’re also quick to warn that not everyone is cut out to conduct business in the bosom of their families. Most of the tales that work-at-home CPAs reveal in a new CPA Trendlines study could serve as scripts for happy situation comedies, but some also have the makings of high drama. READ MORE →
3 Cost-Control Ideas for Small Business.
Fernando Gomez, CPA
Jackson Heights, N.Y.
fgomezcpa.com.
1. A business should have appropriate insurance coverage. Consider increasing the insurance deductible, where permitted, on all types of business insurance in order to reduce the premiums paid.
2. If the business has employees then it must maintain workers’ compensation insurance. Consider paying such insurance on a monthly basis throughout the year based upon actual payroll figures instead of paying based upon payroll estimates, which can be higher.
3. Consider the “Installment method” when selling a small business. Reporting the sale using this method can save significant amount of taxes, and can provide flexibility for both the seller and buyer.
