Mind boggling social media statistics

h/t Accman, who comments: “And some of us worry about information overload? Phew!”

Created by Gary Hayes, at PersonalizedMedia. He explains: Many of us who have been following social media since the early 90s are very sensitive to today’s exponential growth in usage of the sharing web…  I decided to put together this little Flash app (which is in constant development) showing how active & dynamic the Social Web is.

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Posted on October 30, 2009
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | 3 Comments

NEW WEBINAR: Tues., Nov. 10, “Creating a Great Place to Work”

One of the Seven Keys to Successful CPA Firm Management

You may think you’re ready for busy season, but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security. Staffing and productivity issues remain a major competitive challenge for accounting firms. Signs suggest that staffers are rattled, restless and ready to jump ship at the first sign of an improving job market. How will your firm find the best talent and prevent massive turnover?

The answer for many leading firms is smart management and personnel policies. That’s why you’ll want to tune in to the next installment of our monthly webinar series “The Seven Keys to Successful CPA Firm Management.”

“Creating a Great Place to Work”
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
1 p.m. ET (1 hour)
Register today: Only $79.00 per connection
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Who should attend:

What you’ll learn:

BUT WAIT! HERE’S AN EVEN BETTER DEAL:
Register today for both
Nov. 10 — “Creating a Great Place to Work” and
Dec. 8 — “Building a Learning Organization,”
Save 20% if purchased separately.
Click here to buy both, save $33, pay only $125.00 for these two essential webinars.
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After registering, login instructions and additional materials will be emailed to you at the email address you use to register.
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As always, thank you for your interest and support.
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Yours truly,
Rick Telberg
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P.S.: After signing up, watch your email for additional materials and reminders. Of course, if you have any questions or requests before the webinars, please don’t hesitate to contact me personally at rtelberg@baystreetgroup.com or by phone at (914) 674-4531. Note: CPE is not available for these sessions and they will not be recorded.
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Posted on October 29, 2009
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CCH: Hi Tech Essential to ‘High Performing’ Firms

CCH rolls out white paper on role of technology.

… Which shouldn’t be surprising, considering CCH is in the tax and accounting technology business. But CCH’s research adds some perspective to the importance of progressive thinking in creating  a competitive firm.

Here’s the full release:

Creating a long-term sustainable business advantage is the key to success for accounting firms, in both good and challenging times, yet some firms do it better than others. What’s their secret?

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business (CCHGroup.com) commissioned an independent nationwide survey examining the practices of high performing accounting firms to examine what market leaders are doing today to achieve success and what their plans are for the future. The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), included interviews with 100 partners at accounting firms nationwide.

Across the board, the survey found that high performing firms are more likely to leverage technology to help them in the critical areas of staffing, client service and practice management to optimize performance.

“High performing firms look at technology as a fundamental part of their business platform,” CCH President Mike Sabbatis said to an estimated 1,000 tax and accounting professionals in his keynote address at the CCH User Conference. “Most of these firms include technology in their strategic plans and clearly see the critical role it plays in their success.”

Read more

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Posted on October 27, 2009
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CPAs’ Top Year-End Tax Tips for Trying Times

How to brace your clients for tough news.

by Rick Telberg

With October 15 now past, accountants and tax professionals are turning their attention to year-end tax planning with their clients. And there’s no shortage of topics and strategies to cover.

With the American economy still in the grips of a credit freeze and a “jobless recovery,” governments at all levels seem to be scrambling to revamp tax regimes. That’s making the tax-planning situation unusually complex and treacherous according to CPAs.

Roby Sawyers, CPA, Ph.D., an accounting professor at North Carolina State University, and a member of the AICPA Tax Executive Committee, thinks clients should be getting a sobering message this year.

“My primary advice,” Sawyers says, “has been: ‘Put your retirement money in Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k) plans.’ With the huge deficits facing the country, it is hard to see how tax rates are going to do anything but increase in the future.”

Jeff Porter, CPA, MST, at Porter & Associates in Huntington, W.Va., a two-term member of the Tax Executive Committee and leading CPE provider, says: “First and foremost, advisers need to be keeping their eyes
on Washington.”

Porter notes that there are a number of proposals to extend expiring provisions such as the deduction for sales tax on new vehicle purchases, the first time homebuyer credit, the bonus depreciation and extending the exclusion for $2,400 for unemployment. “When planning for 2009 and 2010 it is important to watch for last-minute changes in the code,” Porter says.

Specifically, Porter notes:

In New York, at Citrin Cooperman & Co., Manny Diakogeorgios generally agrees and takes a slightly different approach to what CPAs should be talking with clients about:

Savvy CPAs know there are a few good practice-management reasons for talking early with clients about the new issues and complications of their tax situation. First, the conversation braces them for the extra services that may be required this year, softening the blow from a potential billings increase. And, second, it’s a chance for the accountant to make sure the client is gathering and preparing the needed documents, making filing season just that much easier.

Copyright 2009 AICPA.
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Posted on October 26, 2009
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Minor malware issue resolved

CPA Trendlines has been subject of an unknowing and unwilling source of minor malware in some Comment spam posts. The site has now been scanned, cleaned and is safe; and new safety methods have been instituted. We await the safety agencies’ verification for a clean bill of health. Thank you for your consideration.

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Posted on October 26, 2009
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CCH Launches ProSystem fx into the Cloud

Offers cross-app data integration.

CCH unveiled a new Software-as-a-Service version of its niche-dominating ProSystem fx tax prep software, integrating it with document, client data, workflow, and engagement management applications.

Here’s the media release, with a video:

CCH’S NEXT GENERATION PROSYSTEM FX SUITE BRINGS BETTER WAY OF WORKING

Easier to Use, Easier to Access with Common Client Data; Single Sign-On; New Productivity Features; Anywhere, Anytime Access

(NATIONAL HARBOR, MD., October 26, 2009) – CCH has introduced a fundamentally new way of working for tax and accounting professionals with the release of its next generation ProSystem fx Suite – connecting clients, staff and information on a dynamic, centralized and integrated platform. The new platform was introduced to 1,000 tax and accounting professionals at the CCH User Conference 2009 being held October 25-28 at the Gaylord National Convention Center in National Harbor.

“This innovative platform was built from the ground up, with extensive customer input, to support the way people want to work today and the way firms will have to work in the future to remain competitive,” said CCH President Mike Sabbatis.

Read more

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Posted on October 26, 2009
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29 Tips to Get Your Business Groove On

It’s easy to get discouraged. Here’s how to not let it happen to you.

Courage and perseverance are traits you can actually nurture and develop. From the financial advisors’ advisor Horsesmouth.com, here are 29 tips they compiled from top achievers. Try one today.

  1. Remember something a friend said when I suggested I couldn’t handle a particular mechanical task: “How do you know that you can’t?”
  2. Compile a list of things that you had never done before but succeeded at doing once you tried.
  3. When you show courage, even in something small, record the date and the action.
  4. When you tackle and succeed at something that seemed overly complicated to begin with, make a record of it.
  5. Keep the previous three lists in a tabbed notebook and read that notebook daily in order to remind yourself of your capabilities.
  6. Write up affirmations for yourself and read them out loud three times daily until your subconscious has absorbed them and they have replaced the “can’ts” that undermine you.
  7. Practice being ridiculous. Eric Saperston graduated from college and camped around the country in a VW van interviewing famous people about their lives. Many people thought he was crazy, but in the end, he not only interviewed 300 successful people (actor Henry Winkler and the chairman of Coca-Cola, to name but two), but now runs a film production company with millions of dollars in contracts. Eric says, “When people think you’re nuts, it gives you a wide range of behavior to take advantage of.”
  8. Develop and use an end-of-day ritual. That way, you will be able to close the book on each day, with all of its successes and failures, and you won’t carry it with you.
  9. Develop deeper relationships with your spouse, kids, and friends, so that you’re cushioned against even massive failure. Have many fulfilling aspects to your life so that business is not everything.
  10. Determine how much each of your actions or deals is worth to you (regardless of the outcome), and keep that figure written on a card in front of you.
  11. Stop imagining other people are so together. They aren’t! And we all should have stopped comparing ourselves with other people a long time ago, about the time we graduated from high school.
  12. Create excellent habits, because then the daily decisions no longer have to be made. (Read or reread “The Common Denominator of Success (PDF, 6 pages),” a 60-year-old speech that speaks as directly to us now as if it had been written yesterday).
  13. Read or reread “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” by Og Mandino.
  14. When you face something that seems so complicated that you just can’t get a handle on it, set a kitchen timer for 45 minutes and work on it for only that amount of time, then stop. You can do anything for 45 minutes. And you’ll be surprised at how many of these monsters take only about 10 minutes once you get started.
  15. Get a friend or two to work on the project with you. The Bible says that although one string can be broken, even a strong man can’t break a rope with three strands.
  16. Encourage someone else. Take the focus off yourself. As the saying goes, when a person is all wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
  17. Memorize motivational poems such as “Don’t Quit,” author unknown, and “If,” by Rudyard Kipling
  18. Be audacious!
  19. Do 10 things in the time others would procrastinate over one.
  20. Put it all in perspective. What’s the big deal?
  21. Read or reread the great Nick Murray’s description of putting quarters into a slot machine, knowing that they will pay off one day. It’s in “The Excellent Investment Advisor.”
  22. Be willing to take the time to solve any problem. Given enough time, an ant can carry away an elephant.
  23. Develop consistent processes and write them down so that the anxiety of “how to do it” is no longer there after the first time.
  24. If you have to eat a live toad, don’t sit staring at it too long! Call those difficult clients or handle those difficult problems early in the day. Own up to your mistakes early.
  25. Adjust to changes, such as needing glasses or learning new software. Life changes. You change. Get over it!
  26. Turn it all into a game. Keep score of the activities you do, which, along with your attitude, is really all you can control.
  27. Collect a list of your favorite inspirational sayings, such as “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step” and “He who is outside his door is halfway there.”
  28. Read biographies of people who have weathered many failures on their way to success. Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, even Teddy Roosevelt. He didn’t make that speech just because he was a witty writer. He said those things because he had lived them!
  29. Have fun!
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Posted on October 24, 2009
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Good News on Your CPA Career

Profession proves to be remarkably recession-resilient.

Are CPAs ready for busy season? Join the survey; get the results.

by Rick Telberg

The jobs picture is decidedly mixed these days for finance and accounting professionals, so when good news comes along it’s worth noting.

Despite the bleak economy, accounting remains relatively recession-resilient as a profession, according to a number of fresh reports.

Money magazine, for instance, ranked CPA careers among the top 10 for “great pay and superior growth prospects.” The magazine narrowed down its top 10 list after examining “more than 7,000 jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will grow 10 percent or more over the next decade and that require at least a bachelor’s degree.”

Are CPAs Ready for Busy Season?

Join the survey; get the answers.

(Free. Confidential.)

“Businesses began stocking payroll with CPAs after major accounting scandals earlier this decade, and a host of new corporate accounting rules going into effect soon should ratchet up demand further,” Money says. “Government agencies are also hiring CPAs to monitor how well companies are complying with the new regs. Add inevitable changes to personal income tax rules and you have a pretty recession-proof profession.”

The big drawback Money cited? As any CPA knows: “Deadlines are nonnegotiable; if you’re in tax preparation, kiss your personal life goodbye between mid-February and April 15.” Ouch. That’s harsh, but true enough for many.

Separately, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which tracks college recruiting, reported that accounting majors hold two of the top 10 spots for in-demand jobs, one listing each for public and private accountants. Add in “financial/treasury analysis” and the finance and accounting sector takes three of the top 10 in the NACE ranking.

The NACE report on accounting careers follows another from NACE showing that hiring may be down seven percent for the graduating class of 2010 and a third NACE report that shows starting salaries in decline.

But for accounting majors, it’s a different story. Accounting salaries are actually up by about one percent, to $48,471, and up two percent, to $49,163, for finance majors.

“Conversely,” NACE said, “business administration and management graduates saw their average offer fall 3.4 percent to $44,607.” Further, the average offer to economics graduates declined 2.8 percent, to $49,628, and management information systems (MIS) grads saw their offers slump 1.8 percent, to $50,573.

Meanwhile, BusinessWeek released its “Best Places to Launch a Career” study, with accounting firms making a strong showing. Deloitte edged out Ernst & Young for the top spot. PricewaterhouseCoopers came in third, followed by KPMG on the entire list. Grant Thornton and RSM MCGladrey also made the list, along with accountant-heavy companies like Protiviti and Accenture.

To be sure, the picture isn’t all pretty. The government reported that the accounting and bookkeeping sector lost about 6,000 jobs last month, erasing some gains in the preceding several months.

But the real test will come in the weeks ahead. Traditionally, accounting firms bring on new staff ahead of busy season. Considering that economists seem ready to pronounce the recession officially over, many accountants could be breathing a sigh of relief.

NEXT QUESTION: Are CPAs Ready for Busy Season? Join the survey; get the answers.

Copyright 2009 AICPA.
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Posted on October 22, 2009
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Join me at NYSSCPA’s One-Day Practice Management Conference

Wed., Oct. 28, in midtown Manhattan.

I’ll be delivering the luncheon speech, “Seven Keys to Success in CPA Firm Management.”

But the best reason is to go is probably the first panel of the day:

Practice Continuity: A Moderated Panel Session
Moderator: Robert S. Fligel, CPA, Managing Member, RF Resources LLC

Fact: More than 75% of current CPAs will be eligible for retirement in the next 12 years. What will happen to their firms?

Panelists:

Details:

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
FAE Conference Center
3 Park Avenue, at 34th Street (19th Floor)
New York, NY 10016
8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m

Sign up here: CPE Online Registration – Practice Management Conference | NYSSCPA.ORG.

Also on the agenda:

More:

Congratulations and thanks to Philip J. Whitman, CPA, for making this happen. Phil is founder and president of Whitman Business Advisors LLC, a Practice Continuity Consulting Firm specializing in CPA firm practice growth, mergers and acquisitions, and partner search. He is a member of the NYSSCPA and the Chair of its Management of the Profession Oversight Committee, a member of the Large and Medium Firm Practice Management and Chief Financial Officers Committees and is the immediate past chair of the Human Resource Committee.

Most firms are facing the challenges of downward
client fee pressures, while at the same time
trying to control the ever-increasing costs of
staffing and running a practice. Mr. Erickson
will address the reasons for the current
price/cost squeeze and explain how you can
immediately improve profitability in your firm.
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Posted on October 22, 2009
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