CPA Trendlines

Client Service Ideas? It’s in the Doing.

Hoisted from Comments: Edi Osborne, Kevin Phillips.

Four Tough Client Service Problems: And dozens of possible solutions from staffers…

Osborne

…is getting a lot of buzz.

But some of the best has come from two, coincidentally, West Coast consultants.

Edi Osborne of MentorPlus writes: “I love all the ideas the group generated. I have only one thing to add. All the questions are more easily answered when you are only dealing with ideal clients.”

And she links to this checklist  to help choose the right clients in the first place:

Kevin Phillips, Director of Consulting Services, ProHorizons Network Inc., writes:

Phillips

There are a lot of great ideas here. The only problem is that lots of great ideas are impossible to execute.

Developing excellence in client service requires a change in organizational culture. And culture change is very difficult.

As valuable as a brainstorming session might be in shaking loose new ideas, of greater value is landing on identifying one or two behaviors that will move the entire organization in a new direction.

If the firm is profitable, it is probably doing a lot of things right. If the firm is human, there is probable one or two adjustments one could make to make it even more profitable. The trick is to identify them.

Before brainstorming solutions, it might be helpful to invest some energy in really understanding the firm’s culture.

To get at culture ask these questions:

• What behaviors do we repeat over and over again out of habit that limits the quality of our customer service?
• In what ways to do each each staff member feel constrained, limited or shut down? Where do these experiences overlap?
• Who sets the cultural norm around here? And what benefit does the norm-setter gain at the expense of better customer service?

It’s China, Stupid!

Grant Thornton International’s revenues drop 9%.

But the real news is that for the first time the US and UK combined make up less than half of GTI’s fees. That’s “hardly surprising given the crisis everyone has been grappling with,” Gavin Hinks writes at Accountancy Age:

But its the shift in the balance of power that is fascinating. China and Hong Kong has for the first time become one of GTI’s top ten performing territories… Are we looking at a time when those territories are so successful that GTI has to run the organization out of Beijing? HSBC’s chief executive Michael Geoghegan has just relocated to Hong Kong to be closer to the bank’s center of main interest. How long before other multinational CEOs find they have to do the same thing?”

Financial Director has the rest:

Revenues for GTI’s 96 member firms stood at $3.6 billion for the year ended Sept. 30, 2009,  compared to about $4 billion in 2008.  Assurance services fell 4% to $1.6 billion.

“Grant Thornton, like all businesses, saw its revenue hindered by a difficult global economy in 2009, However, I am encouraged by these results. We knew the last 12 months would be challenging and many member firms had to make tough decisions to cut costs and refocus their businesses,” said new GTI CEO Ed Nusbaum.

HR Advice Column Offers SWK Clients Directions and Solutions

Sage accounting reseller helps controllers with some tough issues.

By Scott H. Cytron
for SWK Technologies Inc.

Dear Abby … watch out! There’s a new gal in town giving advice, and her name is Kathleen Weiss, SPHR, of SWK Technologies, Inc.

Weiss, who heads up the HR Advisory Practice at SWK, works mostly with small businesses who are not large enough to have their own Human Resource departments. She consults one on one with companies, many of which are SWK’s clients, to assess their needs and provide HR knowledge, solutions and tools. SWK, a Sage Software Authorized Business Partner and Sage Gold Development Partner, provides strategies and solutions to its clients’ information and business management needs.

“If a business has more than seven or eight employees, it needs HR guidance, but doesn’t have the means or resources to maintain these positions in-house,” says Weiss. “In many cases, the responsibility falls on the controller. Quite frankly, this person would rather be stranded on a desert island than deal with HR issues! Numerous companies assign a non-HR person to perform these duties, and in today’s volatile economy, that’s a dangerous decision, especially since employees are becoming more and more employment law-savvy.

As a means to market the HR Advisory Practice and provide advice on a client-wide basis, Weiss began writing her “Dear Kathleen” column last fall in the company’s eNewsletter, the SWK Insider. Weiss felt that if one company was experiencing a problem with a certain matter, other companies would also benefit from learning how to solve that problem.

Here’s are several sample questions Weiss has received from readers:

• Our employee performance reviews are coming up and most of our managers dread this necessary task. Do you have any tips for us to make this process more efficient and effective?

• How do we hire the right candidate for the position? We’ve hired an administrative assistant for one of our managers several times, but each one turned out to be the wrong person. During the interview process, they all seemed to be the perfect candidate, but once they actually started working, it’s obvious they were not right for the job. What are we doing wrong?

• How do we help our managers provide performance guidance without destroying the morale of the employee?

“No matter what size the company may be, I have yet to encounter one that hasn’t dealt with these kinds of issues,” says Weiss. “Human Resource professionals are not attorneys, but they almost have to be. If we don’t keep current on employment law, we’re not doing our jobs. It’s similar to CPAs; they aren’t attorneys, but they had better keep up with tax laws.”

The response so far to “Dear Kathleen” is strong. Although the column is only published 12 times annually, Weiss often answers questions offline.

“Questions run the gamut from one-off hiring scenarios to working with clients to develop an employee handbook, customized to their company’s culture or industry,” says Weiss. “I’m glad I can provide advice and help companies with their HR problems.”

Got a question for Weiss? Send her an e-mail and she’ll respond.

For more than 20 years, Scott H. Cytron, ABC, has worked with CPAs and accountants, providing public relations, marketing and communications services. He is a frequent contributor to industry publications covering professional services industries, including accounting, healthcare, legal, financial planning, collections and debt, and high-tech. Find him at  www.absolutecytron.com.

IRS ’10,000 Letters’ Program Angers CPAs

Intrusive and intimidating IRS initiative.

by William Stromsem, CPA, JD

Stromsen

CPAs are complaining about an intrusive and intimidating Internal Revenue Service (IRS) initiative that began in early January when the IRS started sending “over 10,000” letters to tax return preparers (commercial and professional), with follow-up visits to “thousands” of letter recipients. This is part of an IRS program to be sure that preparers are “assisting clients appropriately” and part of Commissioner Shulman’s overall effort to increase oversight of return preparers. The IRS may intend this as an encouragement to do a better job, but CPA practitioners see this as poorly timed and intimidating during the busy tax season as they seek to apply the tax law correctly to client situations.

…continued at the AICPA Corporate Taxation Insider:  IRS ’10,000 Letters’ Program Angers CPAs.

CCH’s David Bergstein Gives Back

Bergstein

Teaching for the Good of It

David Bergstein CPA, CITP, loves his job at CCH. As director of strategic relationships, he is actively engaged in networking, building partnerships with CPA associations, and establishing relationships that are win-wins for CCH and its partner CPA firms. He also has been involved in products like CCH CompleteTax®, an online tax preparation and e-filing service for the do-it-yourself taxpayer.

Outside the office, Bergstein’s passion for more than 40 years has been teaching and giving back. “I want to leave a legacy where I’ve helped people become more successful,”

via CCH’s David Bergstein Gives Back | CCH.

Tax Season Client Service Opportunities

These busy days offer a chance to get to know your clients better.

With a few quick questions, every client meeting can turn into a new relationship-building opportunity.

1. Ask how the firm is doing as a whole to assess satisfaction.
2. Ask some open-ended questions about the client’s current situation, challenges, and goals for the year.
3. Delve a little deeper into potential specific services, such as multi-state tax requirements or pension plan audits.
4. Request referrals.

Keep it short and be sure to have a mechanism in place to follow up on the information that you learn from these interactions.

Source: IOMA (subscribe here: www.ioma.com/CPA) via ConvergenceCoaching

Just in time for tax season…

Show them how you really feel about busy season.

A collage of the 1040 IRS Form printed throughout the whole roll. Available at PrankPlace here.

Or try their best seller:

Ahh. Now doesn’t that feel better…?

Where to Find New Clients? At Home

Census data shows 25% increase in home-based entrepreneurs.

The number of people who worked at home increased by nearly 2 million, from about 9.5 million in 1999 to about 11.3 million in 2005, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly half of these home workers had college degrees and nearly half of them earned $75,000 a year or more.

READ MORE →

How to Talk to Your Clients about Sales and Use Tax

5-step action plan for addressing clients’ sales and use tax needs

via SpeedTax

CPA firms are well-positioned to take the lead in helping guide their clients through the complicated, time-consuming, and resource-intensive world of sales tax compliance and management, according to a new, free guide authored by Geni Whitehouse, CPA.CITP.

Whitehouse

The just-published “How to Talk to Your Clients about Sales and Use Tax” asks CPAs to put themselves in their clients’ shoes to help them address the challenge of complying with sales tax rules in an environment of heightened audit risk.

Underwritten by SpeedTax, a Software-as-a-Service sales tax solution provider, the guide outlines 5 steps that firms should take to begin addressing their clients’ sales and use tax needs.

READ MORE →

Accountants’ Job Mood Dims, Even as Economy Brightens

Mergis confidence index dips.

via Mergis

The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among U.S. accounting and finance workers, dipped 0.8 points to 50.9 in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to The Mergis Group, the professional placement division of Spherion Corporation.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, shows that more accounting and finance workers believe the economy is getting stronger, although fewer workers expressed confidence in their ability to find a new job. READ MORE →