Monthly Archives: October 2012

What Do You Think You’re Doing?

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Effective management doesn’t just happen.

Here at CPA Trendlines, Ed Mendlowitz answers some of the toughest questions practitioners can throw at him. He’s the right one to ask. After more than 40 years in the business – building his own practice, running the firm, and eventually selling it to a major regional firm, WithumSmith+Brown, where he remains a senior partner and consultant to professional services clients – he has the answers. We’re happy to have him at CPA Trendlines. Send your questions for Ed here, or chime in with Comments below.

Browse more from Ed here: Are Partner Retreats Really Worth the Cost? | Audit Reports Without Doing the Work? | Should I Really Spend the Time Making Checklists? | What’s a Tax Practice Worth Today? | Preparing to Sell Your Practice in a Few Years? 13 Things You Need to Know Today | 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Decide to Add Financial Services to Your Practice | Why Selling Your Practice Is Not a Retirement Strategy | Congratulations! You Bought a Tax Practice. Now What? | How Accountants Can Keep the Business When a Client Wants to Sell Theirs | 10 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay, and What To Do about It | 13 Reasons Timesheets Will Never Die

QUESTION: Sometimes I get stuck doing work that the client did not ask me to do, that is not chargeable and simply a waste of time, but I get trapped (by myself). Any words of wisdom to avoid this? READ MORE →

What New Accounting Grads Want from Your Firm

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Survey of college professors provides clues for successful recruiting.

Internships and social networks speak loudest when new college accounting graduates weigh their first jobs offers, according to a new Public Accounting Report survey obtained by CPA Trendlines.

The study ranks the relative importance of factors to students when choosing a job offer, including:

  • Access to latest technology
  • Compensation and benefits
  • Desirable location or geographic base
  • Long-term career opportunities
  • Technical reputation
  • The firm’s long-term business outlook
  • The firm’s quality of life in terms of an employee-friendly environment
  • Whether the offer is from a Big Four firm
  • Workplace diversity

And the survey reveals the companies and CPA firms soon-to-be graduates are hoping to join:

  • A company in private industry
  • Any Big Four firm
  • Any Top 25 firm
  • A local firm
  • BKD
  • Deloitte
  • E&Y
  • Grant Thornton
  • KPMG
  • PwC

The survey also shows how many undergrads have actually worked in a public accounting firm before graduation, and the top 10 corporations would recommend as employers. But the most closely followed part of the survey are the rankings  of the top 25 undergraduate accounting programs.

The responses are tabulated in the following charts with analysis by the survey’s author:

READ MORE →

The Accountants’ First Look at Microsoft Surface

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introducing the Surface tablet

And the plethora of new tablets. 

by Randy Johnston 
Network Management Group 

Randy Johnston

Microsoft Surface has shipped, and I was one of the lucky people to get one of the very first units. We are going to see many new tablets released this fall including the iPad Mini, which I have on order ($634.99), as well as the new iPad4 and replacements for the Google nexus7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 that I own, like and use. The tablet operating systems, usability and applications improve daily. I am the most productive on a tablet with a keyboard, but that may not be true for you. My skin type requires touching a screen multiple times for the touch to be recognized. For example, it is normal right now that I have to touch my iPhone 5 2-5 times for each character I type. This past Friday, I counted 17 touches to type a single letter. Interestingly, though, is that the Microsoft Surface has not required me to touch the screen multiple times. I’m not sure if there is a technology difference that makes this touch actually work, or if it is something else, but it is fun to have a correctly working touch Surface!

It is helpful for you to know that I have used every Apple iPad and every Apple iPhone since release. I “get” how Apple’s technology is supposed to work.

For business purposes, the Microsoft Surface may be a better product.
But should you wait?

READ MORE →

The Power of Deadlines in Closing a Deal

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Headache or dream come true?

By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator

In the accounting profession, there are a ton of deadlines. Month-end, quarter-end, and year-end. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, and corporate taxes. And extension deadlines, filing deadlines, and payment deadlines, to name just a few.

Sandi Smith

More for soloists and small firms from Sandi Smith at CPA Trendlines:  On the Road to a Stress-Free Life: Identify Your Character Strengths •  The Missing Ingredient in Your Marketing That Will Make All the Difference •  3 Steps to Start Running on Millionaire Time • 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking New Clients • The Top 12 Business Card Blunders Accountants Make • Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have • How to Attract Clients Like a Magnet • Eleven Easy Ways to Deliver More Value to Clients • Five Things Accountants Take for Granted That Costs Them Revenue• What’s in Your New Client Funnel? • What’s In Your Welcome Kit for New Prospects? • Five Fun and Easy Ways to Wow Your Clients • Six Ways to Give Yourself a Raise • Strategies to Stop Losing Business to Competitors

All of these deadlines may be a headache to business owners and accountants alike, but they are a marketer’s dream come true. How can you use deadlines to your advantage in marketing your services? And what if you are selling a service that is not in the accounting profession? Keep reading and we’ll answer these questions and provide you with five ways to woo your prospect with deadlines. READ MORE →

When Is It Best For Partners To Stay Together and When Is It Best To Part?

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Making the partnership work seven ways to Sunday.

by Marc Rosenberg, CPA

Sometimes a parting of ways is best because the partners are simply incompatible. People change. Their values change. Their priorities change. When these changes become so huge as to produce constant conflict, it may be best to shake hands and part ways.

More Marc: • Pick Your Partners Right to Begin With  •  The First Nine Questions Your Partner Team Needs to Embrace for Optimal Profitability  • Profitability and The Value of Strategic Thinking  • The Five Essential Building Blocks for Creating a Strong Accounting Firm • The Seven Signs of Great Leadership in a CPA Firm • Compensation Issues for the New Managing Partner  • 20 Decisions for Your Firm’s New Partner Compensation Committee  • Three Ways to Break Partner Gridlock in an Accounting Firm  • What Partners Are Entitled To, and What They’re NOT Entitled To | How to Make Partner?  • Why Accounting Firm Partners Are “Popping Prozac like M&M’s” •

What does it take for partners to stay together?

Here are seven critical requirements: READ MORE →

Four Essential Habits for Building Client Trust

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It’s more than just pleasing the client.

by Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

In the firm with a strong marketing culture, getting the client is only half the battle. The other half is keeping the client. It’s done with more than just doing good work. In fact, most clients, surveys tell us, don’t really know how good or how bad your work is. Why should they? It’s not the business they’re in. They have to trust the accountant.

Bruce W. Marcus
Bruce W. Marcus

More Professional Services Marketing 3.0: • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm • What Accounting Firms Need to Understand to Grapple with Radical Change • Six Reasonable Goals for CPA Firm Marketing •

Independent studies also show that a large percentage of accounting firm clients are dissatisfied with the levels of service from their accountants. Clients are given no foundation for understanding what’s being done for them, nor are reasonable expectations defined. What basis do clients have, then, for being satisfied? READ MORE →

Can You Teach Judgment?

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Empowering staff to make mistakes, safely.

Here at CPA Trendlines, Ed Mendlowitz answers some of the toughest questions practitioners can throw at him. He’s the right one to ask. After more than 40 years in the business – building his own practice, running the firm, and eventually selling it to a major regional firm, WithumSmith+Brown, where he remains a senior partner and consultant to professional services clients – he has the answers. We’re happy to have him at CPA Trendlines. Send your questions for Ed here, or chime in with Comments below.

Get more Ed: Clients’ Calls At Home  • What You Need to Know before Expanding into Business Valuation  • Asking an Attorney for a Referral Fee  • Are Partner Retreats Really Worth the Cost? • Audit Reports Without Doing the Work? • Should I Really Spend the Time Making Checklists? • What’s a Tax Practice Worth Today? • Preparing to Sell Your Practice in a Few Years? 13 Things You Need to Know Today • 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Decide to Add Financial Services to Your Practice •  Why Selling Your Practice Is Not a Retirement Strategy •  Congratulations! You Bought a Tax Practice. Now What? • How Accountants Can Keep the Business When a Client Wants to Sell Theirs • 10 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay, and What To Do about It • 13 Reasons Timesheets Will Never Die

QUESTION: Recently a colleague asked me: “How do you teach judgment?” and before I could respond, he answered it himself with “You can’t teach judgment!” READ MORE →