Daily Archives: April 29, 2013

Tax Season 2013: Hard-Hit Soloists Voice Their Biggest Problems

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By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer

Tax and accounting professionals of all shapes and sizes, ranging in size from the soloist to the regional leader, are reporting a filing season markedly more problematic than the year before, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer. The data for April, still coming in, shows majorities of firms in all class sizes reporting “somewhat worse” or “much worse” performance and results this year.

Busy Season Barometer. Join the survey; get the results.
Busy Season Barometer

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, now in it’s tenth year, is a real-time tracking poll of tax and accounting professionals’ sentiment, performance and results. As a reward for joining the survey panel, participants get early previews of top-line results and notifications.

Click here to join the survey; get the results

In this report, we present the first wave of in-depth details, starting with a chart that shows the number of respondents reporting on busy season conditions.

Those reporting a “worse” season include:

  • 66% of solo practitioners
  • 60% of firms with 2 to 10 professionals
  • 70% of firms with 11 to 50 professionals
  • 72% of firms with 50 to 100 professionals
  • 53% of firms with more than 100 professionals

And:

  • We gather verbatim comments from the solo practitioners who reported a season “much worse” explaining their rating, and
  • We present their comments assembled into a word-cloud infographic that reveals at a glance the most oft-repeated issues and concerns.

For complete busy season coverage, click here. And stay tuned to CPA Trendlines as we report on new developments in the data and analysis.

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Ten Strategies for the Smaller Firm Facing Competition from Larger Firms

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When David meets Goliath.

By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

Great turbulence in the accounting profession, as well as in the business world itself, make these difficult and unusual times.

Public outcry against the misdeeds of a few accounting firms, corporations, investment bankers and others in government and the business community is tarring the innocent as well as the guilty. In the meantime, mergers and acquisitions are altering the competitive landscape for firms of every size.

It’s likely that the major CPA firms will accelerate a long-standing practice of reaching into the low end of the market – the very market of the smaller CPA firms. For the smaller firm, competition is coming from unaccustomed quarters.

Can the smaller firm successfully compete against the bigger firm?

History says yes, if the firm follows at least some of the following 10 points: READ MORE →

Worst Tax Season Ever? “It’s Supposed to Get Better!”

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Hoisted from Comments.

In this article, Ed Mendlowitz takes issue with Worst Tax Season Ever and suggests five strategies for continuous improvement year after year.

Barry Melancon, CEO of the AICPA, and Tom Hood, CEO of the Maryland Society of CPAs, both said that they heard this was the worst tax season ever.

I don’t know if it was or wasn’t.  For us it wasn’t that bad.  This raises a thought.  It’s supposed to get better – if not, then why do it, or why not make a serious effort to change what you are doing so it gets better?  I am reminded by a remark by Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets.”  He said, “Maybe this is as good as it gets!”  I don’t buy that.

Here are five things that should be done to make tax season (and the rest of your practice or any business) better. READ MORE →