Eight New Metrics to Measure Managing Partner Performance and Potential

Aquila
Aquila

Essential duties currently missing from most job descriptions.

Most of the usual responsibilities of a managing partner can be captured in two paragraphs:

  • General responsibilities: Report directly to the governing committee and the firm. Responsible for the firm’s overall management and practice. Supervise overall marketing and business development effort. Manage the professional staff and provide guidance for the support staff.
  • Specific responsibilities: Coordinate the firm’s practices among the different offices and departments. Implement the partnership agreement. Appoint heads of various committees. Represent the firm in community and professional organizations. Supervise governing committee. Oversee standing and ad hoc committees. Provide guidance on financial policies and work with the governing committee to develop personal and administrative policies.

These are, without doubt, all good and necessary functions. But are they the ones managing partners should focus on?

August Aquila, doesn’t think so.

His studies, documented in “Leadership At Its Strongest” and “How to Engage Partners in the Firm’s Future,” show there are at least eight other areas that can make or break a managing partner and the firm.

– Rick Telberg

More for partnerships: The Six Challenges Crippling Progress in Today’s Multi-Partner Firms   |   The Debilitating Effects of Denial at Accounting Firms    |   The Five Psychological Hurdles that CPA Firms Must Confront Today   |   The Managing Partner’s Secret Weapon in Change Management    |   The 10 Basic Ways to Boost Profits at an Accounting Firm    |   12 Must-Do Items for Your Partner Retreat Agenda   |   Seven Signs You’re Working in a Firm Where the Partners Don’t Trust Each Other   |   Seven Tactics to Stand Out from the Crowd   |   Achieving Partner Unity: The Competitive Advantage   |

In this report: See how you or your managing partner might compare on a new eight-point questionnaire.

READ MORE →

Providing Work Papers to New Accountant

 

When is it required?

Question:

A long time business client that owed me a large balance for unpaid fees sent a letter dropping me. He then wrote me a letter requesting me to send “his” papers to his new accountant. Can I insist on being paid first or do I have to send the papers? I made some notes on a worksheet adjusting his numbers that went on the tax return. Do I have to send this also and if so, do I have to write these up in proper journal entry form?

More from Ed Mendlowitz, The Practice Doctor:  11 Business-Getting Tips for the Young Staffer  |  How to Get Started in Family Office Services  |  Three and a Half Ways to Get Your Own CPA PracticeNovice Manager Needs to Know: How To Do It All? | Why No One Listens to YouWhen NOT to Offer a Free Initial Consultation | Measuring Growth in Yourself, Staff and Partners  |  What Do You Think You’re Doing?  | Can You Teach Judgment?  |  Clients’ Calls At Home  | What You Need to Know before Expanding into Business Valuation Seven Ways to Increase Fees  | 10 Best Practices for Tax Season  | Nine Healthy Things To Do During Tax Season  |  12 Reasons to Love Tax Season | FREE INSTANT DOWNLOAD: Sample fee schedule for 1040s |   Also: “Implementing Fee Increases” and “The Tax Season Opportunity Guide.”

Answer:

READ MORE →

Two Steps to Easy Cross-sells

Start with a spreadsheet.

By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator

Here’s a great spreadsheet exercise you can do to identify what I call “low-hanging fruit,” which means added revenue that will not take too much time or money to go after.

Open Excel, and start a worksheet from the sales numbers in your accounting system.

More at CPA Trendlines for soloists and small firms:    The Hot New Tech Product for Automated Data Entry  |  Five Value-Add Service Areas to Take You Beyond Bookkeeping  |  Six Money-Making Strategies to Take You Beyond QuickBooks   | 10 Ways to Add a “Money Maker” Hour to Your Day   |  11 Sources of Wealth We Can Celebrate   |  Nine Value-Adds to Command a Higher Fee   |  How to Design Your Business Around Your Strengths

READ MORE →

When Bad Things Happen to Good Accounting Marketers

The myth of ‘spin control.’

By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

Every election campaign produces, among other things, media myths and bad language. During the elections of the last two decades, the language was infected by a new myth called spin control. The phrase implies that a good media relations practitioner can control the nature and texture of a story in the press – can put the right spin on it to get the journalist to tell it the spinner’s way.

In this report:

  • The three things to do first when your firms gets bad press
  • Five metrics for damage assessment
  • Three quick-response options
  • Six strategies to avoid making it worse

It’s just not so. For all that the myth implies, when it comes to the media, we propose — but others dispose. Thus it was, and thus it always shall be, so long as we have a free press. READ MORE →

Why Good Accounting Firms Make Bad Decisions

The dysfunctional partner team and three ways to get them back on track.

You’ve tried management by committee. And by now, you know it doesn’t work. In a new analysis of CPA firm management practices, Marc Rosenberg finds, “Management by committee rarely works.”

There must be a better way. And, yes, there are a few. Here is a five-point spectrum of approaches that firms use to make decisions. One of them may work for your firm.

READ MORE →