Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s how to combat it.
By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator
The exact solution to managing your “overwhelm” level will depend on what the source of your overwhelm is. You can also be suffering from more than one source of overwhelm.
Here are five tips to help you manage the most common sources of overwhelm.
Four questions to test your leadership culture.
By Robert J. Lees, August J. Aquila and Derek Klyhn
Being a good coach is just one of the expectations firms must have of their partners. They are expected to be leaders, as well.
MORE ON LEADERSHIP: Managing Partners Must Remember Partners’ Needs | 5 Questions About Your Firm’s Direction | Like Herding Cats: Partners Must ‘Walk Together’
While most of the partners we know understand and accept that need, not everyone does, and not everyone understands what being an effective leader means.
How firms decide the goodwill payable to a retiring partner. By Marc Rosenberg Retirements & Buyouts There are five factors that need to be taken into account when computing the goodwill benefits due a retiring partner:
Fair or not, coworkers can derail an otherwise good sponsorship.
By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know
We know that even when a relationship between a woman and a man is strictly business focused, others may not see it that way. Here are three thorny issues to watch for and quell.
And putting a fail-safe system in place.
By Roman H. Kepczyk
Quantum of Paperless
One of the most critical steps in transitioning a firm to a “paperless” environment is capturing information in a digital format at its “root” source as that information enters the firm.
MORE ON TECH SPENDING: How to Cut Tax Prep Costs with Scanners | Making Digital Tax Process Easier Is All About the Workflow | Why Firms Need Document Retention Standards | Digital Fax Has Benefits You May Be Ignoring | Wireless Is Hot, and Here’s How to Handle It | How Safe Is Your Internet Lifeline? | New Tech Tools for the 24/7 Accounting Firm | How to Choose the Right Backup System | Where Laptops Rule at CPA Firms Today | Step 1 in Building the Paperless Firm: Scanners
At the base level, this means having clients provide you information in a digital format — which can be done via email, digital fax or through a portal — rather than with a physical document. While email is currently the most prevalent tool utilized by clients, it is anticipated the security concerns will help clients transition toward portals.
Finding low-cost CPE, vendors with new products and services, and the chance for professional networking…
By Ed Mendlowitz
Author of “Implementing Fee Increases”
QUESTION: A widow called me to ask if I wanted to buy her husband’s practice. He died suddenly a month ago. What should I offer and how should I handle this?
RESPONSE: It is always hard to buy a practice from a widow or estate when the accountant did not make arrangements.
MORE PRACTICE DOCTOR Q&A: No More Printouts at CPE Programs? | How to Apply Value Pricing to Bundled Services | 6 Ways to Take a Client Beyond Tax Prep | 18 Ways to Blow a Partnership Opportunity | When Experience Doesn’t Add Up | 8 Times When Hourly Billing Trumps Value Pricing | 6 Ways to Know What You Don’t Know | 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Making Small Business Clients Happy | Client’s Difficult Daughter Balks at Bill | 6 Simple Steps to Impress a Prospect
The expectations of the seller are usually greater than reality, and the buyer is getting something that already has declined in value, with clients leaving as they hear of the death, and the information about client servicing is likely not too organized, if it exists at all. This also applies to a sudden complete disability. This should be a “lesson” to get your own affairs in order.
Ratios affect income per partner, survey shows.
CPA Trendlines Exclusive
Staff sizes and, more significantly, the ratio of staffers to partners are among the most significant factors in determining CPA firm profits, according to new edition of “The Rosenberg Survey: The National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics”
MORE FROM THE MAP SURVEY: Geography Plays Part in Firm Success | Financial Services Up at Largest Firms, Down at Smaller Ones | Big Firms Keep Getting Bigger
Staff-to-partner ratio is the fourth leading determinant of firms’ profitability, behind fees per partner and per staff and partners’ billing rates, says the the MAP survey team, which is comprised of compiled by Marc Rosenberg, the noted industry consultant based in Chicago, and the Growth Partnership consulting firm in St. Louis. READ MORE →