What If Accounting Firms Were Apps?

Smartphone12 ways the app phenomenon could change the way you think about your practice.

By Hitendra Patil

Consider, for a moment, the new “app economy.” There are over a million apps in Apple and Google stores, with hundreds of them doing much the same thing in almost the same way. According to Pew Research, 90 percent of Americans have cellphones and 67 percent find themselves checking their phones for messages, alerts or calls — even when they don’t notice their phones ringing or vibrating.

So, are accounting firms like apps already — offering the same services, same deliverables, same outcomes at the same or similar prices? If so, the only thing missing in the accounting marketplace is an “accounting services app store.”

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Wisdom tells us to “hang out where clients do.” Yet, there are hardly any “accounting firm apps” on the app stores. READ MORE →

Target the Low-Hanging Fruit

Five strategies you can implement right now.

ripe apples are hanging on a branch covered with first snowBy Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

If business has slowed for you, it’s not just you. With people finishing their holiday preparations, getting ready for school vacations and trying to keep from falling to the latest batch of colds making the rounds, it’s all most of us can do to stay on our routines.

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Successful Strategy Execution Requires Focus on People

Business people working in group in the officeBy Robert J. Lees, August J. Aquila and Derek Klyhn

Momentum is critical in driving change, so it is no surprise that the initiation of activities that drive and support the strategy is key.

MORE ON LEADERSHIP: Managing Partners Must Remember Partners’ Needs | 5 Questions About Your Firm’s Direction | Like Herding Cats: Partners Must ‘Walk Together’

It is also one of the reasons why focus is critical. And yet one of the mistakes we see are initiatives having too much time between them.

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Fears of Sexual Innuendo and Office Gossip Block Talent Development

Career penalties for romance are greater for junior women than senior men.

Image of a female executive explaining something to her boss in office.By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

A close work relationship between a man and a woman can generate sexual tensions in one or both of them.

When the man is older and powerful and the woman is young and ambitious, the potential for complications is even greater.

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Even when the relationship is strictly business focused, it can be the subject of rumors, gossip and speculation among coworkers, and it can arouse feelings of jealousy and resentment in the sponsor’s wife.

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No More Printouts at CPE Programs?

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and ATech advice for everyday use.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I always like to take notes on the handouts when I attend CPE programs. Now all the handouts are provided digitally and it forces me to sometimes print out as much as 400 or 500 pages before I go to the program. How can I get the sponsors to provide printed copies?

RESPONSE: Things change. What worked yesterday doesn’t always work today. READ MORE →