June 2015 - Page 3 of 5 - CPA Trendlines

U.S. Accounting Pay Beats London, but Not Asia

June 17, 2015

New global study shows 43 percent of accountants are ready to jump ship. Here’s why.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Source: ICAS, via CPA Trendlines Research

The war for top talent in the U.S. accountancy profession is spreading worldwide, fueled by growth and increased confidence, according to a new global study obtained by CPA Trendlines.

Some 43 percent of accountants at multinational firms say they’ll probably leave their jobs within the next year or two, seeking more pay, better opportunities or both. The figures closely follow those found by CPA Trendlines in U.S.-focused studies (CPA Firms Paying Top Dollar for Talent in Nationwide Hiring Binge).

GET THE INSTANT DOWNLOAD of the FULL-SIZE INFOGRAPHIC:

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Are Partner Buyout Plans Just Ponzi Schemes?

June 17, 2015

By Marc Rosenberg

Apply this test to your firm’s succession plan.

By Marc Rosenberg
Retirements & Buyouts

Most multi-partner CPA firms have partner buyout plans that enable partners who leave the firm via retirement, death, disability or withdrawal to redeem their share of the firm’s value.

MORE ON BUYOUTS: 20 New, Essential Keys for Today’s Partner Retirement Plans | Clawback and How to Handle It | Can Partners Compete After They Leave? | Retirement Plan Funding? What Funding? | Why You’ll Get Less from Your Partners in a Buyout than You Might by Selling the Whole Firm | Partners May Balk at Guaranteeing Retirement Obligations

Over the last 10-20 years, retirement plans have come under more scrutiny as younger partners question whether departing partners are worth the payments due them and whether the firm can afford those payments. Staff with near-term partner potential also question whether to commit themselves to making these payments. Both of these groups fear that the firm will not be able to survive the retirement of dynamic, rainmaking partners who have tight relationships with their clients.

17 Ways Sponsors Can Help Protégées

June 17, 2015

By Ida O. Abbott

An effective sponsorship requires that you follow through.

By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

When you sponsor a woman, there are many steps that you can take to ensure that the relationship is productive and achieves its objectives.

Here are some tips for getting off to a strong start and following through effectively, especially by focusing on career opportunities and promoting your protégée to others.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: 3 Ways to Open a Sponsorship Conversation | What Sponsors Need from Protégées | 3 Ways to Derail Sponsorships | Keep Close Relationships From Getting Too Close | 4 Reasons Women Hold Themselves Back | 4 Ways Sponsors Can Help Women Seek Power | Bias About Women with Families Lingers | Judged on Performance, Not Potential? Must Be a Woman | Gender Bias Still a Problem | Why Women Are Overlooked (And How to Fix It) | 3 Ways Men Are Favored in the Workplace | Women Need Promotions, Not Just Advice | Mentor or Sponsor? How to Distinguish Roles | 4 Ways Women Leaders Improve Firms | CPA Firms Must ‘Man Up’ and Get Women On Board

Early In the Process

Ask her how you can help. The protégée might have some specific ideas in mind. Ask her how you can best help her to be successful and what she hopes to gain from your support.

Four Signs the Uberization of Accounting Has Already Begun

June 15, 2015

By Hitendra Patil

How disruption is creating a “No-Choice Future” for some firms.

By Hitendra Patil

The dictionary defines “uber” as a superlative example of its kind or class. The word Uber, derived from German language, means “over” or “beyond”.

You may have heard of the Uberization of the taxi cab hiring industry, or of room rentals via AirBnB, and other such services. That was made possible because of phenomenal leaps in Internet and mobile device technologies.

MORE for THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ACCOUNTANT: The One Word that Can Make Accountants Rich | Management Guru Chester Elton on Success | Savvy CPAS Focus on the Constants | 10 Things That Accountants Didn’t Need to Worry about 10 Years Ago | Three Amazing CPAs Who Want to Do Tax Returns for Free | Can Accounting Firms Lead With Work-Life Vision? | Why Accountants Could Be the Happiest People on Earth | More…

The companies, using new but still well-established technologies, are simply focusing on existing industries, simplifying them, and creating a faster, better, stronger, convenient and, more often than not, cheaper process.

Accounting’s fundamental business model has not changed in more than 100 years. And this very fact makes accounting indeed a perfect candidate for Uberization. Albeit, with some caveats. In fact, the stealth-Uberization of accounting is already happening in at least four ways: READ MORE →

10 Radical Steps into the Cloud

June 12, 2015

By Jody Padar

The bottom line is this: The specific technology you use doesn’t matter.

By Jody Padar
The Radical CPA

Once you decide on what cloud software you want to use, here are the 10 steps you need in order to make the transition:

Step 1: Adopt for your own practice. Choose an online software you’d like to try and input your financials. It’s the easiest move to make, and you’ll learn a lot during the process. You’re the most intimate with your own financials, so start there.

MORE ON RADICALISM: Six Competitive Advantages for The Radical CPA | Radical Tenet #1: Embrace the Cloud | Radical Customers Are On Their Way | The Market Is Moving Toward the Radicals | 5 Radical Transparencies; Are You Ready? | 4 Questions Radical Firms Must Face | Being Radical Is All About Your Customer | Being Radical Starts with Being the Change | Why Start Being Radical Now? | Going Radical: The 4 Tenets of a ‘New Firm’ | Why Should CPAs Be Radical? | The Roots of ‘Radical’ CPAs | The First 3 Questions I Should Have Asked Before Starting My Own Practice

Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

I currently run our financials in three sets of software, Xero, Sage One and QuickBooks Online. Why? Because I want to know what’s happening in all three products — and which one works best for me. I would also suggest playing with Bill.com. It’s how you’re going to learn best how to use it. READ MORE →

Ready or Not, Here Comes Windows 10

June 10, 2015

By Roman H. Kepczyk

Are you ready for the Windows 7 to 8.1 transition? Does 10 make you queasy?

By Roman H. Kepczyk
Quantum of Paperless

Okay, we all know that the Windows operating system is preferred to run computers by the primary vendors to the accounting profession. All decisions about operating systems have to be done carefully because they impact software and hardware decisions for at least thee to five years.

MORE ON TECH SPENDING: Back Up and Check Your Backup | Cloud Computing Can Cost Less | Laptop-Only Workers More Common | Scanners Allow Data Capture at the Source | In PC Monitors, More Is Better

20 New, Essential Keys for Today’s Partner Retirement Plans

June 10, 2015

By Marc Rosenberg

Contract Concept - Conceptual Close up of Eyeglasses and Ballpoint Pen on Top of Partnership Agreement Paper Placed on White Table.

A lot is changing fast. Here’s what your partner agreement needs today.

By Marc Rosenberg
Retirements & Buyouts

Let’s take a moment to simply summarize the many critical aspects of a well written partner retirement/buyout plan.

At first glance, those unfamiliar with how a proper plan should be written may find the 20-plus key provisions listed below to be daunting. But I would caution against such thinking. In my 20 years of consulting to CPA firms in this area, I have been asked to resolve messy disputes regarding every item listed below.

MORE ON RETIREMENT: Clawback and How to Handle It | Can Partners Compete After They Leave? | Disability Is Far More Complex Than Death | Even Partner Agreements Must Face Death | 6 Ways to Leave a CPA Firm (Retirement’s Just 1) | How to Juggle Tax Considerations for Partner Retirement Benefits | Two Ways to Retire, and One’s Not Pretty | How to Transition Clients from Retiring Partners | Compromise Is In Order for Some Goodwill Payouts | Why You’ll Get Less from Your Partners in a Buyout than You Might by Selling the Whole Firm | The Multiple of Compensation Method, Fully Explained

3 Ways to Open a Sponsorship Conversation

June 10, 2015

By Ida O. Abbott

And how to decide whether to spend the political capital.

By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

Most sponsorship occurs informally, without any structured or programmatic context. Informal sponsor-protégée relationships usually start in one of three ways.

The most common way is when a senior manager or partner

identifies someone as a star performer,
believes that she has what it takes to succeed and
wants to make that success happen.

The sponsor recognizes her talent and potential while they work together or when he observes her at work and is impressed by her ability. As the two work together their relationship grows.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: What Sponsors Need from Protégées | 3 Ways to Derail Sponsorships | Keep Close Relationships From Getting Too Close | 4 Reasons Women Hold Themselves Back | 4 Ways Sponsors Can Help Women Seek Power | Bias About Women with Families Lingers | Judged on Performance, Not Potential? Must Be a Woman | Gender Bias Still a Problem | Why Women Are Overlooked (And How to Fix It) | 3 Ways Men Are Favored in the Workplace | Women Need Promotions, Not Just Advice | Mentor or Sponsor? How to Distinguish Roles | 4 Ways Women Leaders Improve Firms | CPA Firms Must ‘Man Up’ and Get Women On Board

Monthly Archives: June 2015