Tax Pros Offer Advice for Small Businesses

Specific tips from your colleagues.

By CPA Trendlines Research

When the 2023 CPATrendlines Busy Season Barometer asked practitioners what advice they’d give small businesses, most of the responses boiled down to two essential messages:

  • Don’t be afraid … but be careful … and ready.
  • Hang on to your cash.

MORE: Busy Season Barometer Finds Many CPAs in Transition | More CPAs See Worsening Economy | Marchternity: The Solution Is Community | Why We All Hate the Tax Code | Tax Season 2023: Better or Worse?
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A Little Trepidation

Looking at these early responses to the survey – which is still open for responses – we are sensing a little trepidation over the near future.
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The Big Eight: Harsh Realities for Firms Today

Sorry. This page is no longer available. MORE from DOMENICK J. ESPOSITO:  The Coming Battle below The Big Four  |  Seizing the $10 Trillion Opportunity | Learning to ‘Run with the Big Dogs’ | The CPA Success Formula: Ties that Bind  |  8 Steps to … Continued

Accountants See Economy Improving… But Mainly for Themselves

Accountants bullish on their firms. Not so much on clients. And outright negative on the U.S. Source: CPA Trendlines
Accountants bullish on their firms. Not so much on clients. And outright negative on the U.S. Source: CPA Trendlines

Not so much for their clients. And they’re negative on the U.S.

By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines

If anyone has their finger on the pulse of the American economy, it’s America’s CPAs. They’re out there in the trenches of economic activity. They know what’s happening in their nook of the nation. They feel the optimism or pessimism of their clients, the people who make the economy work.

MORE on TAX SEASON for PRO MEMBERS:  Tax Season 2016: Turning I.D. Theft from a Problem into an Opportunity  |   Accountants Speak Out on Politics and the Economy  | Lessons Learned from a Bad Busy Season  |  3 Ways to Save Time During Busy Season  |  Most Tax Professionals Call 2016 Busy Season Much Improved over Last Year | Stress Less This Tax Season  |  Is Tax Season the New Fraud Season?  |  5 Tax Season Motivation Tips  |  Recognize Your Tax Season Resources  |  Tax Season 2016: IRS in Crisis  |  Eliminate Tax Season Excuses  |  Record Pre-Season Hiring Surge: Ready for Biggest Tax Season Ever?  |  16 Qualities of a Good Tax Season Client

And tax season is when CPAs and tax preparers receive an influx of information on how their clients are doing. Some of that information pops up in the CPA Trendlines 2016 Busy Season Survey. And the news is good… well, pretty good. Well, mostly. READ MORE →

The Five Treacherous Factors Hobbling Today’s CPA Firm

2016-ROUNDTABLE-OUTLOOK-FOR-ROSENBERG-MAP-COMMENTARY-VF-240x219Crumbling firm infrastructures, succession, the economy, staffing shortages, and shake-outs.

By CPA Trendlines
Annual MAP Survey

The new Rosenberg MAP Survey reveals a few significant things about the state of the accounting business—that growth and profit-per-partner are growing at a negligible rate and that intangible people issues are becoming painfully tangible, for example. But some more subtle truths emerge in the gimlet-eyed observations of those who advise CPA firms.

More on the  2016 Outlook & Forecast: CPA Firm Growth Rates Hit a Wall  |  The Five Treacherous Factors Hobbling Today’s CPA Firm  |  Sam Allred: Change Agents Needed  |  Tamera Loerzl on Growth, Succession Plans Critical for Firms  |  Allan Koltin on Talent Wars Go from White Gloves to Boxing Gloves  |  Get the full report: The Rosenberg Map Survey

These truths are not self-evident. But with a little analysis, five trends emerge vividly – trends impacting CPA firms large, small, and middling. So it’s worth having a look:

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Soloists Lag Multi-Owner Firms in Economic Confidence

Multi-partner firms show bullish signs. Soloists turn bearish on the U.S. economy.

CPA Trendlines Research

z-busy solos vs other in otlookCPAs aren’t economists, but they do know numbers, and they have their fingers on the pulse of the flow of money in their local areas. They know how their own businesses and their clients’ businesses are doing, and they have at least an inkling of the causes. Remembering 2014 and living through the 2015 busy season, they are well placed to prognosticate on financial flows over the next 12 months.

CPA Trendlines survey research detects a certain optimism, but it seems to be a bit more cautious among solo practitioners. READ MORE →

2014 Roundtable: Re-Recruiting Top Talent without Regard to ‘Parity’

2014 Top Trends logo vF
Click for the full Rosenberg MAP Survey

What to do when your best rainmakers are at the front of the retirement line.

See the complete 2014 Roundtable

By Sam Allred
Upstream Academy

Analysis

Leaders of firms are optimistic as they begin to see the firm dials move in positive directions.

Allred
Allred

In most markets, there are positive signs that the recession is beginning to lift: clients making more money, clients asking for more projects/services and a pipeline fuller than this time last year.

On the people side, the exodus has once again started. Most firms have reported they have lost key partner-track people to industry jobs in the past six months. BD is a top-drawer issue with all firms.

The stark realization that the firm’s best rainmakers are at the front of the retirement line has caused firms to get very serious about developing future rainmakers. More and more firms are taking a team approach to landing significant new clients and engagements. Many firms are getting better with the partner goal process and they are excited about the results that come from doing it right. READ MORE →

2014 Roundtable: No Shortcuts to Sustainable Growth

2014 Top Trends logo vF
Click for the full Rosenberg MAP Survey

Firms come to understand success must be organized and leader-driven.

See the complete 2014 Roundtable

By Gale Crosley
Crosley Co.

Analysis

Firms are realizing that growth is a more sophisticated game, and we are never going back to the “hang out your shingle” days. Succession issues are playing a major part in motivating firms to take a hard look at how they are going to grapple with sustainable growth.

When the business world was somewhat predictable, growth could be counted on. But there are too many complexities today to count on the past as a predictor of the future. Globalization, social media, innovation, regulation, competition — these are just some of the dynamics at play. The way business was generated by our seasoned partners will be quite different from our future leaders. This awareness is becoming more acute as sluggish economic conditions continue. READ MORE →