It’s called failure to implement. Ouch.
By Martin Bissett
FREE! Practice Growth Checklist
Dealing with mistresses and mister-esses.
By Anthony Glomski and Russ Alan Prince
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The IRS teases new update on IRA beneficiary distribution rules.
By Seymour Goldberg, CPA, MBA (Taxation), JD
Special for CPA Trendlines
Many practitioners are waiting for the Department of the Treasury to issue proposed regulations under the Secure Act that cover the required minimum distribution rules that apply to IRA beneficiaries commencing in 2021.
MORE in TAX and PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING: How a Few of the Wealthiest Skate Around the IRS | 173% Increase in IRS Correspondence Backlog | How to Attract the Super-Rich | How Small Firms Find New Growth as Family Offices | 12 Ways to Stress Less This Busy Season | Don’t Fire That Staffer on May 18!
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The distribution rules regarding an IRA owner are not a big deal, but the distribution rules regarding an IRA beneficiary or an IRA trust are a big deal.
With Steven Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals: Thriving in Disruption
Management finance expert Gary Cokins says there’s nothing wrong with activity-based costing. Except that you’re probably doing it all wrong.
MORE GARY COKINS: The Myths of Performance Management
MORE STEVEN SACKS: Effective Networking is an Art | Business Development Activities Shouldn’t Be a Chore | CPA’s Best Role: Leveraging Knowledge, Not Just Process | Avoid Last-Minute Deal Making | Five Common Negotiating Mistakes | The Myths of Performance Management | Business Is About Relationships | Reaching for Authenticity in Client Service |
The problem is, Cokins says, it’s convenient for the accountants to allocate the overhead based on allocation factors, like labor hours, number of units produced in a manufacturer, headcount, number of employees, and square feet, even though none of them reflect the unique consumption relationship between how the outputs products and services consumed.
It’s not too early to plan for next season.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
Marketing takes many forms. Further, many accountants are not trained in marketing. I also know that while most CPAs want more business, they are too busy with what they have to be actively seeking new business. Additionally, marketing can be external, internal or retentive.
MORE: Don’t Fire That Staffer on May 18! | What To Do with a Lousy Client? | But I AM Managing! | How to Run a Practice in 90 Pages | How Improv Can Help Accountants | Four Tips for New Partners | An Alternative to Pro Bono | 14 Better Uses for Timesheet Data
External is where new clients are solicited. That takes effort, ingenuity, time and maybe even some money.
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Refunds larger overall, but down for direct deposit.
By Beth Bellor
Less than a month to go in busy season 2021! Can I get a hallelujah?
MORE: Tax Pros Hold Their Ground | Pros Tackle 49% of E-filed Returns | Survey: Tax Season Swings into the Red | Another Tax Season from Hell? | Pros Process 44% of Tax E-filings | Tax Professionals Report Tough Slogging | Busy Season 2021 Gets Off to Weak Start
For the period ending April 9, the latest data available, this was the week in both 2021 and 2020 that individual income tax returns surpassed 100 million. At 100.9 million, the figure was down 3 percent from last year, when filing had gone on for 18 days longer and taxpayers still had three more months to turn things in.
New algorithm could penalize older, slower sites.
By Sandi Leyva, CPA
I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to go through tax season without any interruptions, especially about marketing. But Google doesn’t see it that way, and we have a significant search algorithm update hitting us in May 2021. If firms aren’t ready, they could see their search rankings, and correspondingly, prospects and future clients from website traffic, go way down.
MORE ON SMALL-FIRM GROWTH STRATEGIES: Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have | 12 Ways to Stress Less This Busy Season | Six Ways to Make Your Own History During Women’s History Month | PPP Client Fraud: How Much Risk Is Too Much? | 3 Ways to Opt Out of Any Downturn | How to Lead in a Crisis
While Google updates its search ranking algorithm on a daily basis, it generally announces big changes ahead of time. Google’s May 2021 update will focus on “page experience,” which includes three metrics called Core Vitals as well as four additional page experience signals.
No one knows the exact algorithm that Google uses to rank web pages in search results. Experts say there are over 200 ranking factors to consider. The latest update is all about providing a better mobile experience for the user.
Here’s what all that means in detail. READ MORE →
“Just about every time I called or emailed a client, they would think of more work for me.”
By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms
It’s far less expensive to keep your existing clients happy than it is to find new clients, especially because the trust factor between people continues to decline year after year. You might want to think about redirecting a portion of your marketing attention on your existing client base instead of networking for new clients. (And by the way, sending clients an organizer is not marketing!)
MORE ON SMALL-FIRM GROWTH STRATEGIES: 12 Ways to Stress Less This Busy Season | Six Ways to Make Your Own History During Women’s History Month | PPP Client Fraud: How Much Risk Is Too Much? | 3 Ways to Opt Out of Any Downturn | How to Lead in a Crisis
Here are some tips to mine the pot of gold that lies right before you: your current clients who already trust you and are eager to hear about new solutions that will ease their pain and problems.
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New records set in hourly earnings.
By Beth Bellor
Across the tax and accounting industry, almost all the jobs relinquished by men in the Coronavirus layoffs have been regained by men. The jobs given up by women, on the other hand, are still largely vacant.
MORE ON JOBS: Comeback Stalls as Layoffs Hit 1,500 in Accounting | Tax & Accounting Regains 3,800 Jobs | Accounting Jobs Recovery Slows | Tax & Accounting Firms Rehire Two-Thirds of Pre-COVID Workforce | Tax & Accounting Firms Rehire Two-Thirds of Pre-COVID Workforce
Overall, the tax, accounting, tax prep, payroll, and bookkeeping sectors employed 1.02 million full-time equivalents in March 2020, before 70,000 layoffs hit in April. So far, the industry has re-filled all but 17,600 positions.
10 best practices.
By Marc Rosenberg
The Role of the Managing Partner
I have compared a “true” managing partner to an administrative partner. Both are important positions. Both share many common duties and expectations. But true managing partners are more valuable because they function like corporate CEOs and thus make a bigger impact on the firm’s overall performance than admin partners.
MORE: The 9 Biggest Merger Pitfalls | The Managing Partner’s Role in Mergers | Five Ways to Evaluate Partners | Manage Partners with Goal Setting | Overarching Authority That Managing Partners Must Have
These three duties differentiate true managing partners from admin partners. True managing partners
Do they have these four attributes?
By Anthony Zecca
As the leader of the firm, as important as it is to complete a comprehensive assessment of your leadership team, it is equally if not more critical to assess your own leadership. What are the key leadership attributes that reflect great Edge leadership?
MORE: Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Do You Lead or Just Manage? | Managing Vs. Leading | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | 6 Leadership Challenges Through COVID and Beyond | Edge Leaders Share 7 Strengths | Leadership Must Drive Culture | Leading from the Edge
How can you get a meaningful and comprehensive assessment of how well you are doing as the leader of the firm? The trap to avoid is to just listen to yourself and your own self-assessment. To really understand how well you are performing, you need multiple checkpoints.
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