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Today's Features
Tax & Accounting Headcounts Hit Record High
Records set in several segments.
By Beth Bellor
With year-end employment figures in, it remains a great time to be an accountant.
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By the Numbers
In this report, CPA Trendlines highlights:
- Current hiring trends in each of the bookkeeping, payroll, tax and CPA segments of the industry (all data seasonally adjusted)
- Average hourly wages for key segments
- Typical hours worked per week
- Trends concerning women in the accounting workforce
Why Are CEOs So Confused?
Be a little of a mind reader.
By Andrew Hunzicker
Cannabizcpa.pro
Why are CEOs so confused about what they want from their bookkeeper, accountant, tax CPA or CFO?
MORE: Everything You Wanted to Know about Dispensary Accounting but Were Afraid to Ask | 5 Do’s and Don’ts for Cannabis CPA Marketing | Cannabis: THC vs. CBD Critical Differences | 4 Best Things About Being a ‘Dope’ Accountant | 5 Biggest Mistakes Cannabis CEOS Make | Five Secrets to Launching Your Own Cannabis Accounting Firm | Five Reasons Accountants Should Serve Cannabis Clients | CPA Andrew Hunzicker Creates Course in Cannabis Accounting
Here’s what they tell me they want:
- They want me to work “full time”
- They want me to track my time to “prove” 40-50 hours a week
- They want me to work on site
5 Reasons to Save Money for a 5G Phone
Speed goes up, prices come down.
By Rick Richardson
The majority of phones sold today are enabled for 4G connectivity, but if you’re looking to get yourself a new phone with the New Year, you would be wise to bide your time and get yourself a 5G phone.
MORE TECH THIS WEEK: The Top 5 Technologies for the Next Decade | Make Your Gadgets Much Harder to Find and Steal | When Should Your Child Get a Smartphone? | Tim Berners-Lee Launches Plan to Fix the Web
Here are five of the best reasons why:
1. 5G networks are better than ever and keep improving. When launched, 5G was limited to a few of the busiest areas of the biggest cities. But now, 5G is present in many more locations than before and will soon spread further.
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Can You Really Grow Without Adding Clients?
Combining new sales with upsells is a more reliable strategy.
By Ty Hendrickson, CPA
“Grow your practice without having to add any new clients!”
I seriously gasped when I saw this headline recently. I thought to myself, “Really? What kind of advice is this?!” I had to read this story to find out just what the author was suggesting and how this could be a good long-term strategy for anyone.
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As I read through the article, I was secretly hoping to learn some magic bullet or new idea that would make growth easier on so many people who do not like sales. However, as I continued to read, I became more and more anxious about the strategy that was suggested.
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How to Set a Profitable Price Every Time
The right clients will be willing to pay fair prices.
By Gabrielle Fontaine
AddviserPlus
Whenever in negotiations with a potential client, do you know when to walk away, or do you feel forced to lower your price just to win the sale?
MORE on PRICING: 4 Ways to Bill Clients | Timesheets: The Nuclear Option | Joey Havens on Advanced Pricing | I Lost a Client to an Accounting Firm with Cheaper Fees | August Aquila: What Marketers Need to Know about Pricing | Value Pricers Ignore Half the Pricing Puzzle | Where Marketers Fit in the Pricing Process | The Value-Pricing Con Job | Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services
Especially when attempting to use flat-fee pricing, many accounting professionals get caught up in doing anything to win new clients. That's a mistake.
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Why You Need an Independent Security Review
Then follow up every few years.
By Roman H. Kepczyk
Quantum of Paperless
Going “paperless” means that all firm files and client data will be digitally stored on the firm’s network, which is almost always accessible to firm personnel via internal workstations and remotely via the internet. The firm has a fiduciary responsibility to protect this data from anyone not specifically authorized to view it.
MORE: ‘Learning Culture’ Requires Standardized Processes | Centralize Contact Administration | How Digital A/P Processing Boosts Productivity | How an ‘Owner’s Drawer’ Boosts Security | The Top Portable Monitors for Auditors | Why Scanning Procedures Matter
Proper security is VERY difficult for any internal network administrator to guarantee as few have the experience and have participated in ongoing training to implement security settings optimally the first time. Therefore, all “one-shot” implementations of firewalls, wireless routers, virtual private networks and other security settings should be outsourced to an organization that has experienced personnel dedicated to security.
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What Big Data Means to Small Firms
Focus on the hard trends, not the things you can’t predict.
By Donny C. Shimamoto
Strategic Technology Decisions
Emerging technologies will disrupt many lower-level accounting jobs, but overall they will be a boon to the accounting profession. To be able to adopt these emerging technologies and ensure that value is gained from their proper use, accountants must begin upskilling now.
MORE: Accountants: Unleash Your Secret Superpower | Ready for Non-CPA CPA Firms? | Accounting Services Aren’t What You Think They Are | Learning from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma | Focus on Cyber Risk, Not Just Security | Making IT Matter to Accountants
Accountants must develop additional competencies to ensure the success of projects associated with implementing emerging technologies and enable them to be value-added advisors to their organizations and clients.
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One Can’t-Skip Touch for Tax Season
Plus 4 more ideas.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
Occasionally accountants lose touch with their clients, especially during tax season. Part of this is because of the crush of work, which is compressed into a pretty short period.
MORE: 5 Steps for Tax Season Success | Help Tax Clients Help You | 3 Steps to Tax Season Happiness | 12 Ways to Have More Fun This Tax Season | Bill with the Tax Return, Get Paid Faster
We sometimes lose sight that we are working on something the clients consider one of the most important things in their lives at that moment.
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How Does Your Firm Leverage Its Talent?
Five questions you can't say "No" to.
By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals
With Millennials representing 35 percent of today’s workforce, 50 percent in the next couple of years and 75 percent by 2030, the career mindset will shift even more toward moving onward and upward – and out.
MORE: Retention Starts with the Hiring Interview | How Motivation Is Like Bathing | Be a Talent Magnet | Make CRAP a Badge of Honor | The Job Interview: A Make or Break Proposition | 10 Elements to Balancing Shareholders’ Needs | A Leader’s Guide to Ending Entitlement
Unless you are a business owner, the days of 40-year employees have disappeared.
Reward Partners for Performing Like Partners
Partnership is no time to coast.
By Marc Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Practice Management Library
Any of you who started out as sole practitioners surely remember that it was you – no one else – who made your firm successful. You brought in the business. You did top-notch work and delivered it on time. You nurtured and grew your client relationships so they came back asking for more. When you hired staff, you who were responsible for keeping them busy and training them how to do the work.
MORE: Merging in Sellers: What You Need to Know | 8 Ways Comp Systems Get Partners to Do What the Firm Needs | Buyers Name 20 Big Merger Turnoffs | Why Governing by Partner Ownership Is Bound to Fail
If you took days off from these activities, guess what? No one did it for you and your firm suffered as a result.
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2020 Outlook: Business Development Goes Borderless
Be ready to try new things faster.
By Jennifer Wilson
The traditional business model is under attack in so many ways including terrifically short staffing, which is leading to record profits for many firms, but also the cause of burnout and a growing sense of hopelessness and turnover, too. Leaders are being forced to rethink traditional staffing models and are realizing many of the jobs inside their firms do not require accounting graduates or CPA candidates to do them.
MORE: 2020 Outlook: Data Import on the Rise | 2020 Outlook: Becoming the Most Valuable Advisor | Top Three Tips for 2020 Success | 2020 Outlook: Where Do You Want to Be? | 2020 Outlook: Dicey Disruptions | 2020 Outlook: Upstream Mergers | 2020 Outlook: Staffing Gets Creative
Firms are simply overpaying for those roles today. This is leading to the exploration of non-CPA hires, and firms embracing outsourcing and offshoring options, especially for lower-level leveraged positions.
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Keeping the Right People on the Bus
Not everyone will work out, and that's OK.
By Jody Grunden
There’s a common misnomer when it comes to retention and keeping people on the team. Retention doesn’t mean keeping every single person on your team forever.
MORE: 10 Interview Questions for Unlocking True Potential | The Hidden Cost of Running a Distributed Company | How to Develop Your Leadership Team | 4 Ways to Bill Clients | Automation and the Future of Accounting | The Only Three Metrics You Need to Measure Staffers
Not only do you want to get the right people on the bus, but you also want to get those people into the right seats. We want Summit CPA to be a great place to work, and we want great people to be working here. However, we realize it may not be the right place for every person.
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The 4 Marketing Disciplines
How to deploy them as a framework for CPA firm practice development.
By Marc Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Practice Management Library
All marketing activities fall into one of four categories:
- Protect and grow revenue from existing clients.
- Identify and nurture referral sources.
- Focus on a well-defined group of prospects; get new clients.
- Support activities that complement those above.
We call these the Four Disciplines. Auditors follow certain steps of a predetermined program to perform an audit. It takes discipline to stay the course and execute the audit process.
MORE: 15 Powerful Niche Marketing Practices | 19 Takeaways from the History of CPA Firm Practice Development | Why You Have to Kill the Old Paradigms | Are You Ready for the Great Disruption?
Marketing is no different. It requires discipline to engage in all four categories, execute the action steps continuously and avoid taking shortcuts or skipping steps altogether.
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