Monthly Archives: March 2015

Tax Pros Start to Make Up for Lost Ground in Pace of 2015 E-Filing

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IRS processing nearly 98 percent of returns received.

Tax professionals e-filed more than 38 million returns through March 13, lagging 3.4 percent from the same time in 2014. Yet, that’s an improvement from last week’s 4 percent deficit.

RELATED: Have Fun This Tax Season! | Tax Preparation Fees: The National Averages [INFOGRAPHIC] | IRS Form 3115: a Sin and a Travesty | How to Get Paid Faster This Tax Season | Accountants See Solid Business Gains in 2015 | As Market Share Slips Away, Accountants Look Beyond the 1040 | IRS Emerges as Major Tax Season Competitor | Tax Pros Losing Market Share to Self-Filers

Last week, CPA Trendlines reported that the industry’s 33.4 million e-filings accounted for 53.6 percent of all the e-filed returns, compared with 56 percent in 2014. READ MORE →

‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word

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Don’t like selling? Call it something else.

Martin Bissett
Martin Bissett

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

Being a successful person according to your own measurement of that, and your own goals and your own standards, is different for everyone.

If you’re comfortable with yourself, it’s very likely that others will be too. If you understand the value that you offer (how you can improve a client’s situation to move them closer toward their personal and professional aspirations), you’re likely to be able to convey that value in front of a prospect.

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MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

That’s a huge part of successful business development that is not often talked about.

READ MORE →

15 Items for Your ‘Business Bucket List’

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A vintage wooden bucket with metal ring supports and a handle and a aged paper attached to the front that reads "bucket list"If you don’t dream big for your business, who will?

By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

Do you have a business bucket list?

Did you see the movie “The Bucket List”? Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson played men who didn’t have too long to live. They each wrote up a bucket list, a list of things they wanted to do or accomplish before they kicked the bucket (as we say in the South).

Why not apply the concept to your business? You can do this whether you have your own business or a job, although you have a bit more control when you’re the boss. What do you want to do before you retire or sell your business?

Here are 15 ideas: READ MORE →

Going Radical: The 4 Tenets of a ‘New Firm’

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Happy young businessman jumping in tornadoThere are 4 keys, but they come down to meeting needs.

By Jody Padar
The Radical CPA

People often ask me: What makes a firm a “New Firm?” There are four fundamental tenets.

MORE ON RADICALISM: Why Should CPAs Be Radical? | The Roots of ‘Radical’ CPAs | The First 3 Questions I Should Have Asked Before Starting My Own Practice

These four tenets, although adopted dif­ferently within each firm, compromise a new set of values that most of the “movement” firms embrace. Ready? Here we go:
READ MORE →

When ‘Quick and Easy’ Tax Season Research Isn’t

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Businessman is dialing phone for adviceFour reasons not to let one question stop a tax return in its tracks.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

I keep a few of the one-volume tax guides in my office so I could look up a quick answer when I need to. Recently a golf buddy emailed me a question that I thought I could answer quickly. He wanted to know that if he was in the “zero” percent capital gains tax bracket, did that apply to an unlimited amount of capital gains? Sounds like a simple question.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: 5 Personal Touches for Tax Season | Consistency Simplifies Tax Season | 11 Clear Client Instructions to Make Your Tax Season Easier | 3 Ways to Build a Tax Season Team | Have Fun This Tax Season | How to Get Paid Faster This Tax Season

Well I looked it up online and then in three one-volume tax guides. Only one source had thorough coverage of the issue. I ended up spending an hour on this “simple” question including my emailed response. Nothing is simple anymore.  READ MORE →

You Want Goodwill Payments? Give Proper Retirement Notice

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Older man and younger man having meeting at deskNo transition – no goodwill.

By Marc Rosenberg
Retirements & Buyouts

If there is one takeaway in retirement planning, it would be this: “No transition – no goodwill.” Here’s what I mean.

MORE ON RETIREMENT: Retirement Plan Funding? What Funding? | Vesting Can Cover Part-Timers, Too | Compromise Is In Order for Some Goodwill Payouts | When Retiring Partners Take a Specialty With Them | If Clients Leave, Do You Reduce Retirement Benefits? | Three Ways to Calculate Goodwill Payable in Partner Buyouts, None of Them Great | Eat What You Kill? Then Maybe ‘Book of Business’ Is for You | The Ins and Outs of AAV for Goodwill | 5 Points to Consider When Paying Out Goodwill | Clients Leaving? Time to Reduce Retirement Benefits | 4 Ways to Decide How to Pay Out Capital | Partners May Balk at Guaranteeing Retirement Obligations

The best of times and the worst of times…

With apologies to Charles Dickens, who famously opened his classic “A Tale of Two Cities” with the above, here are two real experiences I had regarding transition, one of which was the best example of retiring partner transition I’ve ever seen and one the worst.

READ MORE →

IT Hardware Gets Even More Complex (Great!)

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Donny C Shimamoto, CPA CITP IntrapriseTechKnowlogies
Shimamoto

Some questions for both accountants and IT.

By Donny C. Shimamoto
IntrapriseTechKnowlogies

Budget season is a good time for accountants and IT wonks to get together for a heart-to-heart about hardware. Computers and peripherals aren’t like the hardware of yore. They’re omnipresent in the organization. They have strings attached. They have special issues in obsolescence. Sometimes it’s hard to draw a line between hardware and software.

RELATED: How Accounting Geeks and Techie Nerds Can Play Nicely Together

Here is a suggested a series of questions that accountants and IT wonks should address as they make budget decisions. Here are a few of the ones that relate to hardware: READ MORE →

Mentor or Sponsor? How to Distinguish Roles

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Business partners smiling in an urban settingPlus 18 ways to help.

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

The practice of mentorship is well known and well established in today’s workplace. A mentor is someone who helps a more junior person learn, develop and achieve her professional goals.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: Is Sponsorship Right for Your Firm? | And Now, a Few Words About Sex (and 14 Tips) | Make Flexible Scheduling Work for Everyone | Your Protégée Needs Your Feedback |  9 Ways to Promote Your Protégée to Others | 8 Ways to Help Your Protégée Focus on Career Opportunities | How to Start an Effective Sponsorship … and Follow Through | 3 Ways to Initiate Informal Sponsorship | 3 Roadblocks to Women and Men Working Together Well

Mentoring is the process by which the mentor and mentee work together to identify and help the mentee move toward those goals. But sponsorship is intended specifically to promote career advancement. READ MORE →