Marchternity: The Solution Is Community

Before another grueling tax season, find your tribe.

More on Marchternity:
Just Say ‘No,’ by Seth Fineberg

By Liz Farr

The last several years have been rough on accountants, to say the least.

I left public accounting at the end of 2017, so I have been spared the never-ending chaos of the last five years, starting with the last-minute sweeping changes of the TCJA, and continuing on through the pandemic. However, thanks to social media groups like #TaxTwitter and Accounting Firm Influencers on Facebook, I’ve had an idea of the misery, confusion, exhaustion, and sheer frustration of tax pros trying to maintain sanity in the face of complete insanity.

MORE LIZ FARR: Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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In 2020, Adam Markowitz, a razor-sharp EA and active member of the #TaxTwitter community, coined the term Marchternity, for the month of the 2020 tax season that never seemed to end. Ultimately, thanks to the mad coding skills of Chris Hervochon, the Marchternity Bot was born, providing “Daily updates on what day of Marchternity it is because March 2020 will never end.”

Posted on February 6, 2023

Liz Farr

About the Author

Liz Farr, CPA, is a special contributor to CPA Trendlines, bringing an insider's clear-eyed view of the tax and accounting business and a passion for advancing the profession.

She's the host of the hit CPA Trendlines podcast series "The Disruptors," available everywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

As founder and proprietor of Farr Communications, she is the secret weapon that her clients use to get their messages out. She has written blog posts, web content, articles, white papers, case studies and books for accountants and accounting tech companies. Her specialty is ghostwriting for coaches and consultants who want to move accountants into the future. She can bridge the gap between the dream these visionaries have for the future and the mindset and reality that today’s accountants are living in.

Five of her past and current clients have been named to Accounting Today’s annual list of 100 most influential in accounting. She has written under her name for the Journal of Accountancy, Intuit’s Firm of the Future blog and AccountingWEB. She has also appeared in Forbes, CFO.com, and Accounting Today.

Farr has a broad educational background, studying biochemistry at the University of Munster, Germany, and obtained her bachelor's degree as a double major in biochemistry and German at the University of New Mexico. She also studied German, Spanish, computer science and linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and continued her studies in linguistics at the University of Washington. She earned her master's degree in accounting in 2004 from the Robert O. Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico, qualifying as a licensed CPA in 2005.

Professionally, Liz began as a tax preparer at H&R Block before working at several local CPA firms in the Albuquerque, N.M. area. At her last assignment as a tax manager, she helped a team develop streamlined processes for getting tax returns out faster and more accurately.

After spending 15 years working as an accountant in the Albuquerque, N.M., area, she traded in her ten-key for a pen and has been writing full time since 2018.

She can be contacted at Farr Communications.

When she’s not writing or studying the accounting business, she’s hiking or skiing in the mountains of New Mexico.

Click here for more by Liz Farr

More on Marchternity: Just Say ‘No,’ by Seth Fineberg

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More on Marchternity:
Just Say ‘No,’ by Seth Fineberg