Are Bad Clients Driving You Crazy?

Angry businessman on the phone16 ways to tweak your compensation systems to get and keep the right clients.

If your partners are putting up a fight to keep clients who should be let go, take a look at your compensation system. It’s not just about billable hours.

August Aquila, Creating the Effective Partnership, suggests 16 tweaks to your firm’s compensation system. While the list is not exhaustive, it does provide criteria that firms can consider beyond revenue. READ MORE →

SURVEY RESULTS: The Billion-Dollar Business Hidden in Accounting

Screen Shot 2014-02-17 at 8.10.54 PMOne-third of U.S. accountants work at home, on their own, moonlighting. Here are their biggest issues and best tips… 

Get more when you join the survey, get the results.

By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines

If you’re reading this at home, or on your own time, you’re not alone. Today more than one-third of accountants are already moonlighting in “side” practices or home offices – especially during busy season, according to a CPA Trendlines survey of almost 800 accountants.

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CPAs Salute the People Who Shaped Their Lives

Today’s best career advice: join the survey; get the answers.

by Rick Telberg

At 20 years old, the world was a blank canvas with vast opportunities for Sal Inserra. He thought he knew exactly what he wanted in life.

“Until,” he once told me, “I was set straight.”

Like many CPAs, Sal owes much of his career and success to a few key mentors who guided him early on.

Today — as the kids head back to school and college, and as the rest of us wind up our summers and look ahead to the fall — it may be a good time to salute the mentors who help steward a great profession to the next generation. READ MORE →

18 Pieces of Today’s Best Job Advice

Get certified. Apply early and often.  Join the survey; get the results.

By Rick Telberg

I’m looking over the early responses to our new CPA Careers survey and one stands out for its practicality and wisdom. This from a veteran senior finance manager at a Fortune 1000 company is, I think, 18 pieces of the best advice I’ve ever heard.

1. For the accountant who is not a CPA yet: If you’re not  a CPA already, make it a goal.

2. If you need hours, apply to every accounting firm that you could drive to or are willing to move close to.

3. Apply beginning in mid-April, after busy season, when accounting firms clean house. READ MORE →

Competitive Economy Weighs on Work-Life Balance

CPAs share some of their best time-management tips. How hard are YOU working?

by Rick Telberg

With the days of summer rapidly dwindling, accountants and finance managers across the nation are grabbing their last vacation days. But it’s not always easy.

Many finance and accounting professionals are working harder than ever, doing more with less as their organizations cut back with the recession. Balancing life and work becomes all the more difficult and all the more important. So we’ve been asking readers for their best time-management tips for a balanced life.

Here are nine of the best we’ve received so far: READ MORE →

CPA Career Advice Changes with Age

“Get along with people” is the wisdom of age. But apparently it takes a lifetime to learn that. Retired CPAs are virtually unanimous: The ability to relate to people, get along and communicate are the most important ingredients to a … Continued

11 Questions You Should Be Asking

A few easy-to-ask, feel-good questions can get a client or prospect comfortable and talking. It’s up to you to know how to listen and how to find ways to help.

From Bob Burg,
Author, “Endless Referrals.” 

1. How did you get your start in the “widget” business?

2. What do you enjoy most about what you do?

3. What separates your company from your competition?

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