How to Start (or Re-Start) Your Own Accounting Firm

Checklist: 18 Steps to Success.

By Brannon Poe

Are you exploring the idea of starting your own CPA firm? Or perhaps you are ready to re-invent the one you have? Either way, we’ve gathered some of the key focus areas to help you create your plans for the future.

More by Brannon Poe: Five Keys to Successfully Selling a CPA Firm  |  10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying an Accounting Practice  |  Five Key Decisions for Your Exit Strategy  |  How to Transfer a Boomer-Owned CPA Practice to a Millennial |

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1. Should you start your own CPA firm? This is a great place to start, don’t you think? Not everyone is cut out to own their own business. Starting a CPA firm takes a variety of different skills and talents.

In the meantime, here’s a short list of what’s needed to thrive: READ MORE →

Five Keys to Successfully Selling a CPA Firm

No.1: Timing, Timing, Timing.

By Brannon Poe

Selling an accounting practice can be a hard decision, and an emotional one. Having a clear vision of what success looks like is a great place to start.

More Brannon Poe: 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying an Accounting Practice  |. Five Key Decisions for Your Exit Strategy  |. How to Transfer a Boomer-Owned CPA Practice to a Millennial

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

One of the first tasks of developing any strategy is to have a clear definition of what success looks like. Successfully selling a CPA firm is no different.

There are five key components in a successful deal: READ MORE →

Five Key Decisions for Your Exit Strategy

The big issues owners would rather ignore – until it’s too late.

By Brannon Poe

We always hear about the lack of succession planning for CPA practice owners, but we find that a few key planning pieces can make a huge difference.

In fact, we get a lot of calls from owners who are three to five years away from selling. The key issues really don’t take a tremendous amount of time or complex planning. Most of the difficult planning issues are the ones that only owners can answer anyway. A little guidance coupled with common sense will generally pave the way to a smooth succession.

Here are five key areas of succession planning that we most commonly encounter: READ MORE →

How to Transfer a Boomer-Owned CPA Practice to a Millennial

Riding the big gray wave.

By Brannon Poe

The demographic tsunami actually might surprise you. According to Pew Research, Millennials are projected to soon overtake Baby Boomers as the largest generation. That’s right, they will be the biggest generation in the U.S. and they are almost there.

  • Boomers – Born from 1946 to 1964 – 74 million
  • Millennials – Born from 1982 to 2002 – 71 million

Another very important consideration is the declining number of CPAs in the profession. The total number of first-time licensed CPAs has declined about 20 percent since the 1990s.

It appears that the “greying of the profession” may be more of a function of the number of people who have chosen the profession and those that have decided to get out of public practice altogether.

READ MORE →