Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

Courting a Client? Don’t Give Too Much Away for Free

What to say instead.

By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice

Question: I usually give away too much info at a meeting to get a new client.

MORE: How to Start Providing Family Office Services | Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better | Three Ways to Start an Accounting Practice | Free Consultation? Not Always | Referral Fee? Forget It | How Much Is Your Tax Practice Worth? | Merge in Lower-Priced Work without Losing Out
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We simply answer too many of their questions during the initial meeting. We don’t know how much info to give away so the possible new client will get hooked and not take the information and run to somebody else.
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PRO Member Exclusive

Try This Clean Slate Exercise

Spend a few minutes today to check your course.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

We all get caught up with what we do. Sometimes so much that we lose sight of what we are doing and the purpose.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: Offer Your Tax Clients Other Services | Can Your Tax Reviewers Answer These 10 Questions? | The Top 12 Mistakes in Tax Return Preparation | Six Types of Person: Which Are You? | Answer These Two Questions First | Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself | What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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Also, work happens. Many of us start out with lofty plans that go astray as the practice develops. Many things cause it – clients we get, availability or lack of availability of the right staff, how we choose to learn or not learn new things, and even where we locate.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

How to Start Providing Family Office Services

Including a sample engagement letter.

By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice

Question: Some of my clients are getting older and are becoming unable to handle their own financial affairs and I have been asked if I could assist them. What is involved and how do I charge for it?

MORE: Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better | Nine Tips for a Healthier Tax Season | Fifteen Strategies for First-Time Supervisors | Measure Knowledge Gaps (Then Close Them) | Should You Offer Financial Services? | Ready to Retire? Selling Your Practice Is No Strategy | 20 Things You Need for a Business Valuation
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Response: Many large firms provide “family office” services. This is a complete one-stop financial service that helps clients manage their money, pay their bills, collect their dividends and interest, and make sure insurance isn’t cancelled, mortgage, car lease or condo fee payments aren’t skipped, and tax payments paid on time.

Following is a sample engagement letter that I use with clients needing such services. Also, this letter provides a detailed description of what the service involves.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Offer Your Tax Clients Other Services

Here are 40 they should know about, plus a checklist for considering additional client services.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

The following listing can give you ideas of additional services clients might need.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: Can Your Tax Reviewers Answer These 10 Questions? | The Top 12 Mistakes in Tax Return Preparation | Six Types of Person: Which Are You? | Answer These Two Questions First | Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself | What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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This list is not complete, but it is a good start for you to start thinking about what types of additional services you can offer to your clients!

Estate planning
Inheritance advice and guidance
Succession planning
Personal financial planning

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better

Does your firm look “closed for business”?

By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice

Increase your fees 3-5 percent at a minimum – to offset your increased costs.

MORE: Nine Tips for a Healthier Tax Season | Every Accounting Firm Needs Quality Control | No One Listens to You? Change How You Talk | 47 Types of Business Valuation to Provide | Thirteen Things to Consider Before You Sell Your Practice
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Deliver your bill with the return.
Call clients before return is sent to explain and give a heads up for unexpected results.

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Can Your Tax Reviewers Answer These 10 Questions?

BONUS CHECKLIST: The answers!

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

The primary people who should review tax returns are trained tax department reviewers. However, often the bunching and compression of work shifts some of the review to higher level, non-tax personnel such as audit managers and partners who might not necessarily have the comprehensive training, background and experience to handle everything that might come up during the tax preparation process.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: The Top 12 Mistakes in Tax Return Preparation | Six Types of Person: Which Are You? | Answer These Two Questions First | Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself | What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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Additionally, in many firms, almost everyone on the staff prepares some returns. That lack of dedicated preparers with the trained skills places an added burden on the tax reviewers, making it important for them to have the range of experience needed to perform the review.

Following are 10 questions reviewers should be able to answer to qualify for their role.

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Nine Tips for a Healthier Tax Season

How to be at your best through April 15th.

By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice

Tax season can be a marathon. Everyone has their own tips and tricks, habits and techniques for staying sane and healthy. Here are 10 of mine:

MORE: Every Accounting Firm Needs Quality Control | Three Ways to Start an Accounting Practice | Free Consultation? Not Always | Referral Fee? Forget It | How Much Is Your Tax Practice Worth? | Merge in Lower-Priced Work without Losing Out
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Eat lunch out of your office.
Go for a 15-minute walk in middle of afternoon instead of eating a snack.

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

The Top 12 Mistakes in Tax Return Preparation

There’s good news, though: they’re preventable.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Here are the top 12 tax return preparation errors:

Number transposition and spelling errors. This includes income and deduction amounts and client Social Security numbers, addresses and ZIP codes. Spelling errors should also be avoided – they indicate a lack of attention to what you are doing.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: Six Types of Person: Which Are You? | Answer These Two Questions First | Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself | What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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Unreported 1099 income. Clients frequently leave out 1099s, but the preparer should make sure all 1099 items from last year are accounted for. Missing 1099s that were not final for last year should be accounted for.
Tax payments. Entering incorrect and unpaid amounts can be avoided by requiring the client to provide “proof” of the payments. Entering “incorrect” amounts provided by the client is a major cause of tax notices.

Edward Mendlowitz

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Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, ABV, PFS, is a partner at Withum, a forward-thinking, technology-driven advisory, and accounting firm. Ed has over 40 years of public accounting experience, is recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today, and is the CPA Trendlines "Practice Doctor."

His latest handbook is 77 Ways to Wow! The Handbook for Small-Business Advisory Services.

Click here to send Ed your toughest questions and comments.

Ed Mendlowitz in the CPA Trendlines Store:

More by Ed Mendlowitz

He is a licensed certified public accountant in the states of New Jersey and New York and is accredited by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in business valuation (ABV), certified in financial forensics (CFF) and as a personal financial specialist (PFS). Ed is also admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court and has testified as an expert witness in federal and state court regarding business valuations, and twice at the House Ways and Means Committee on tax reform, fairness, and reduction. A graduate of City College of New York, Ed earned his bachelor of business administration degree.

He is a member of the AICPA, the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants (NJSCPA) and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA). In addition, Ed was a founding partner of Mendlowitz Weitsen, LLP, CPAs, which merged with Withum in 2005. Currently, he serves on the NYSSCPA Estate Planning Committee and was chairman of the committee that planned the NYSSCPA’s 100th Anniversary. The author of 19 books, Ed has also written hundreds of articles for business and professional journals and newsletters.

He is the contributing editor to the Practitioners Publishing Company’s 706/709 Deskbook, and the AICPA’s Management of an Accounting Practice Handbook, Corporate Controller’s Handbook and Wiley’s Handbook on Budgeting and is on the editorial board of Bottom Line/Personal newsletter and the Journal of Accountancy Member Panel on Business Valuation. Appearing regularly on television news programs, Ed has also been quoted in numerous major newspapers and periodicals in the United States. He is the recipient of the Lawler Award for the best article published during 2001 in the Journal of Accountancy.

Ed is a frequent speaker to many professional and business groups, including the AICPA, NJSCPA, NYSSCPA, American Management Association, the National Committee for Monetary Reform, University of Medicine and Dentistry in N.J., and many more. For 11 years, he taught courses on financial analysis, corporate financial policy and theory, monetary and fiscal policy, and managerial accounting in the MBA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

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