Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

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.

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Every Accounting Firm Needs Quality Control

The lowest cost always comes when the person first performing the service does it correctly.

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

Question: I want to improve my firm’s review and quality control. Do you have any suggestions?

Response: This is a recurring issue for most firms. Every CPA practice needs quality control. The issue is whether a dedicated quality control (“QC”) person is needed and, if not, how the QC can be done without one.

MORE: Three Ways to Start an Accounting Practice | Fifteen Strategies for First-Time Supervisors | No One Listens to You? Change How You Talk | Free Consultation? Not Always | Measure Knowledge Gaps (Then Close Them) | 47 Types of Business Valuation to Provide | Referral Fee? Forget It | Should You Offer Financial Services? | Thirteen Things to Consider Before You Sell Your Practice | How Much Is Your Tax Practice Worth? | Ready to Retire? Selling Your Practice Is No Strategy | Uncooperative Partner Might Not be the Problem | Merge in Lower-Priced Work without Losing Out | 20 Things You Need for a Business Valuation
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A practice is a business and every business must be run efficiently and profitably. QC is an area that I have found many firms getting tied up in and either spending nothing or much more than they should.
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BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Six Types of Person: Which Are You?

Use the answer to help define your business and your future.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Is your practice satisfying?

Do you like it the way it is, or do you want it to develop and grow? Some people like the way things are and don’t care about change.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: 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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If you’ve gotten this far, I would suggest that you do care about change, and change means you have to do some things differently.
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GROWTH STRATEGIES

Three Ways to Start an Accounting Practice

Plus a dozen tips for once you get there.

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

Question: I am working for a CPA firm, but would like to start my own practice. Can you give me some suggestions?

MORE: Fifteen Strategies for First-Time Supervisors | 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 | Uncooperative Partner Might Not be the Problem
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Response: Essentially, you have three options (four if you count my pet project, but I won’t belabor it).
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PRO Member Exclusive

Answer These Two Questions First

If you can’t, your skills won’t matter.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Here are two questions to ask yourself:

MORE ON TAX SEASON: Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself | What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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Why should clients use you?

MANAGEMENT

Fifteen Strategies for First-Time Supervisors

Partners should set staff up for success.

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

Question: My boss asked me to call you. I am a staff accountant with five years’ experience. I am having a lot of stress trying to manage everything I have to do. I am juggling supervising people I don’t know how to supervise, being managed less by those above me and having to figure out more for myself – including things I never did before or in industries I never worked on previously, keeping current with changes in accounting rules and taxes (because I am more like a generalist and clients ask me everything), never seem to have any free time, juggling my schedule because most of my clients are never ready when they say they will be and being accountable to my boss for everything I do plus what the staff working under me does.

MORE: No One Listens to You? Change How You Talk | Free Consultation? Not Always | Referral Fee? Forget It | How Much Is Your Tax Practice Worth? | Merge in Lower-Priced Work without Losing Out
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

So how do I do it all? How can I prioritize all my responsibilities?

Response: Wow! Deep question! It seems there is very little written for “entry-level” supervisors. But plenty for people already doing it.
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MANAGEMENT

No One Listens to You? Change How You Talk

It might be more of a workaround than a solution. But it gets results!

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

Question: I notice that most of the time my staff doesn’t listen when I talk. How can I make them listen?

MORE: Free Consultation? Not Always | 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
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Response: I find this issue very widespread. I believe there is an epidemic of people not listening, not just staff.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Help Your Tax Clients, Help Yourself

Beware the opportunity graveyard.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Many opportunities only come along once. The way to be successful is to not let them pass by without acting on them or taking advantage of them.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: What’s Your Value to Your Tax Clients? | Are You Excited About Tax Season?
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Spotting opportunities is quite easy if you are looking for them – and extremely difficult if you don’t have a clue of client needs or wants.
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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.

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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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