Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

The Last Thing a Tax Reviewer Does

Whose error is it this late in the game?

By Ed Mendlowitz
How to Review Tax Returns: The Field-Tested Update

The reviewer needs to conduct their own top-side review before the return gets passed on to be printed (either paper, digital or PDF) and assembled to be sent to the partner to sign and be released to the client.

MORE: Tax Reviewers Can Advance, with a Push | What Makes an Excellent Tax Return Reviewer | 10 Errors That ‘Smart’ Scanners Make | Tax: The Procedural Checklists Your Firm Needs | The Best Way to Review a Tax Return | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
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The partner will do their own top-side review before signing it – so why shouldn’t the reviewer do it first to catch any error that might have slipped through?
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PRO Member Exclusive

Price Not Always the Top Consideration in a Sale

What does the owner really want?

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

A friend just sold his business and retired. The price he received was not a life-changing sum, but the future time he gained was priceless.

MORE: Eight Ways to Value a Family-Owned Business | Solos Need Plans for Death, Disability | Five Ways to Ward Off Fraud in Not-For-Profits | Client Hires New Manager: You Need a Plan | Anatomy of a Fraud | How to Explain Internal Controls to Clients | The Priorities Were Backward | How to Read a Financial Statement | 77 Thoughts about Client Needs
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People who own a business make their livings from it while also accumulating savings for their sunset days. Many work until they drop. Some have foresight to leave earlier. Some don’t contemplate ever retiring, but a health scare delivers a reminder of their mortality and then they decide that life is more than just working. After all, the purpose of working is to make a living. When wealth is secure, why continue working?
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PRO Member Exclusive

Judge Reviewers by How Tax Preparers Improve

ALSO: Eight kinds of staff you don’t want.

By Ed Mendlowitz
How to Review Tax Returns: The Field-Tested Update

Reviewers have to face accountability. They are judged several ways, but I feel the best way is not with a metric but by how the quality of the preparers improve during tax season and how the workload is managed.

MORE: Tax Reviewers Can Advance, with a Push | What Makes an Excellent Tax Return Reviewer | 10 Errors That ‘Smart’ Scanners Make | Tax: The Procedural Checklists Your Firm Needs | The Best Way to Review a Tax Return | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Yes, the reviewers are responsible for the preparers’ quality. The reviewers are expected to find errors and show the preparer what they are, how to fix it and to not have them reoccur. And this should be done quickly by not letting prepared returns hang around unchecked for a while. The quicker the turnaround time, the easier and better the training and better all-around job by everyone.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Eight Ways to Value a Family-Owned Business

Why fair market value can’t always be used.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

There are many ways and purposes for valuing a privately owned business. There is no one “right” way. An appropriate method should be determined depending upon the reason and use for the valuation. Here are explanations of some of the most used methods.

MORE: Solos Need Plans for Death, Disability | When an Owner Dies Without a Buy-Sell Agreement | Due Diligence Is in the Details | Manage Better with the Right Financial Tools | Do You Need a Forensic Professional? | Six Benefits of an Internal Audit
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Fair Market Value

Many people refer to a business’ value as its “fair market value” but this is generally a misused term. Its derivation is from a 1959 IRS Revenue Ruling that specifically addresses valuations for gift and estate tax purposes and does not necessarily provide a reasonable valuation for other uses.
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PRO Member Exclusive

Tax Reviewers Can Advance, with a Push

Seven management tasks to adopt.

By Ed Mendlowitz
How to Review Tax Returns: The Field-Tested Update

Reviewers are the team leaders of tax season. There are many people involved in the process, but an aware reviewer can and should be the team leader.

MORE: What Makes an Excellent Tax Return Reviewer | ‘Quick and Dirty’ Tax Review | Three Ways to Improve Tax Returns | Don’t Use Eyes, Use Brain | Three Types of Tax Return Reviews | Tax Review Procedures Are Your Quality Control | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
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Every return passes through the review department. Some reviewers, like some staff and even some partners, do what they are supposed to do, and they do it well and with pride, but they do not step over the boundary of what they perceive their job is to do. The leaders step forward and assume responsibility!
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Edward Mendlowitz

MORE AT STORE.CPATRENDLINES.COM

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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 for CPA Trendlines is 77 Ways to Wow! The Handbook for Small-Business Advisory Services.

Ed is also the author of "Memoirs of a CPA," available at Amazon.

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"Memoirs" tells his story as a CPA and provides an inside look at what CPAs do and how they run their accounting "business." CPAs must serve clients effectively and exceptionally, recruit, train, retain and grow staff, and charge fees that clients happily pay because of the value they receive while the CPA earns a living, funds a retirement account, grows infrastructure, and perhaps makes a profit. This book tells how he did all of this and much more.

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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 City College of New York graduate, 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. Ed, the author of 19 books, 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, 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 received the Lawler Award for the best article published in 2001 in the Journal of Accountancy.

Ed frequently speaks to many professional and business groups, including the AICPA, NJSCPA, NYSSCPA, American Management Association, the National Committee for Monetary Reform, the 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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