Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

Manage Better with the Right Financial Tools

Get the most out of what you’re paying for.

Directors and managers have many functions. A major tool is having the right financial data.

MORE: Charity Directors Must Take Theft Seriously | Client Hires New Manager: You Need a Plan | Anatomy of a Fraud | How to Explain Internal Controls to Clients | Organization Minutes Too Often Overlooked | The Seven-Minute Financial Statement
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Unless you are an accountant or have an MBA, few directors or managers know what to ask for, let alone how to use what they get. Here are some suggestions.
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PRO Member Exclusive

Stop Tax Return Review Shortcuts

Three questions to ask when choosing a process.

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

The big issue that I see with the tax season review process is that the workload compression and rush cause the use of shortcuts to get the return out quicker.

MORE: The Best Way to Review a Tax Return | Three Types of Tax Return Reviews | Routine Is Key to Reviewing Tax Returns | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists | Tax Review Procedures Are Your Quality Control | Seven Types of Tax Return Reviews | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
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Doing this has a cost of breaking down the system and having you have to start over each year with the same problems of untrained or poorly trained people not following procedures and making the same type of mistakes they always made. Shouldn’t this stop?
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Charity Directors Must Take Theft Seriously

Reading and understanding financials is key.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

Hardly a week goes by that I do not read about a theft, fraud, misappropriation, defalcation or egregious wasteful spending at some charitable organization. Some are perpetuated over many years – perhaps as many as seven years.

MORE: Client Hires New Manager: You Need a Plan | Do You Need a Forensic Professional? | Six Benefits of an Internal Audit | The Ten Financial Controls That’ll Make You a Hero | Five Cash Reports You Can’t Live Without | When an Audit Is a Great Thing | Which KPIs Do You Need?
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Lack of controls, oversight, disinterest or lackadaisical care creates an atmosphere where an already weak person can spot an opportunity, or perhaps an uncaught or unguarded careless mistake gives birth to a pattern of ongoing criminal action by someone who never had an unlawful thought.
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PRO Member Exclusive

The Best Way to Review a Tax Return

Choose a process, then trust it.

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

I have mentioned seven types of tax return reviews and explained the first three. Today it is time to look at the other four.

MORE: Three Types of Tax Return Reviews | Routine Is Key to Reviewing Tax Returns | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists | Tax Review Procedures Are Your Quality Control | Seven Types of Tax Return Reviews | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
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A comment is that I believe I will present the best overall method to review tax returns. It is clear that no matter what I say many will not agree with me, many will have no interest in changing but will want to make some minor changes if they appear helpful, or many are reading to validate what they are doing.
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PRO Member Exclusive

Three Types of Tax Return Reviews

Where you can add value.

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

There are numerous ways to review tax returns. Most reviewers have their own techniques, and some alter these based on the type of or size of the return, or who the preparer is or who the partner in charge of that client is. There is nothing wrong with this as long as the reviewer is experienced and really knows their stuff.

MORE: Routine Is Key to Reviewing Tax Returns | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists | Tax Review Procedures Are Your Quality Control | Seven Types of Tax Return Reviews | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

My purpose is to show how returns can be reviewed effectively and efficiently and not cause major changes for those who are already doing a great job reviewing returns. Hopefully they will glean a few tips from here. However, in many cases reviewers are not working effectively and efficiently and I offer processes that have worked for me and are working for many firms following these methods and that could help the reader work better reviewing returns.
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SEARCH CPA TRENDLINES

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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