Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

How to Expand into Business Valuation

BONUS CHECKLIST: 47 types of BV services.

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

Q: I am exploring the business valuation credential as a way to expand our practice. I’m still (relatively) young to the profession and would (I think) love to expand into this niche area.

MORE: How to Handle Referrals with Attorneys | Audit Reports Without Doing the Work? | Ask These 10 Questions Before Adding Financial Services | 10 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay
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A few things:

We don’t do any BV now so my ability to acquire the ABV credential would be difficult without the experience aspect.

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Which KPIs Do You Need?

Consider how the data will be used.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are shortcuts and tools to give managers a quick grasp of essential activities enabling greater control. Whether a manager runs a business, not-for-profit, governmental unit, department or a small group, KPIs can help the manager be more effective, achieve goals and better serve customers, stakeholders or others relying on the organization.

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Managers need to develop the KPIs that will help them the most. This development should be based on what they are doing now (with some tweaking) so they get four or five numbers daily that will not take more than three minutes to absorb, assess and activate changes, if necessary. Transparency and sharing the KPIs will also draw team members into the process.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

How to Handle Referrals with Attorneys

Let’s redefine currency: Seven forms, and none are cash.

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

Q: I referred a large amount of business to an attorney friend, and she hasn’t reciprocated. I asked her for a referral fee and she declined. I’d like to keep referring her because she does a great job for my clients and that makes me look good, too. What should I do?

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A: It is always the right thing to look out for your clients’ best interests. Referring the best attorney you know for a job is the right thing to do. But…

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

77 Thoughts about Client Needs

Take action today.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

This list is a guide to jog additional thought about a client’s business. I have done all of these, and, at some point, I started making a list to help me remember. I also used it to help staff choose a few items each time they performed services for a client as a value-added benefit to the client.

MORE on ADVISORY: When an Audit Is a Great Thing | How to Read a Financial Statement | The KPI an Absentee Manager Needs | Which KPIs Do You Need? | The Seven-Minute Financikal Statement
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The listing can also be used a guide for a separate engagement. Either way, the emphasis should be to provide information to the client about their business that the client does not already consider, focus in on or know about.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Audit Reports Without Doing the Work?

Step away.

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

Q: I have a friend who runs a small CPA firm. He has a client who owns some motels across the U.S. who sold them to a large company.

MORE: Why Partner Retreats Are Worth the Cost | Why Checklists? | Ask These 10 Questions Before Adding Financial Services | Selling Your Practice Is Not a Retirement Strategy | Thirteen Things to Know Before Selling Your Practice | 10 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Their auditor, a Big 4 firm, would like to review his prior year audit papers and he has asked me to review his work papers beforehand and make sure that they are in good shape for the Big 4 firm. As he is a small practice, his work papers are likely to be not as sophisticated as the Big 4 is used to seeing.
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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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