Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

16 Traits of the Best Tax Clients

Subscriber Frank Kistner adds No. 17: Clients who remove staples from source documents (because they can damage your scanner/copier).

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Clients are our customers who pay our salaries and present us with stimulating opportunities allowing us to grow.

MORE: Eight Ways to Charm a Client | Plug Small Leaks Before They Become Big Floods | You’re Only as Good as Your Last Screw-Up | Four Issues with ‘Quick’ Tax Questions | When to Pick Up the Phone This Tax Season | These Five Procedures Will Simplify Your Tax Season | 11 Steps to Better Client Tax Instructions
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There is no such thing as a bad or nuisance client – although there are clients who sometimes do bad or nuisance things.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Giving Clients the Best You’ve Got

What it looks like in black and white.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

We all use the cliché that we give the clients the best we got, but what does it really mean?

MORE: How to Become a Specialist | Making Sure the Son Got Proper Credit | 10 More Reasons CPAs Quit Public Accounting | Preparing for the Worst (Thanks to My Wife) | Why Accountants Quit | When CPAs Leave to Work for a Client | Readers Rip: ‘She Wanted Her Shoebox Back’ | How Bickering Can Ruin a Family Business
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I’ve written about value-added services and efforts we can do on behalf of our clients, but here is a different approach I have used.
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FEATURED

Why MAP Programs Are Essential

CPE isn’t the only reason to attend a program.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

I attend Management of Accounting Practice (MAP) CPE programs. In many instances these do not qualify toward the mandatory CPE requirements. Who cares?

MORE: How to Become a Specialist | Secrets in Specialties | Making Sure the Son Got Proper Credit | Yes, Shirt Logos Can Matter | 10 More Reasons CPAs Quit Public Accounting | Family Trees of Clients
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I go because I want to make more money, work more effectively, service clients better, excite and retain staff, and have more fun doing what I love to do and have to do anyway.
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FEATURED

Eight Ways to Charm a Client

We get measured on the small things – the good and the bad.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Clients are our customers. They pay our salary and enable us to make good livings.

MORE: Thorough Vs. Sloppy: Is Everyone on the Same Page? | Four Issues with ‘Quick’ Tax Questions | 11 Steps to Better Client Tax Instructions
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Do what you can to accommodate them and make them feel important – as important as they believe they are. READ MORE →

FEATURED

Prepping for Tax Season: Plug Small Leaks Before They Become Big Floods

5 key points to keep in mind.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Some people are micromanagers and anal with details. Others are big-picture managers, letting details take care of themselves. Neither is completely effective and both disciplines need to be balanced.

MORE: Thorough Vs. Sloppy: Is Everyone on the Same Page? | Four Issues with ‘Quick’ Tax Questions | When to Pick Up the Phone This Tax Season | These Five Procedures Will Simplify Your Tax Season | 11 Steps to Better Client Tax Instructions | Get Your Team Ready for Tax Season | 12 Ways to Squeeze Fun into Tax Season | 6 Ways to Get Paid Faster in Tax Season
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

There is a time for details and a time for big-picture thinking. When setting up procedures and processes it is essential that all details be considered and planned for. READ MORE →

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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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