Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

10 More Reasons CPAs Quit Public Accounting

Bosses are part of the problem.

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

As I have written about CPAs who leave public accounting, there has been widespread interest. There is a lot more to say so I’ll address many of those questions.

MORE: Family Trees of Clients | Preparing for the Worst (Thanks to My Wife) | The 10 Best Movie Accountants | Why Accountants Quit | Why CPAs Should Stay in Public Accounting | When CPAs Leave to Work for a Client | When Siblings Battle over the Family Business | Readers Rip: ‘She Wanted Her Shoebox Back’
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General Comment

Generally speaking, many bosses do not listen to staff concerns. At many firms, there is a lack of serious mentoring and little help for staff people in managing their careers. In many practices, there is an appearance of a lack of growth, or if there is growth, then staff people are often left behind. In most instances, these problems are exacerbated by staff people not being clear about what they want. They are hesitant to speak up, share their concerns with their bosses or venture beyond their comfort zone. Both are culpable, but I place greater blame on the bosses, who should know better.
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FEATURED

Make Today “Day One” of Your New Business

How to get out of a rut.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: My practice seems to be in a rut.

MORE: Why Does All Work Take So Long? | Don’t Like Checklists? Find a New Job. | The Secret Recipe for Staff Retention | Help! Key Staffer Refuses to Supervise People | Get More Done By Saying No | Don’t Fire That Staffer! | Employee Demands a Raise She Doesn’t Deserve
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We are not growing, our services haven’t changed and our client turnover is almost nonexistent. Any suggestions of what we can do?
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FEATURED

Why Does All Work Take So Long?

Sticking points can materialize anytime.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: Everything in my office seems to take too long, and I can’t put my finger on why. Can you provide any guidance?

MORE: Don’t Like Checklists? Find a New Job. | Five Ways to Get Staff to Own Their Work | Writing a Reference? Here’s How | 44 Key Attributes for Assessing Staffers | Make CPE Worth Your While | What To Do with a Lousy Client? | But I AM Managing! | How to Run a Practice in 90 Pages
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ANSWER: Common problem.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

When Clients Want to Sell

Sometimes the tough part is getting the information.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I received this email from an accountant:

MORE: Don’t Like Checklists? Find a New Job. | Five Ways to Get Staff to Own Their Work | Writing a Reference? Here’s How | 44 Key Attributes for Assessing Staffers | Make CPE Worth Your While | What To Do with a Lousy Client?
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Ed, we have a client in Princeton, New Jersey, who owns a weekly newspaper who is looking to sell. Wondering if there is a client in your firm who may be interested in buying, just a thought. READ MORE →

CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Family Trees of Clients

Have you taken the time to trace your referrals?

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

For those of us in public accounting, there is a continual need to get new clients. Many times we look beyond what we have for the “new” when the growth is there for the taking.

MORE: The 10 Best Movie Accountants | Why Accountants Quit | When Siblings Battle over the Family Business | How Bickering Can Ruin a Family Business | The Six Types of “Impossible” Clients | You’re Not JUST Taxes | Granting Unconventional Request Pays Off | 20 Best Practices for Staff Training and Retention
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One of the most important ways a practice can grow is for existing clients to recommend new clients. I have always valued such referral sources, and this value surpasses the fees they pay us. They look out for us and help us grow – I owe them!
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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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