Edward Mendlowitz, Author at CPA Trendlines

When the Last Accountant Was Truly Incompetent

Not just bad, but malpractice-level wrong.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I was asked to consult with a client selling his business and provided a fixed-fee estimate for the project. The fee was layered based upon how the project progresses.

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 | How Improv Can Help Accountants | Four Tips for New Partners | An Alternative to Pro Bono
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I am usually pretty good at estimating what these things cost, also considering that the accountant might not have done too good of a job and some minor fixing up is needed. However, in this situation the reports the accountant prepared were totally wrong and needed massive changes. How should I handle this?
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CHECKLIST

Preparing for the Worst (Thanks to My Wife)

Get the free practice-continuation toolkit.

By Ed Mendlowitz

One morning, my wife and I were having breakfast, and she asked me, “What do I do if you and Peter get killed?”

DOWNLOAD: Practice Continuation in Event of a Death or Disability Sample Agreement and Letter of Instruction, Prepared by Ed Mendlowitz

This was a Friday, and Peter Weitsen and I were flying together on Sunday to a conference in Palm Springs. My response to these questions was typical: “Don’t bother me. Nothing will happen!”
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FEATURED

Don’t Like Checklists? Find a New Job.

Yup, we have a checklist for that.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: One of my managers does not use the checklists and I need to go over all his work and sometimes go to the client to make sure they are done right.

MORE: Five Ways to Get Staff to Own Their Work | Profit Sharing for a Staffer? | Titles Can Make People Happier | Reasons to Drop Your Book of Business | Are You Marketing for 2022 Yet?
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PRO MEMBER BONUS: The CPA Trendlines Quick-Start Guide to Checklists, Checklists, and More Checklists

What can I do to get him to fill out the checklists?
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FEATURED

The 10 Best Movie Accountants

Gene Wilder freaks out about his Blue Blanket with Zero Mostel The Producers 1968

We look pretty good up on the big screen.

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

I digress from my autobiographical stories to give you my top 10 movie roles of accountants.

MORE: Why Accountants Quit | Why CPAs Should Stay in Public Accounting | Readers Rip: ‘She Wanted Her Shoebox Back’ | CEOs Don’t Always Know Numbers | Finding New Business in Sustainability | 14 Simple, Easy Tips for a Better Tax Season | How to Recoup Staff Training Costs | 10 Ways to Stay in Control
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1. “Dave” – Dave’s accountant, played by Charles Grodin, helps the president, played by Kevin Kline, trim costs so the first lady’s homeless project can be funded.

2. “The Producers” – Accountant Leo Bloom, played by Gene Wilder, hatches the plan for a Broadway flop. READ MORE →

FEATURED

Five Ways to Get Staff to Own Their Work

Help them build careers.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: How can I get staff to step up and assume more responsibility for their client assignments?

MORE: Profit Sharing for a Staffer? | The Secret Recipe for Staff Retention | Help! Key Staffer Refuses to Supervise People | Get More Done By Saying No | Employee Demands a Raise She Doesn’t Deserve | How Are You Spending the Next Five Years? | How to Get the Most from CPE | Does Your Staff Know All the Services You Provide?
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ANSWER: This is an issue every manager and partner deals with at some point.
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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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Gene Wilder freaks out about his Blue Blanket with Zero Mostel The Producers 1968