CHECKLIST

How Do Firm Leaders Learn?

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The four essential pillars for continuous learning

By W. Michael Hsu, CPA

As a firm leader, you know that you need new software, services, processes, and tactics…something that is going to take your firm to the next level. But how do You get there?

MORE W. MICHAEL HSU: Seven Principles to Work Less and Achieve More | How Do Firm Leaders Learn? | Why Your Approach to CAS and CFO Services Is Wrong | When it Comes to Pricing, it’s About ‘Can’t Afford Not To’ | Your Client Base Is Global |

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The tools and processes you use to get you to the next level have to come from or are signed off by You. So, who is teaching you? If you took the leap into a new service area and don’t know where you will land, you can’t turn to staff. They are looking to You for the answers.

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In “AiCCOUNTANTS,” Hitendra Patil Demystifies Artificial Intelligence for Accountants

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Learn More | Buy Now

How to make artificial intelligence work in the real world.

By CPA Trendlines Research

CPA Trendlines senior advisor and best-selling author Hitendra Patil is launching his latest book, “Rise of The AiCCOUNTANTS™ – Accountants Augmented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) | The What, Why, and How of Artificial Intelligence for Accountants,” now available in paperback or Kindle editions here.

MORE: How Much Advice Should Your Firm Provide? | Battling CAS Cost Pushback | Will My Clients Find CAS Expensive? | CAS: Much More than Bookkeeping | You Don’t Need a CAS Sales Pitch | Get Clients to Toot Your CAS Horn | Seven Ways to Market Your CAS Offering | How to Choose Your CAS Processes | Nine Ways to Measure Client Experience | Twelve Clues It’s Time to
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One of the accounting profession’s top 100 most influential, Patil is a weekly columnist at CPA Trendlines, and author of “Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide,” available here, and “Accountaneur,” here.

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16 Steps to Creating a Partnership Path

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BONUSES: 12 questions to ask staff about the future. Advancing from staff to senior to manager.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

“I think nothing is more important than what a firm does to create partners. I mean from Day 1 of someone’s career. Or maybe when a person is identified as a star. It’s critical what the firm does to nurture that person so that they become a partner someday.” – Harry Steindler, partner, MichaelSilver (Chicago)

MORE: Nine Ways to Measure Staff Performance on the Path to Partner | Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner
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Here is what the best firms do to create a path to partnership. These practices are not ranked strictly, but items at the top of the list are more common and effective than those toward the bottom. However, all the items are important.
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What Makes an Excellent Tax Return Reviewer

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BONUSES: A 10-question test (and answer key), plus 18 other issues you might want to test.

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

Firms have to decide who will do the tax return review, and how qualifed they are for this. Ideally, trained tax department personnel are the primary reviewers. However, the bunching and compression of work often shifts some of the review to higher level, non-tax personnel such as audit managers and partners who might not have the comprehensive training, background, knowledge and experience to handle everything that comes up during the tax preparation process.

MORE: ‘Quick and Dirty’ Tax Review | When Returns Should Be Submitted for Review | Tax Follow-Up Worksheets Can Mean More Revenue | Stop Tax Return Review Shortcuts | Routine Is Key to Reviewing Tax Returns | Seven Types of Tax Return Reviews
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Additionally, in many firms, almost everyone on the staff will prepare some returns to ease the almost insurmountable burden on the tax department. That lack of trained preparers, though, places an added burden on the reviewers, making it important for them to be more aware and alert when they perform the review.
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‘Quick and Dirty’ Tax Review

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… in 17 steps.

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

Everything I suggest in my handbook is recommended and works well. Each firm will use and adopt what they want and what fits into their practice.

MORE: When Returns Should Be Submitted for Review | 10 Errors That ‘Smart’ Scanners Make | Tax: The Procedural Checklists Your Firm Needs | The Best Way to Review a Tax Return | Why You Can’t Skip Checklists | How to Turn Tax Returns into New Business
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Many times, I am asked for a quick down and dirty suggested review method, so I put the following together. This should not be a substitute for reading the handbook and considering all my recommendations. Reviewing is a process, not a thing to do.
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Five Ways to Increase Audit Efficiency

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Keep your financial statement audit off the naughty list.

By Sarah Timmons

Timmons

Sarah Timmons is a chief auditor with AuditClub.cpa, which provides on-demand audit and assurance review support for work papers, financial statements and engagement quality control reviews, as well as quality control and training services, and more to audit departments of CPA firms of all sizes.

As December flies by and busy season quickly approaches, it’s time to reflect on the successes and shortcomings of the past to plan for the first quarter of the new year.

MORE: 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
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Effective and efficient audits are the result of proper planning and, most of all, communications – with your staff, your client and, sometimes, your therapist.

Here is a checklist of some simple tasks to help make the audit season a bit less stressful:

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Why You Can’t Skip Checklists

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Do you want tax returns fast or right?https://cpatrendlines.com/2021/03/23/17-basic-expectations-of-partners/

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

This is an area I feel very strongly about, and it is a major reason for the success of the better firms and the lack of growth of smaller firms.

MORE: 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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By my way of thinking, a system must be established to assure the greatest quality at every level, reduce the number of touches per return, and present the client with the type of return he or she is relying on you to deliver. This system only works if there are the right processes and procedures and a strict adherence to them, and this includes the careful and deliberate use of checklists.
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The Three Challenges on the Road to Partnership

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Stylized photo of businessman running on a trackAnd why we need them.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

Now we move on to our sixth “C” in the passport to partnership – challenges.

MORE: Prepare the Next Generation Now | Five Ways to Show Commitment | Selling Isn’t Hard | Do You Make Your Firm Look Good? | 4 Top Communication Habits | Making Partner When Competence Isn’t Enough
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Again the heading has more than a single application, which we’ll explore here.
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What Accounting Firm Start-Ups Are Doing Right

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bar chartAnd why other firms should worry

By CPA Trendlines Research

If your firm is 10 tears old, its probably getting stale facing intense competition for talent and Grade-A clients from newer firms, less than 10 years, according to new research

MORE: Keep These Tax Clients While You Have the Chance | Some Clients Just Aren’t Worth the ‘Mishegoss’ | When Should You Drop a Client? | What’s the Most Ridiculous Thing You’ve Heard in Tax Season? | Back to Basics with Client Service | 4 Steps to Firing a Client | Top 10 Ways to Fire the Client From Hell | SURVEY: Zoom, Teams Top Meeting Choices | The Hazards of Poor Internal Controls | Plan for Your Client to Exit Their Business | What New Leaders Want in Ownership | Find Your CAS Team at Your Firm | Six Ways to Fix Your Firm Agreement

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It was the youngest firms – those in business for just one to two years – that scored highest. In hindsight, the reason is obvious: they began their firms during the pandemic. They didn’t have to change or adapt to the rigors of remote offices and limited client contact. They built their firms to fit the pandemic context.

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The Ten Financial Controls That’ll Make You a Hero

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What clients need to know.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

If you want your business to grow, don’t focus on only the easy financial controls where you can see quick results – such as holding down petty cash expenditures or checking expense accounts for accuracy.

MORE: Rule #1: Start with Cash | Organization Minutes Too Often Overlooked | The Seven-Minute Financial Statement | The KPI an Absentee Manager Needs
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Instead, go for the tough steps that affect long-term profits and facilitate growth.

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