MANAGEMENT

What Happens to Your Firm If You Die? Seriously.

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Get the free practice-continuation toolkit.

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

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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Why Most Audit Plans Repeat Last Year’s Problems

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Why planning often reinforces existing constraints – and how to design for a different outcome.

By William Englehaupt

Most audit teams believe they are planning for the future. In reality, they are often replaying the past. This is what many would label as SALY, “same as last year.”

MORE by William Englehaupt
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As a Prussian general once observed, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” In auditing, that “enemy” is reality: uneven client data, evolving judgment and the rework that becomes visible once work begins. Most plans are not corrections; they are continuations.
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Shirt Logos, Surveys and Bears, Oh My

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Marketing encompasses many things.

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

I like to wear shirts with my firm’s logo. We have an arrangement with Land’s End where we can order what we want from their catalog and have the Withum logo applied. It is a very easy process.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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When I had my own firm we let staff freely choose what they wanted from the Land’s End catalog, and we ordered it for them. It shows pride in the firm, is a walking billboard advertising your firm, and presents an appearance of a “together” firm. READ MORE →

What Happens Before Fieldwork Determines What Happens Under Pressure

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Why audit outcomes are set earlier than most teams think—and how to design for a cleaner execution

By William Englehaupt

By the time audit work is under pressure, most of the outcome has already been determined.

Deadlines tighten. Review queues build. Questions surface late. Client pressure magnifies. Teams respond the only way they can: by working longer, moving faster, and relying on experience to close the gap. It feels like execution is the problem. In reality, execution is where earlier decisions show up.

MORE Audit & Assurance

Across audits, the same pattern repeats. Work that seemed straightforward becomes iterative. Review expands from validation to correction. Issues that could have been resolved early surface when time is limited, and options are fewer.

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Three Metrics for Measuring Staff

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They must work in harmony.

By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud

If you want to grow your accounting firm, it’s important to evaluate the effectiveness of your process on a regular basis. You want to be aware of what’s working well and what’s not. You also want to continually be improving upon your services over time.

MORE by Jody Grunden
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There are three things you can specifically monitor when it comes to the effectiveness of your team. Here’s how we do it at Summit CPA Group. Maybe these ideas will work for you too.
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