OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Accounting Hiring Hits Another High

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Overall employment in the accounting profession

 

Tax prep is less than half the increase.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Is the accounting profession closing its staffing gap?

It sure seems that way, as employment hit an all-time high in January. Women fared well, too, reaching record levels in the field overall and in payroll services.

MORE: Staff Wages Hit Record High | Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises | Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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Nationally, unemployment held at 3.7 percent as total nonfarm payroll employment increased 353,000, according to the latest data available to CPA Trendlines Research. Of those new hires, 74,000 came in professional and business services, well above 2023’s monthly average of 14,000.
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Accounting Jobs Back On the Rise

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Overall accounting profession employment

 

Tax prep is an exception.

By Beth Bellor

The accounting profession has regained some ground in the most recent jobs data available to CPA Trendlines Research. There are 1,162,100 people employed in the field, up 4,400 or 0.4 percent for the month and 30,400 or 2.7 percent for the year. The figure is just 1,200 shy of the record set in July.

 

MORE: Staff Wages Hit Record High | Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises | Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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Nationally, overall employment – total nonfarm payroll – increased by 216,000 the same month, pegging unemployment at 3.7 percent. Professional and business services added 13,000.

Accountants are putting in 36.2 hours weekly – the highest mark since October 2022 – up half an hour or 1.4 percent for the month and 12 minutes or 0.6 percent for the year.
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Ten IRS Problems That Need Solutions

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unhappy man waiting on phone in office

How good is better than terrible?

By CPA Trendlines Research

Every year, America’s National Taxpayer Advocate – in recent years it’s been Erin M. Collins – presents an Annual Report to Congress. The report identifies successes and failures of and recommendations for the Internal Revenue Service.

MORE: Treasury IG Sees Progress at IRS | VCs Plunk $60 Million into AI-Powered ‘Autonomous’ Tax Prep | Tax Pros Are Expanding and Earning More | With Fresh Funding, IRS Shows Service Improvements | How Tax Practitioners Became Cybersecurity Risks | Top Tax Vendors Caught Red-Handed Selling Private Taxpayer Data
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This year’s report praises the IRS for its progress since the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it finds plenty of room for improvement.

“The year 2023 was one of extraordinary transition for the IRS and therefore for taxpayers,” Collins writes. “Despair has turned to cautious optimism.”
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Firms Offer Advice About CAS

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man with six arms handling various aspects of business

Can’t find staff? Focus on technology … and other suggestions.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Client accounting services is a bold, new world in the accounting industry, so no surprise we’re getting a lot of good advice from the CPA Trendlines Outlook 2024: Emerging Issues, Opportunities, and Trends survey.

MORE CAS SURVEY: Ten+ Ways Firms Prefer (and Prefer Not) to Market CAS | SURVEY: The CAS Pricing Problem | CAS Challenge: No Staff, No Services | CAS ‘One-Stop Shop’ Means Steady Clientele | Accountants Cozy Up to Clients with CAS
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If 59 percent of firms are offering some form of CAS, that means 41 percent aren’t even though most (but not all) the 59 percent are saying go for it … but be careful.

ASAP… but

While one respondent says, “Dive in, there is plenty of need out there,” and another just says, “Do it ASAP,” most others recommend some forethought and planning.
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Is the CPA Business Model the Clog in the Pipeline?

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older woman showing young woman something on office computer screen

Maybe a flip in perception is in order: 150 hours as an investment, not a burden.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The accounting profession is in trouble. Big trouble.

CPA firms experience the problem as a difficulty in finding certified professionals. But the real problem is in the personnel pipeline that feeds the industry, the long, hard, expensive process of becoming a CPA.

MORE: Can Big Data Spot Financial Fraud? | Will Unclogging the Accounting Pro Pipeline Kill Mobility? | Accountants Bullish on Income | Which Niche’s the Best Niche? | Ethics on Sustainability Puzzle Some Accountants | Accountants Hopeful, Concerned and Confused about AI | Survey Respondents See Exciting Year Coming Up | The 7 Categories of Cybersecurity Solutions Firms Need
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To continue the metaphor, it’s also the drain pipe – the increasing flow of professionals out of CPA firms and into retirement. In 2020, 75 percent of CPAs became eligible to hang up their green eyeshades and find something else to do, such as get to know their families and experience the pleasures of daylight.
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Ten+ Ways Firms Prefer (and Prefer Not) to Market CAS

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One point of concern: who’s doing the marketing?

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines Outlook 2024: Opportunities, Emerging Issues and Trends survey is bringing to light an array of marketing strategies that CPA firms are using to promote their client accounting services.

MORE CAS SURVEY: SURVEY: The CAS Pricing Problem | CAS Challenge: No Staff, No Services | CAS ‘One-Stop Shop’ Means Steady Clientele | Accountants Cozy Up to Clients with CAS
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Nine strategies are mentioned by at least a few of the early survey respondents.
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SURVEY: The CAS Pricing Problem

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Accountants grapple with how to value insight and advice.

By CPA Trendlines Research

One of the biggest challenges to offering client accounting services (CAS) isn’t offering the actual services; it’s figuring out how and how much to charge for them.

MORE CAS SURVEY: CAS Challenge: No Staff, No Services | CAS ‘One-Stop Shop’ Means Steady Clientele | Accountants Cozy Up to Clients with CAS
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When the CPA Trendlines survey Outlook 2024: Emerging Issues, Opportunities and Trends asked what’s most tough about CAS, finding and training staff ranks #1, of course, for 30 percent of respondents. But pricing CAS services was close behind for 29.2 percent.
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