16 Steps to Creating a Partnership Path

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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How Do You Value Your Most Important Asset?

Yes, your employees.

By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals

Skills, abilities and experience are the elements recruiters use to assess candidates who come before them. But what is interesting is despite a skill set playing  a dominant role in the value that an employee brings to the organization, it may not be recognized as such. This is not a new concept. I came across research conducted in 1918 by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center.

MORE STEVE SACKS: How to Build a Winning Proposal | Six Ways to Fix Your Firm Agreement | The Great Resignation or a Reshuffling? | Listen to Learn | Build the Framework to a Solution with Five Answers | Try for Success, Not a Win
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The study discovered that almost 95% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills (better referred to as life skills ) and people skills, while  only 5% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge — hard skills.

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CPA Firm Wages Surge 9%

In payroll, employment is up, but earnings are down.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Want an easy way to make employees happy? Give them more money – and that’s just what’s happening in the latest jobs report.

MORE: Accounting Staffs Grow 4%; Pay Rates Surge 8% | Headcounts Grow 5%; Pay Rates Surge at 7% Pace | CPA Staff Wages Hit New High and Keep Climbing | Firms Battle Staff Shortages with Pay Hikes | Tax & Accounting Firms Beef Up Wages and Headcounts | Employee Counts, Earnings Rise
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Except for payroll services, all tax and accounting sectors are seeing higher earnings year over year. Overall pay was up 6.7 percent, with CPA firm staff pay close behind at 6.6 percent. CPA firms beat the national 7.7 percent inflation rate, increasing hourly earnings by a heady 9.2 percent.
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Top Trends ’23: Look Who’s Making Money Now

Partners’ percentages surge substantially.

By CPA Trendlines Research
The Rosenberg MAP Study

Financially, it’s been a good year for accountants – especially at the partner level.

MORE: OUTLOOK 2023: Compensation Gets Creative | What New Leaders Want in Ownership | Getting Partners to Accept a New Pricing Philosophy | Survey Results: Partners Rejoice on Surging Fee Growth | Headcounts Grow 5%; Pay Rates Surge at 7% Pace | Fourteen Rules for Lateral Partner Hires

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Revenues are up. The income per partner (IPP) is up. Profitability is up. Firms that qualify as “elite” are more elite than ever. And, yes, size matters.

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Accounting Staffs Grow 4%; Pay Rates Surge 8%

Weaker signs in tax and payroll.

By CPA Trendlines Research

It’s not a bad time to be an accountant.

The accounting sector is charting stable, predictable expansion in an uncertain economic environment, with some signs of weakness in tax prep and at payroll agencies, according to a new CPA Trendlines study.

MORE: Headcounts Grow 5%; Pay Rates Surge at 7% Pace | CPA Staff Wages Hit New High and Keep Climbing | Firms Battle Staff Shortages with Pay Hikes | Tax & Accounting Firms Beef Up Wages and Headcounts | Employee Counts, Earnings Rise
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We report here on the accounting profession as a whole as well as:

  • CPA firms
  • Tax preparation services
  • Payroll services
  • Bookkeeping
  • Women

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Survey Results: CPA Partners Rejoice on Surging Fee Growth

Even COVID couldn’t quiet the cash.

By CPA Trendlines Research
The Rosenberg MAP Survey: National Study of CPA Firm Statistics

How to explain that giddy feeling in the bellies of accounting firm partners? It’s a plentitude of moolah.

MORE: IRS Audit Rates Are Dropping, and Big Earners Couldn’t Be Happier | Six More Ways to Fix the IRS | Is Remote the New Normal?Accounting Pros Face Challenges in Turbulent Times | Your Tax Season Success Plan Starts Here, Now | Tax Prep Fintech Startup: April Raises $30 Million | Accountants Agree: The Top Five Ways to Fix the IRS

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Revenue growth has been pretty decent for the last ten years. Even when it was down, it was up, that is, well above inflation. But the most recent results fro the new Rosenberg National MAP Survey show thrilling leaps for firms of all sizes.

Some of the apparent growth, however, is relative to a dip in the previous year.

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Headcounts Grow 5%; Pay Rates Surge at 7% Pace

The only down spots? Tax prep and payroll.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

We like to see a month or two of increases when we’re talking about jobs, but how about six or seven? That’s the rosy picture seen across several sectors in accounting, according to the latest available data.

MORE: CPA Staff Wages Hit New High and Keep Climbing | Firms Battle Staff Shortages with Pay Hikes | Tax & Accounting Firms Beef Up Wages and Headcounts | Employee Counts, Earnings Rise
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Oh, you’re an employee looking at potential earnings? They just hit new highs at CPA firms and for staff overall.

We report here on the accounting profession as a whole as well as:

  • CPA firms
  • Tax preparation services
  • Payroll services
  • Bookkeeping
  • Women

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