SPECIAL

Survey Says 57% of Firms Are Raising Prices Next Year

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bar charts

Are you charging enough?

By CPA Trendlines Research

More than half of American accounting firms plan to increase their prices next year, according to the 2024 U.S. Accounting and Tax Pricing Benchmark survey just issued by software developer Ignition.

MORE: How Will Private Equity Impact Accounting Careers? | Eleven Questions about Kids, Wealth and the Family Business | Twelve Years and Out: Seasoned Accountants Join the Exodus | How Accounting Firms Are Handling the Staff Shortage | Gen AI in Accounting: Epic Transformation, or Overheated Hype? | Survey Shows Big Opportunities in Small Business | Salary Guides for Accountants Vary Widely: Whom Do You Believe? | Are You Earning What You Deserve? | The Slow, Painful Death of the 150-Hour Rule | Partner Comp Earnings Gap: What’s the Right Spread?
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The survey finds that 57 percent plan to jack up their invoices across all services, with 31 percent of them going for a 10 percent increase. But 37 percent will limit their increases to just 5 percent.

And a gutsy 6 percent will go for 20 percent more.
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Get More Referrals in Five Steps

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Key to leads cloud shape

Who do you want? (Hint: It’s not “everyone.”)

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

There are many great things about getting referrals. First, referrals have a built-in trust that helps you move through the sales process faster. Second, there’s almost no marketing cost involved. Third, they tend to make a better long-term client.

MORE: Is Your Practice Leaking Money? | Boost Your Value, Boost Your Fees | How to Put Your Strengths to Work for You | Are You Throwing Away Profits? | Three Steps to Becoming a Millionaire | How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images | Create a Bad Website in Ten Easy Steps | Leverage Your Strengths to Beat Stress | Are You Crossing Off Your Business Bucket List? | Ten Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible
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Unfortunately, many business owners take a reactive approach to referrals, waiting until they come to them, rather than a more profitable approach, which is to proactively maximize referrals. Here are five proactive ways to boost referrals:
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Tech Anxiety Paralyzing Some Accounting Firms

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Abstract illustration of binary data flow

AI? Inescapable. But don’t forget cybersecurity.

By Roman Kepczyk
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

Wild ride: As I am primarily focused on accounting firm technology and departmental production, I will limit my observations to IT, where the big trend will be that we will continue to see a profusion of new AI-assisted applications coming at firms from all directions, at an increasingly untenable pace. I think that the reality of the mantra stating, “You won’t be replaced by AI, but by someone using AI” will sink into every accountant’s brain in 2025 and the urge to jump to solutions will be overpowering

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics asks the profession’s top consultants two sets of questions:

    • How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts?
    • How would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

MORE: What’s Going to Happen? Lots, Say Consultants | Growth and Complacency Must Concern Accounting Firms This Year | Solving Staffing Requires Intention | How Accounting Firms Are Handling the Staff Shortage | The Future of Fees | As Private Equity Closes In, Firms Seek New Answers to Staffing Problems | When Staffing Falls Short, Clients Get Culled | How Accounting Firms Are Dealing with Retirement | Next Five Years Are Critical for Accounting Firms | Staffing Turnover’s Down, But Why? | What’s Your Firm Worth? Private Equity Wants to Know
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Like the dotcom boom of the early 2000s, I’m already seeing firms display a significant amount of anxiety around making application decisions and paralysis around concerns about integrating tools that could shortly be replaced by another, better product. My advice is to research peer success, pilot small and learn fast (or at least fail fast and move on).
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Rebecca Driscoll: Amplify Reach by Helping Other Firm Owners | The Disruptors

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The future of accounting will be strategy, communication, analysis, and proactive support.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Rebecca Driscoll went out on her own at a young age when a partner at the CPA firm where she was working encouraged her. “You’re not cut out for this path that we have in a traditional accounting firm,” Driscoll recalls him telling her.  “You’re different, so you should go be different.”

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Rory Henry: Create the Return on Relationships | Mike Maksymiw: Be the Leader You Wish You Had | Terrell Turner: Build a Solid Business Showing Up as Yourself | Kelly Mann: Be the Bull in the China Shop | Alicia Katz Pollock: Create A Human-Centric Business |  Nancy McClelland: Be the One Your Clients Ask First |Alan Whitman: Stop Accepting the Status Quo | Sean Duncan: Discover Your Own Genius | Ingrid Edstrom: True Wealth Is Not Financial | Caleb Jenkins: Firm Growth Requires Owners to Shift Roles |

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She already had a book of business as a staff accountant, but on the traditional path at that firm, it would be another decade before she could be considered for partnership.

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Partners Need to Respect Firm Culture

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With insight from our exclusive expert council: Dunn, Pipe, Grundy.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

The Passport to Partnership study collated a number of responses from existing partners of accounting practices in a conversational style.

Examples that really stood out on the realities of individual variances in firm culture are showcased below.

MORE: Five Thoughts about Your Firm’s Culture | Do Others Think You’re Ready to be Partner? | Attract Clients, Don’t Sell to Them | Think of It as Service, not Selling | Eight Questions That Target Personal Accountability | Are You Projecting Confidence? | Does Client Perception Match Your Firm’s Reality? | Firm Not Thriving? Five Fixes | Five Questions for Grading Prospects | Health, Wealth, Stealth: Challenges on the Path to Partnership
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“Our partners have articulate minds, and that’s what we want to be demonstrated by any new appointees.” Meaning, can they hold their own intellectually in more senior circles?

How would they then behave when meeting with other senior executives as a contemporary of theirs?
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What’s Going to Happen? Lots, Say Consultants

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Business hand holding hot chart in crystal ball

Insights on staffing, private equity and more.

By CPA Trendlines Research

In case you haven’t noticed, the whole world is changing. Everything.

Even the accounting business.

And everyone wants to know what’s going to happen.

Even CPAs.

MORE: Growth and Complacency Must Concern Accounting Firms This Year | Solving Staffing Requires Intention | How Accounting Firms Are Handling the Staff Shortage | The Future of Fees | As Private Equity Closes In, Firms Seek New Answers to Staffing Problems | When Staffing Falls Short, Clients Get Culled | How Accounting Firms Are Dealing with Retirement | Next Five Years Are Critical for Accounting Firms | Staffing Turnover’s Down, But Why? | What’s Your Firm Worth? Private Equity Wants to Know | The New Pipeline: Outsourcing and Offshoring | Is This the Last Year of Accounting’s Golden Age?
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Some of the answers (for CPAs) might be found in The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics, where some of the industry’s leading consultants are opining on what’s coming down the pike.

And they all agree on one thing: change is coming.
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Why You Shouldn’t Sue a Client

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Statue of scales of justice

There’s more to consider than you may realize.

By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice

QUESTION: A former client owes me a lot of money and will not pay or even discuss a settlement. I want to sue him. What can you tell me about this?

MORE: What to Do When a Partner Becomes Disabled | Do As Little As Possible | Want to Merge? Here Are 23 Things to Request | I’m Just Starting Out; Why Join an Association? | Don’t Blame the Client for Your Location | Realign Partners with Monthly Meetings | I’m 76. Should I Slow Down? How? | Who to Hire When It’s Time to Grow | Hourly Billing Doesn’t Cover the Value; Now What? | Ask for What You’re Worth | The Top Tip for Reviewing Tax Returns | You Have to Start Somewhere | Two Options for Collecting Past Due Fees | You Can’t Win with Lowballing
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RESPONSE: I don’t know the details so cannot address your specific situation. However, I have some comments about suing that I would like to share with you.
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