SPECIAL

Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same

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three people: woman between two men pointing at desktop computer screen in explanation

The three types of training needed and 21 best practices for providing it.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with an education.” – Mark Twain

MORE: Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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We cringe when CPAs use “training” and “CPE” synonymously.

  • CPE coursework is often reactive, taken to maintain a CPA license. It may or may not educate. It may or may not be the type of education an individual needs. Many CPAs look upon CPE as a nuisance that is necessary to comply with professional regulations. The smaller the firm and the older the CPA, the more likely this is the case.
  • Training is primarily proactive, undertaken voluntarily to expand a person’s knowledge, performance and capabilities. The training aligns with what the person needs to do the job and provide value to the firm and its clients.

Ideally, the training identified as needed also qualifies as CPE.
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Growth and Complacency Must Concern Accounting Firms This Year

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Be proactive and intentional.

By Tamera Loerzel
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

While I could list many trends, predictions and thoughts, I think there are two important considerations to pay attention to over the next 12 months:

  1. Complacency continues to run rampant in some firms. Growth has been good for most firms, which means profits have been good and partner compensation is at an all-time high for many, which gives a false sense of security.

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: 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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In addition, the noise from the M&A activity and private equity funding along with continued capacity and pipeline issues, velocity of emerging technologies, and other business model transformation needed, many leaders freeze with inaction. Those who delay or stop investing in developing leaders; HR and other operational roles; AI, RPA or other technologies; and more will be left behind.

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Rory Henry: Create the Return on Relationships | The Disruptors

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Be a client-centric human in a world of AI and technology.

This is a preview. PRO Members always get the complete video episode, with commentary and transcript. | Go PRO here

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Rory Henry asked himself, “Why don’t financial advisors and CPAs work together?” It boggled his mind because both work with the client’s finances but are not always in sync. “We’re advising them on their businesses, and then the wealth advisor takes over and manages the finances,” Henry says. “But really, one decision affects another.”

MORE RORY HENRY: The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management | MORE DISRUPTORS: 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 |

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The ultra-wealthy have long used the family office model to bring a staff of CPAs, attorneys, and advisors to provide governance, legacy planning, and intergenerational wealth planning. At Arrowroot Family Office, Henry is leveraging technology to bring the benefits of the family office model to everyone. “So it’s really integrating these solutions, using technology, using relationships, to really provide for the many needs of the business and the personal finances of your clients.”

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Five Thoughts about Your Firm’s Culture

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four colleagues chatting around a water cooler

Make it work for you.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

Cultural issues are dynamic, very broad and unique in each firm. As such it is a challenge to summarize them accurately and comprehensively.

MORE: Do Others Think You’re Ready to be Partner? | Competence Is Just the Beginning | How to Attract Clients | Eight Questions for Personal Preparation | How to Prepare for Partnership | Five Questions to Help Forecast Your Firm Growth | Do You Deliver on Your Website’s Promises? | Five Questions About Facing Challenges | Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition | It’s Time to Prepare the Next Generation | Who Are You More Committed to, Your Firm or Your Clients? | Nine Checkpoints Before Every Prospect Meeting | Three Questions about Conversion
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From our research, however, the wise choice for anyone wishing to get their passport to partnership appears to be to study

  • their firm’s existing culture,
  • that of its senior individuals and
  • that of those who have the ear of those senior individuals

to understand not only the route to partnership, but the terrain that they need to cross too.
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Don’t Let Clients Outgrow You

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two men having coffee; one has an open laptop

It might not be too late to keep something going.

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

QUESTION: I just suddenly lost my biggest client. They said they outgrew me. What could I have done to keep them?

MORE: What to Do When a Partner Becomes Disabled | Do As Little As Possible | Don’t Blame the Client for Your Location | Who to Hire When It’s Time to Grow | The Top Tip for Reviewing Tax Returns | You Can’t Win with Lowballing | Yes, You Have to Share Work Papers | Should You Merge? Here’s How to Chart Your Path | Hold Staff Accountable If You Want Them to Listen to You | How to Raise Your Rates | Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better
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RESPONSE: Maybe nothing. And at this point it may not matter, but there are some things you can do to maybe get them back in the future and stop it from happening with another client.

Losing any client is not pleasant, and losing a large client hurts. And when it is sudden it hurts even more.
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Why Now Is the Time for CPAs to Embrace Wealth Management

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portrait of Seth Fineberg
Fineberg
 Seth Fineberg is an accounting industry consultant, content strategist, analyst and speaker. His current business is Accountants Forward. He has been a business editor and journalist for over 30 years, the vast majority of which has been spent overseeing the accounting profession’s evolution.

Start with a conversation.

By Seth Fineberg
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management.

Today we are cresting the biggest waves of change that I’ve seen in my 20-plus years of covering the accounting profession. I’m talking about the need for CPAs to go beyond simply being the trusted tax guy (or girl) for their clients and to help them manage all aspects of their wealth. This movement has been building for the better part of a decade, but only recently has it gone from “I’ll think about it” to “Can I afford not to get on board?”

Not to sound the alarm bells here, but CPAs must soon choose between riding the financial planning wave or being swept under it.
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Do You Have the Client Accounting Services Mindset?

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You’re the professional. Ponder that a moment.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

It was the 10th of May, 2012.

Over dinner on that quiet mid-spring evening, at a classic traditional Italian restaurant, I met the owner of one of my largest clients, only after about five years of providing services to his firm. His firm had chosen a particular niche industry to serve and only that. He was doing well – over $3.5 million in annual revenue, growing consistently, and employing 39 staff members. In any given week, two new clients were being onboarded via a very detailed process, moving clients’ accounting databases and processes into his firm.

MORE Client Accounting Services articles
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He would not take on any new client unless the client handed over all of the accounting work responsibilities to the firm.

All or none.
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