Today’s Bissett Bullet: “As you progress throughout your career, you may find yourself in situations where those who are on the same level as you in terms of earnings or seniority are suddenly your subordinates.”
By Martin Bissett
See more Bissett Bullets here
What does the partnership agreement say? Oops …
By Ed Mendlowitz
202 Questions and Answers: Managing an Accounting Practice
QUESTION: My partner has been out sick for the past 3½ months, and he has been continuing to get his draw. It looks like he will be out for some time more, but not sure how long.
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He does make some calls from home, but isn’t really doing any work. Is there anything I can do?
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Three questions about your competence.
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
The Passport to Partnership study collated a number of responses in a conversational style.
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But two brief but succinct examples on the realities of how a firm assesses an individual’s “competence” for leadership are showcased really stood out:
“The difficulty isn’t identifying the ethical decision; it’s making the right choice with difficult implications.”
Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto.
Center for Accounting Transformation
If no one’s complaining that your fees are too high, your fees are too low.
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
Mike Maksymiw, the leader of Aprio Firm Alliance, hates charge hours as a primary performance metric. He even left a firm where he was a partner because of a dispute over charge hours. Although he exceeded his revenue goals by a healthy margin, he was penalized because he got the work done in fewer hours.
JOIN Liz Farr at the Linkedin CPA Trendlines Group | MORE Liz Farr | FOLLOW Liz Farr on The Disruptors wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS. | MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: 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 |
“The main thing I was supposed to do, I was doing,” he tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disruptors. And if he hadn’t been meeting his revenue goals, that deficit in hours would have been something to remedy. “So I don’t want people to think there’s no place for these metrics. We need to put them in the right order that makes sense for running a business.”
“Getting work was easy, but getting it done was hard.”
By Matt Rampe
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics
The staffing struggle won’t turn around overnight. Firms that want to succeed need an intentional strategy on recruiting and retaining talent.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics asks the profession’s top consultants two sets of questions:
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Private equity and technology will continue to advance. This will create a more competitive landscape, with more firms innovating on all aspects of the traditional CPA firm model.
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After 147 years, one of the world’s most tradition-rich sporting events will bust out of its comfort zone.
By Rick Richardson
Wimbledon, the oldest Grand Slam tennis tournament, is bringing itself into the 21st century by implementing electronic line-calling instead of human line judges.
MORE TECH THIS WEEK: Gates Foundation, UK Fund Biotech Grant for Ag Breakthrough | Microsoft Refreshes Copilot with Wave 2 | Thomson Reuters Brings Al to Audit Solutions | New In-Flight Earbud Adapter Ideal for Travelers | New Tech Turns Bombed-Out Rubble into Blocks for New Homes | Discovery in California Could Power 375 Million Electric Vehicles | Lexar SSD Expands Storage for Pro-Level Video | Five New Google Maps and Waze Features | New Warehouse Robot Could Revolutionize Efficiency | New Pacemaker Powered by Light, No Batteries | Microsoft Patents an Encryption System to Block Visual Hacking
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The All England Club recently stated that starting in 2025, technology will make the “out” and “fault” calls at the championships, eliminating the necessity for human officials to do so.
CPAs have a role to play.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Inheritance is notorious for ripping families apart. Many manage to divvy up their parents’ wealth with the kind of mutual love and respect we expect to see in families.
But sometimes, with the smell of moolah in the air, it’s more like a knife fight.
It’s even more complicated when there’s a family business involved.
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So Many Questions
Unless there’s just one inheritor, one who wants to own and run the business, there are many complex issues – financial, legal, psychological – that need to be resolved.
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Think about where you want your business to be.
By Seth Fineberg
The phrase “history is the greatest teacher” can be applied in many ways, but to me it does not ring truer than when thinking of the current state of accountant-vendor relations. In short, it’s not all that good.
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The accounting profession has evolved to the point to where there is a tool for every task, and the choices have never been more plentiful or the process of selecting one more challenging. At the same time, having overseen this profession as long as I have, the thing that’s been clear is the risks of tying so much of what you do to one vendor.
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No longer a problem confined to just new talent or middle managers.
By CPA Trendlines Research
In a startling shift, thousands of highly experienced top-level accountants are leaving the field mid-career, challenging the long-held view that the staffing crisis is limited to new graduates or middle managers.
RELATED: Middle Managers Getting Squeezed | Explaining the Talent Shortage in One Big Chart | Salary and Compensation Outlook for Small CPA Firms | Gen AI in Accounting: Epic Transformation, or Overheated Hype? | MORE: The Talent Crisis | DOWNLOAD The National Pipeline Advisory Group Report
For many accountants on the edge of transition, the coming years will determine whether the profession can reinvent itself to retain the trust of its workforce or continue to lose ground as one of America’s fundamental professions.
Some creativity may be in order.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Rare is the CPA firm that has no problem finding, hiring and retaining professionals in accountancy. Those that don’t have a problem are either not hiring or are paying plenty with packages that include higher than average salaries, the option to work remotely, stock option plans and other benefits.
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Several of the top-notch consultants who contributed observations to The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics not only noted the problem but shared some of the solutions that firms are applying.
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It augments rather than replaces human expertise.
By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services
Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things very effectively, and one of them is to offer numerous benefits to a look at it as a start and not the end of the AI marketing discussion.
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Here are some ways AI can assist in your marketing efforts: