TRENDING

The Future of Fees

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Are you raising yours to close a salary gap?

By CPA Trendlines Research

When The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics asked prominent consultants what’s coming down the pike in the accounting profession, an upheaval in fee structure came up a lot.

MORE: 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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First, the good news: net fees are growing rather nicely.

  • Net fees at firms billing more than $2 million jumped an average of 10.7 percent.
  • Growth at firms billing over $20 million leaped by 12.5 percent.
  • Even small firms, those with $2-5 million in revenues, grew by 9.1 percent.

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Using Change Orders with Scope

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How is a change order like taking your car to a mechanic? Read on.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

Change orders are the result of a well-scoped process. They occur when a client adds a service not included in their original engagement or when a manager or partner requests a service be scoped and priced separately. The client decides whether or not to proceed with the change.

 

MORE JODY PADAR

THE RADICAL CPA

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The process of a change order is similar to taking your car to the mechanic for an oil change. During a diagnostic, they find you need a tire alignment as well. The alignment is not included in the services you bought, but you’re curious to know how much it would cost. Depending on the price, you’ll add it to the original quote, or you won’t.

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As Private Equity Closes In, Firms Seek New Answers to Staffing Problems

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Smart leaders are investing in tech, talent and orderly retirement timing.

By Jennifer Wilson
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

We’ll see positive movement in staffing with more firms investing in outsourcing, offshoring, non-accounting staff added to work streams, increasing starting salaries, providing more support on campus to students and candidates, and other pipeline initiatives. The pace of consolidation and private equity investment will only accelerate, changing the face of the Top 100, with firms separating their audit practices .

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: 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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PE investors will have their hands full, trying to manage by the numbers, and drive change with traditionally change-averse, entrepreneurial partners who didn’t sign up originally to submit to a boss. And I fear that PE firms are overpaying for their equity stakes (and driving firm prices up for acquirers) and that realization will begin to dawn on some of them who realize there might not be a flip in sight.
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Terrell Turner: Build a Solid Business Showing Up as Yourself | The Disruptors

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Your clients may need a great deal of empathy and not just tactical advice. Plus 13 key takeaways.

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

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Terrell Turner started his “journey of doing things differently” on April 1, 2020, during the pandemic. While “2020 was the reset button for everyone,” that reset offered Turner a tremendous opportunity to create a new kind of firm. “We don’t have any history in doing this,” Turner recalls thinking. “So how would we do this in this new environment that we’re in?”

MORE Disruptors | MORE CPA TRENDLINES PODCASTS and VIDEOS: 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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His path to founding a firm was unusual – from public accounting to industry and back to public accounting. He credits his time in industry with providing a “really solid foundation” in connecting processes with the impact on the financial statements. “I think being able to connect those dots is something I would have never been able to do had I not worked in industry for some time,” Turner says.

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Do As Little As Possible

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Older businessman taking a coffee break

And still have happy clients.

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

QUESTION: I have many clients who always expect me to do extra work as part of our fixed-fee agreement. How can I get paid extra for work beyond the scope of our agreement?

MORE: Want to Merge? Here Are 23 Things to Request | I’m Just Starting Out; Why Join an Association? | I’m 76. Should I Slow Down? How? | Ask for What You’re Worth | Two Options for Collecting Past Due Fees | When Board Service Gets Tricky | Eleven Ways New Staffers Can Help Bring in Business | Busy Season Is Over, So It’s Time for Some Resolutions | Want to Merge? Six Steps to Take | How to Start Providing Family Office Services
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RESPONSE: This is a recurring theme, and one that has many answers. One approach: Don’t take on the extra work.

Here is another approach.
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Salary Guides for Accountants Vary Widely: Whom Do You Believe?

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three people in office disagreeing

Recruiters Atrium, LHH and Randstad don’t agree.

By CPA Trendlines Research

So, how much does, say, a tax manager pull down these days?

Well, it depends whom you ask.

MORE: Are You Earning What You Deserve? | The Slow, Painful Death of the 150-Hour Rule | Partner Comp Earnings Gap: What’s the Right Spread? | Main Street Accountants See Turbulence Ahead for Small Business | Partners: Your Middle Managers Are Getting Squeezed | The Joys of Firing Bad Clients | Gear Up For Growth | How Future-Proof Is the Accounting Profession? | Accounting Influencers | In-Person Conferences Still Essential | Accounting ARC | Risky Business: The Art and Science of Startup Company Valuation | Innovation through Wellness: You Can’t Grow without a “Well” Firm | Non-Accountants in Accounting: A Game-Changer for the Profession
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The recruiting firm Atrium says the average tax manager takes home between $100,000 and $142,000.

But another recruiter, LHH, says the same person typically earns $158,750 to $172,850, depending on the size of the company.

Another firm, Randstad, gives tax managers an average of $104,424 to $170,767, depending on experience.
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When Staffing Falls Short, Clients Get Culled

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man in suit exiting office building

Revenues are taking a hit.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Who ever thought it would come to this – accounting firms reducing their clientele?

It seems to be increasingly common, and the reasons are clear. It isn’t a desire to reduce revenues. It’s a desire to keep up with the workload without burning out.

MORE: 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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With fewer professionals entering the profession, and more of them leaving, more than half of practices are culling their less profitable or more problematic clients.

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