CPA Trendlines

Today's Features

Get the Most Out of Your Client Meeting

BONUS: A case study of what NOT to do.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” – Ayn Rand

The reality is that the robots and AI are here, and they will eventually take over much – if not all – of the day-to-day work that is typically done by a human interacting with a computer. You may not like it, but you cannot avoid it. So utilize robots to make your life easier.

MORE: Why BOS Calls for Flat Rates | Four Steps for Controlling Source Documents | How to Use OneNote to Create a Firm Playbook | How to Develop Procedures for BOS | Top Tech Tools for Building Your New BOS Business | Choose Your Little Black Dress of Technology
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Prepare for Your Meeting

Do your homework before going out to the client’s office. If this is an existing client where you have been doing standard compliance work, review the data in their accounting program and make sure you are working with up-to-date information. If this is a new back office support prospect, ask to review their accounting data before going out to their offices. If they are not open to this, it may require an extra visit. The steps below assume you have either worked on the client’s accounting in some capacity, or you have had the opportunity to review the accounting files.
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NEWS

Trump Indicted. And, Yes, There’s a Tax Angle

“The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.”

Read the Indictment and the Statement of Facts for yourself

Statement by District Attorney

District Attorney Bragg Announces 34-Count Felony Indictment of Former President Donald J. Trump

The charges contained in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. All factual recitations are derived from documents filed in court and statements made on the record in court.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. today announced the indictment of DONALD J. TRUMP, 76, for falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election. During the election, TRUMP and others employed a “catch and kill” scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.

TRUMP is charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree.

MARKETING & SALES

Win Your First Client: Yourself

Do you project confidence?

By Martin Bissett
The Martin Bissett Practice Growth System

Winning your first client is all about understanding why someone would buy from you before you ever speak to them, before you ever meet them before you ever start the preparation for talking to them.

MORE: Where Is Your Next Money Coming From? | Forged in Fire: The Pains of Leadership | A Lesson in Customer Service and Reputation | Prioritize Your Prospects | Good Enough Is Not Enough | Consistency Is Key to Business Development
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This discipline too often goes unexplained by most sales training programs offered to the accounting profession, but ultimately we have to be comfortable with who we are and the value that we offer.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

The Top 11 Financial Statement Ratios

And why the quick ratio isn’t valid.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

Ratios are tools used to evaluate a company’s financial statements.

MORE: Insurance You Might Not Know You Need | Price Not Always the Top Consideration in a Sale | When an Owner Dies Without a Buy-Sell Agreement | Due Diligence Is in the Details | Manage Better with the Right Financial Tools | Do You Need a Forensic Professional?
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Here are some of the more commonly used ratios.

1. Working Capital Ratio

Current assets ÷ current liabilities
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CHARTS & GRAPHS

Tax Pros E-file 52% of Returns

Refunds are in the red.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

This tax season looks a lot like the last, at least from the viewpoint of the Internal Revenue Service, which is eyeing roughly the same workload.

MORE: Can’t IRS Tax Pro Accounts Do More? | Hello? IRS? Anybody Home? | Taxpayer Assistance Centers Need Upgrade | On Business Outlook, CPAs Are Confident … and Concerned | At the IRS, Short on Staff Means Short on Service | Tax Pros Offer Advice for Small Businesses
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As of March 24, the latest data available, the agency has received 80.7 million returns, down 0.8 percent from the same period in 2022. It has processed 80.4 million returns, up 1.9 percent.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Get Sticky with CAS

The clients are more loyal and buy more services.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

Client accounting services (CAS) is the new revenue segment you cannot afford to miss.

If you are an accounting firm owner/partner, you do not want to miss the emerging, growing, and profitable opportunities in client accounting services.

MORE: The Why Behind Your CAS Why | Who Is the Professional?
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Before we get to why, to ensure that we are on the same page, let us agree on a description of what CAS is.
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LEADERSHIP

Five Ways to Keep Your Edge as a Leader

Specific steps, including three ways to make life easier.

By August J. Aquila
What Makes a Great Partnership

Have you ever wondered why in good times or in bad it seems that managing partners of professional services firms fail? What happens to them? Do they get stuck in a routine? Do they fail to see the next issue coming down the road? Do they stop thinking about what is critical for success? Or, do they spend too much time with clients, with dysfunctional partners or with all the other noisy, but unimportant things that can pull them from their purpose?

MORE: Five Reasons That Leaders Fail | What Managing Partners Must Be Doing | Do Your Partners Pay Their Own Way? | How to Create Firm Accountability | Five Questions to Ask Your Partners about Accountability
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Sometimes leaders get overwhelmed. They forget that non-stop action is a lot different from delivering results. In short, they lose the alignment between what’s important to them and what’s important to the firm.
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PRO Member Exclusive

The Business Side of CPA Firms

Four ways to increase revenue. Four reasons that employees should care.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

Future CPA firm leaders must have an understanding of how their firm operates as a business, including how it makes money and what holds back profitability. With this knowledge, team members will make better decisions about how they spend their time and perform their work.

MORE: Public Accounting as a Business, 101 | Nuts and Bolts of Mentoring Staff | Nine Ways to Measure Staff Performance on the Path to Partner | Sixteen Duties of a Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership
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All businesses have economic structures unique to their industries:

Grocery stores are high volume, low profit margin.
Real estate ventures use accelerated depreciation and other tax angles to generate cash flow and healthy ROIs.
Professional sports teams focus on increasing the value of the franchise so it can eventually be sold for a gigantic profit.

The typical CPA firm is a low-volume, high-priced business, with a relatively high profit margin (generally 30-45 percent of revenue).
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PRO Member Exclusive

Make Meetings More Memorable

Warmly, allows you to look up your contacts and helps you find insights and background.

Install fun and functional apps that integrate with Zoom.

By Beth Ziesenis
App of the Week

If Zoom is your preferred online meeting app, you are in luck! Did you know there is a Zoom App Marketplace? Zoom has more than 1,500 apps available, and there have been more than 6,000,000 app installs. A perfect day to explore these is coming April 1, National Fun at Work Day. (Yes, it coincides with April Fools’ Day.)

MORE APPS of the WEEK: Make Your Computer a Clean Slate | Recycle and Repurpose Old Devices | Enlist AI for More Productive Meetings | Keep Teams on Task with Project Management Apps | Apps to Put Your Affairs in Order | App of the Week: Celebrate Black Business Month | App of the Week: Cheap Flights | Help Your Clients Save Money | Time to Upgrade Your Spreadsheets | App of the Week: Secretly Stash Cash | Easy Apps for Increasing Client Engagement with Video | App of the Week: Grow Your Business Knowledge and Career Skill Sets | App of the Week: Upgrade Your Resume | App of the Week: End Procrastination |
SEE ALL: Apps of the Week here |
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The new Zoom Apps go beyond simple integration to let you use all kinds of apps right inside your Zoom meetings. The apps include ice-breaking tools such as Heads Up! from Ellen DeGeneres, Bingo, Trivia and word-guessing games.

But there are some things to keep in mind.

PRO Member Exclusive

Nine Methods to Reduce Tax Review Time

It’s not too late to start.

By Ed Mendlowitz
How to Review Tax Returns: The Field-Tested Update

To have a successful tax season, care and effort must be spent to reduce the review time while maintaining quality.

MORE: The Last Thing a Tax Reviewer Does | Judge Reviewers by How Tax Preparers Improve | ‘Quick and Dirty’ Tax Review | Three Ways to Improve Tax Returns | Don’t Use Eyes, Use Brain | Three Types of Tax Return Reviews | Tax Review Procedures Are Your Quality Control
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The reviewer’s time is the main element that needs to be managed and reduced.
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GROWTH STRATEGIES

Where Is Your Next Money Coming From?

Five questions to help forecast your firm growth.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

If I could give you one tip that would assure that you could predict your consistent practice growth, it would be to look at your calendar.

MORE: Forged in Fire: The Pains of Leadership | Perception Is Reality, Client Version | 10 Questions for Reconsidering Your Prices | Would You Make Yourself a Partner? | A List Is Not a Pipeline | Prepare the Next Generation Now | Are You Committed to Your Firm? | Nine Points to Check Before Hello | Why Clients Struggle with Growth
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

You need to look at what is on your calendar and to look at today’s date and ask, “Where is the money coming from this month?” Look at what recurring fees you have, look at the value of those fees and what they bring in. Then consider what would happen if any of those fees did not recur. Look at what would happen if those fees dropped out of the equation and think about how you would replace that income.
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Heather Smith: Try Not Growing Your Business

Heather Smith: We are the oxygen for the businesses around us.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Heather Smith has loved accounting since she was 14 and loves the flexibility the profession offers. Since the mid-2000s she has been one of the original cloud accounting nomads, with an accounting business that she says fits in a lovely Italian handbag.

MORE: Randy Crabtree: Follow These Three Rules to Keep Employees Happy | Erik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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In 2022, the ANISE Consulting founder based in Brisbane, Australia, demonstrated that nomadic lifestyle by attending all three live Xerocon events: London, New Orleans and Sydney. Heather is a tireless advocate for her small business clients and a fan of technology to improve our lives, including staffing. READ MORE →

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Insurance You Might Not Know You Need

These are often overlooked.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

The following are brief descriptions of insurance coverage not usually obtained or obtained in inadequate amounts. Insufficient insurance can expose you to serious losses and could also jeopardize your future financial comfort and security.

MORE: Price Not Always the Top Consideration in a Sale | Eight Ways to Value a Family-Owned Business | Are You Ready for a Co-Owner to Drop Dead? | Simple Controls Can Prevent Fraud | Charity Directors Must Take Theft Seriously | Forensic Techniques Can Be Fraud Deterrence | The Hazards of Poor Internal Controls | Rule #1: Start with Cash
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Note that I am not covering all types of insurance and this guide’s purpose is to alert you to the importance of the right insurance protection. Some of this coverage can be as riders to existing policies.
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