CPA Trendlines

Today's Features

Letting Staff Go After Tax Season? Bad Idea

Eight reasons they might be more valuable than you think.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

QUESTION: I am planning on letting go of some staff after April 15 and will hire replacements at a higher level. Any suggestions?

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RESPONSE: 1) Your implication is that you will hire replacements at a higher level.

I do not like that. I like hiring out of school and training internally. I’ve written about this many times and shared my ideas ad infinitum and will not repeat that here because you can search back to previous Q&As (or read my 30:30 Training Method book).
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MARKETING & SALES

The Real Math Behind the Sales Pipeline

Four business development steps that are worth your while.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development On a Budget

I’ve taken many accounting firm partners through this process, and it’s quite common for them to balk a little at the pipeline idea when they see the amount of work involved.

MORE: Five Questions for Grading Prospects | 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 | Six Keys to Turning Prospects into Clients | Don’t Overlook Internal Communication | Four Reasons People Struggle with Communication
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They see it as just another call on their time when they already have far too much to do, and they ask me why they can’t just write down a list of prospects and go to work on them.

Is that what you’ve been thinking? Well, here’s why that doesn’t work.
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PRO Member Exclusive

ChatGPT Is Getting Humanlike Memory

AI is about to get really personal.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

As it gets better at remembering your preferences, interests and personal information, ChatGPT is starting to resemble your most reliable assistant. It will even use these memories in subsequent conversations. A minor change like this might give generative AI a more human appearance and possibly open the door to general artificial intelligence (general AI), which would allow an AI brain to function more like the gray matter in your brain.

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The restricted test was published by OpenAI in a blog post, wherein it was explained that the purpose of the test was to evaluate ChatGPT’s (both the free and ChatGPT Plus versions) memory of your messages across all chats.
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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Want to Merge? Six Steps to Take

BONUS: Key considerations in evaluating a practice continuation agreement.

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

Question: What I should do about merging? I need a specific answer.

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Response: I can’t give you an easy answer. I can give you a process to follow that should provide an answer. Actually, this works pretty well and I’ve gotten good feedback from many colleagues. I’ve also rethought it many times, and still think this is the way to go about it.

OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Accountants Bullish Locally, Bearish Nationally

One-quarter of accountants see trouble ahead for the source of their bread and butter.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The Trendlines 2024 Busy Season Barometer is unearthing a perplexing paradox.

It seems that most CPAs think their firm and their clients will do better this year – or at least no worse than last year, which itself was a pretty good year.

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At the same time, they tend to see things getting worse for the national economy and small businesses in general.

What’s going on?
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