Client’s Difficult Daughter Balks at Bill

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and ADo you talk to the dad?

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I have a very good client who pays us to prepare his daughter’s tax return. The daughter was going through a divorce and asked us to assist her and her attorney and she said she would pay us herself, and we shouldn’t ask her father to pay us and she also asked us not to tell her father what was going on. We did a lot of work and because of what we did she got a much better settlement than if we did not help her. Additionally a lot of what we did was rush on-demand work and some of it was quite difficult. Also, she was not the most pleasant to deal with on many occasions. READ MORE →

6 Ways to Move Beyond Compliance Services

Dollar Concept, Financial Adviser Or Finance AdvisoryBecoming a ‘trusted advisor.’

By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

Here’s a question: What portion of your revenues are derived from compliance work – e.g., tax preparation and IRS representation; bookkeeping; QuickBooks setup, cleanup and training; payroll; and audit work – versus value-added work, e.g., revenue improvement, business consulting, profit margin analysis and workflow improvement projects?

If you answered 100 percent compliance work and no value-added services, you’re not alone.  There’s a lot of lip service about moving from compliance services to becoming a “trusted advisor.” There’s an equal amount of confusion in how to get started.

Here are a few tips to help those of you who want to move in that direction. READ MORE →

Complaining Client? No Wonder!

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and A

QUESTION: I have had a client for 12 years and until recently he has been a pleasure. For the last year he seems to be overly complaining about the fees and has fallen behind in payments. He is not hurting for cash so it is not a money issue. What can I do to get the relationship back on track?

RESPONSE: I spoke at great length with the CPA and it seems that the client has been taken for granted and the accountant has dropped the ball. Calls and emails were no longer returned quickly, an extension was filed this tax season for the first time in years, a long-term staff person left so was replaced, and since client started to complain the partner hasn’t been so anxious to interact with him. Also the CPA told me that the work has settled into a routine and nothing much has changed in years “so why should the client be upset now?READ MORE →

Pricing, Billing, Costing: Don’t Blame Clients

communication negotiation pricing iStock_000020509177How good communication habits can head off problems.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Implementing Fee Increases

Professional fees are typically billed based on time. Yet, clients want outcomes and place a value on results, which doesn’t necessarily relate to time spent.

Ingrained habits are hard to break away from. For ages, many professionals quoted jobs by providing hourly rates and possibly a range of expected hours. Some projects are open-ended in the sense that no one knows where it will take them and what will be uncovered once work commences. This might include a forensic investigation, litigation where the discovery process becomes acrimonious, unraveling transactions in a complicated bankruptcy, a first-time audit of a multinational corporation or a tax audit for a reasonably sized business.

However, for most work, there is an understanding of what will need to be done and the approximate value to the client. This could include an annual audit, tax return, setting up a cost accounting or internal control system or a transfer price study. READ MORE →

Some Clients Just Aren’t Worth the ‘Mishegoss’

By Ed Mendlowitz

QUESTION: I have a client I really don’t like and want to drop, but I hesitate because of the long relationship I’ve had with her, and also I don’t want to lose the income. What should I do?

RESPONSE: I’ve addressed this before, but I am taking a different approach this time.

Dropping clients is never easy and I don’t think should be done lightly. However, there are some instances when it needs to be done. This particular client I was called about is extremely obnoxious. Not the normal grade of obnoxious, but far more so.

In fact it was one of the rare clients that I dropped. The call was from the accountant who had the client since then. I had the client six years. She’s had the client eight years – so she is much more patient than I am.

When she told the client she was dropping her, the client started to cry and beg her not to, so she changed her mind. Now she wants me to tell her what to do. For beginners, I have dropped very few clients. This client was one of the nastiest people I’ve ever dealt with. She was also very nasty to her husband, treating him like s – – t, and he has since passed on.

READ MORE →

The Five Tech Trends Turning Beancounters into Business Advisors

As data-entry costs plummet, new opportunities for accountants open up.

By Sandi Smith Leyva
Accountant’s Accelerator

After over 30 years in this profession, accounting has never been more promising and more exciting.  The main reason is technology is driving data entry costs so low that it’s just about to disappear.  That means we can finally focus on helping small businesses get more out of their accounting dollars through more analysis and better tools.

Here are five areas that I believe are essential to serving clients best: READ MORE →

The 5 First Steps in Targeting Clients

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and A

How to build a plan.

By Ed Mendlowitz
101 Questions and Answers for Managing an Accounting Practice 

QUESTION: I want to start growing my practice but am having trouble defining my target client.  I tend to accept every client I can and seem to have clients all over the place. Is there anything I can do to better target my “ideal” clients? 

ANSWER: To have a target client means you have a target. The target is the result of a plan. So, what is your plan?  READ MORE →