practice-management

8 Ways to Wrestle Software Subscriptions Into Submission

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One question leads to another.

By Donny C. Shimamoto
IntrapriseTechKnowlogies

Budget talks between accounting and information technology departments can get pretty complicated. Accountants know budgets; IT folks know IT. Not many people know both.

RELATED: IT Hardware Gets Even More Complex (Great!) | How Accounting Geeks and Techie Nerds Can Play Nicely Together

But you don’t have to know both if you know the right questions. One area of special concern is budgeting for subscriptions to software.

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What Does Being a Partner Mean?

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Aquila How to engage partners in the firms future clip square cvrPartners persuade their people to join them on the journey and to play a part in building a better firm.

By Robert J.  Lees and 
August J. Aquila
Creating the Effective Partnership

Just as the partners need to engage with the firm’s vision so do the firm’s people. But, like everyone, they actually engage with people not words. So, effective partners continually engage with their people, regardless of their level and role. They go out of their way to create a personal bond, sharing personal information and operating with honesty and integrity in all of their interactions.

Creating the Effective Partnership: Every Partner’s First Question: ‘What’s in It for Me?’ | The 9 Building Blocks of a Winning Vision that the Big Four Have Discovered | The Politics of an Accounting Firm Partnership | Nine Rules to Creating Highly Effective Partnership Teams | Audacious Vision and Grand Purpose Prove Essential to CPA Success | Are You Creating a Sustainable Firm? | The Debilitating Effects of Denial at Accounting Firms | The Five Psychological Hurdles that CPA Firms Must Confront Today READ MORE →

SURVEY RESULTS: CPA Firms Accelerate Growth

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The National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics -- The Rosenberg Survey
Click for full report

The 2014 national MAP survey shows widening divide between large and small firms.

Exclusive to CPA Trendlines
The National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

Marking the third consecutive year of quickening expansion since the recession, CPA firms are posting 6.7% revenue growth, according to the latest results from the National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics reported here exclusively by CPA Trendlines.

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“The National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics: The Rosenberg Survey” is well known and well respected within the national CPA industry, due to its solid reputation for accuracy, thoroughness and high participation rate. Exactly 75% of the firms in this year’s survey participated in 2013. This allows for more accurate year-to-year data comparisons. All of these characteristics, plus the highly sought-after executive summary, make “The Rosenberg Survey” a must-read for any entrepreneurial-minded CPA firm. The survey captures data from participating firms of all revenue ranges, from solo practitioners to those with over $20 million in net fees. READ MORE →

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

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11 weekly self-assessment questions for successful professionals.h

By August Aquila
The Effective Partnership

When’s the last time you talked to your partners about the “mirror questions”? We all know that it’s easy to kid ourselves about how well we’re doing. But when we have to look ourselves in the mirror, well, it’s another story.

Rather than giving the partners the questions they should answer, we suggested that they come up with their own self-assessment. Specifically, we wanted them to devise questions they could ask themselves each week to evaluate how well they had performed. In the end, we came up with 11. READ MORE →

Are Bad Clients Driving You Crazy?

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Angry businessman on the phone16 ways to tweak your compensation systems to get and keep the right clients.

If your partners are putting up a fight to keep clients who should be let go, take a look at your compensation system. It’s not just about billable hours.

August Aquila, Creating the Effective Partnership, suggests 16 tweaks to your firm’s compensation system. While the list is not exhaustive, it does provide criteria that firms can consider beyond revenue. READ MORE →