salary

Next Five Years Are Critical for Accounting Firms

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How deeply are you investing in your future? How are you treating the “three levels” of partners?

By Allan Koltin
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

The next 12 months will start with a handful of firms breaking out of the pack and substantially raising starting salaries for new accountants in a way never seen before (see E&Y’s recent announcement on staff salaries). The domino effect will play out here because if you raise first-year salaries to second-year compensation levels, your second-year staff will need to be paid like third-year staff, and this move will go all the way up to senior managers and principals.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, The 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: 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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The firms that are “uber” profitable will have an easier time funding this change than their peers. However, if you want to win the important war for talent (I mean attract, keep and grow future stars!), you will now need to pay up for them in a way we never envisioned (simple supply and demand economics in play).
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Three Ways to Thrive with Limited Capacity

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smiling man working at laptop in office with glass walls

Turn the staffing shortage into a new opportunity.

By Frank Stiteley
The Relentless CPA

Charles Dickens had to be writing about the accounting profession when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Clients are plentiful. I met a new client coming out of the restroom at our office complex. We get four to five inquiries a day – out of tax season. During tax season, we turned down four out of five prospective clients.

MORE ON STAFFING: Tax and Accounting Jobs and Salaries Show Strength | Olympics of Outsourcing and Offshoring for Accountants | New Study: Strong and Steady Growth for Accountant Jobs and Salaries | Can’t Recruit? Retain! | Is Tech Causing Both CPA Shortage and Low Salaries? | Staffing Tops List of Woes at CPA Firms | To Replenish the Talent Pipeline, Go Back to the Classroom | Whole Person Retention: When It’s Not Just the Money | More Big Firms Shut Their Doors to New College Grads | Seven Enticements to Keep Talent On Board | Employee Retention Is Easier Than Attraction | Let Interns Fix the Staffing Shortage? | Disruptors: Talent Crisis? What Talent Crisis? | Firms Culling Clients as Staffing Woes Persist
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Staff are not plentiful – at least not good ones. I’m getting two or three resumes a day, but they’re the warm body sort most of us learned the hard way not to hire during the pandemic. You’ve seen these resumes too. They are people with six employers in eight years. You are certain to be number seven in nine years. They claim eight years of experience, but you can see from their job history that it’s really two years of experience repeated four times. And – they want $100K for those two years of real experience.

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Tax and Accounting Jobs and Salaries Show Strength

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line chart
Overall accounting profession employment hits a glitch.

Hourly earnings fluctuate.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Despite a slowing increase in employment for the U.S. economy in general, the nation’s tax and accounting sector is improving on most fronts, marking more than four years of solid year-over-year gains.

MORE: New Study: Strong and Steady Growth for Accountant Jobs and Salaries | More Big Firms Shut Their Doors to New College Grads | Seven Enticements to Keep Talent On Board | Payroll Leads Job Gains in Tax & Accounting Sector
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To be sure, tax and accounting employment nudged slightly down in July, according to the latest data available to CPA Trendlines Research. But it remains ahead of last year’s figures. And record highs are popping in key hiring segments, including staff, CPA firms and payroll services. Is talk of staffing shortages overblown, or would growth be even stronger if more qualified candidates were available? READ MORE →