survey

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer 2015:
Join the survey. Get the results

By CPA Trendlines Research

As results pour in from the final days of the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer 2015, it’s clear that practitioners’ experiences range widely, from outright euphoria to bleak despair.

See Comprehensive Coverage of Busy Season 2015

Here are a few the latest comments, verbatim…

• Better than last year. Volume is up significantly and good smoothness of preparation svc and knowledge of clients.
• We added a small tax practice in an adjoining town
• I didn’t have any clients with Obamacare non-compliance

READ MORE →

Doing the Tax Season Math: Regs + Staff + Clients + Tech + Self = Busy x Busy x Busy

 By CPA Trendlines Research

The key lessons learned from the 11th annual CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer Study are coming into clear focus.

More:
Busy Season 2015
Comprehensive Coverage

A.B. East, at Manning Elliott in Vancouver, BC, Canada, for example, took a lesson in smart management. He says he learned “the importance of having the right complement of experienced staff to delegate to so I can reduce my hours and deliver to clients on timely basis.” Next year East will continue a very healthy policy: “I have been and will continue to mentor managers, seniors and juniors to advance their expertise on a quicker basis.”

Most of the issues practitioners faced this year fit into seven main categories. What’s especially interesting is that the solutions vary from common sense to plain impossibility.

1. Affordable Care Act
2. IRS Regs and Congressional Cruelty
3. Better Staff, More Staff
4. Clients
5. Management
6. Technology
7. Interrelated Problems

Here’s a summary of our findings: READ MORE →

How tax professionals would remake the tax code. 

Imagine there’s no deductions,
it’s easy if you try.
No 8965, no1095-A,
above us, only sky.
Imagine all the CPAs,
Living for today…

By CPA Trendlines Research

There’s nothing like another tax season to prod accountants into imagining about ways to reform the nation’s tax system. In the this year’s CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, some CPAs have specific suggestions; others are calling on the profession to take a leadership role in the national conversation.

Register your comments here: CPA Trendlines 2-Minute Survey: Fix the Tax System

CPA Trendlines is polling the profession with a two-minute survey asking for specific recommendations for changing the code, the regs, the instructions and the forms – whatever it takes to make life easier for CPAs and the American taxpayer. (The call was not to reduce or increase taxes, just to simplify them.)

The earliest responses call for a diverse set of approaches: READ MORE →

Lesson learned: Plan, prioritize, repeat.

Next question: Key financial metrics for 2015 results.
Join the survey; get the answers.

By CPA Trendlines Research

They don’t call it “Busy Season” for nothing. It’s a frenetic, hectic, even hellish effort to herd client cats toward an unforgiving deadline.

When we ask CPA Trendlines members what lessons they’re learning this year and what they plan to do about it next year, we hear a lot about time management. Based on the survey, time management issues can be organized into eight main categories:

1. disorganized offices,

   

2. timing,
3. staffing,
4. scheduling,
5. procrastination,
6. poor planning,
7. the need for time off and
8. the desire to retire.

The solutions CPAs will be implementing next year range from minor tweaks to complete overhauls, or even surrendering to retirement and calling it victory. READ MORE →