if your firm is 10 tears old, its probably getting stale facing intense competition for talent and grade-a clients from newer firms, less than 10 years, according to new research
it was the youngest firms – those in business for just one to two years – that scored highest. in hindsight, the reason is obvious: they began their firms during the pandemic. they didn’t have to change or adapt to the rigors of remote offices and limited client contact. they built their firms to fit the pandemic context.
if you want your business to grow, don’t focus on only the easy financial controls where you can see quick results – such as holding down petty cash expenditures or checking expense accounts for accuracy.
with continued economic uncertainty, companies of all sizes are looking toward captives as a way to manage high-severity risks and gain enhanced flexibility and greater control over their total cost of risk. and you don’t have to be a global behemoth to form a captive.
captive insurance can be one of the most effective ways for businesses to protect themselves, optimize cash, mitigate taxes and build enterprise value. however, captives often arouse suspicion among those who are not well-informed. that’s because there have been widely publicized cases of companies using captives as illegal tax shelters, among other abuses.
to separate fact from fiction, i will walk you through some of the most frequently heard objections to captives and explain why those objections are often short-sighted. read more →
a long time ago, a participant in one of my classes passed a note saying, “the only people who like change are babies.” i believe everyone will agree that change is not easy until you develop a skill to embrace it.
the main reason for this difference is that law firms cannot legally have nonsolicitation or noncompete covenants in their partner agreements. most cpa firms do have such provisions, which severely restrict the movement of partners from firm to firm.
despite these nonsolicitation provisions, cpa firms do sometimes make lateral partner hires (lps). there are several variations: read more →
i’ve developed a series of questions to assess someone’s aptitude for being on a team. each person in your firm who is a possible member of the back office support (bos) team needs to answer these questions. that includes you, as you are a potential team member.
ask others in your firm or people you work with outside your firm to give you feedback on these questions as they see you and the other potential members of your team. their responses will give you a second filtering of your potential as well as others you would like on your team. notice these are not questions relating to the competencies in accounting functions. the assumption is that you and your people already possess those skills. read more →
… now you’re ready to get down to business! it’s time to begin arguably the most critical of the dozen or so major steps in the merger process: negotiating the deal. read more →