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client service opportunities

15 reasons to dump a client

you know the type.

they’re the clients that keep you awake at night, bother you on weekends, and drive your staff crazy. they’re the clients you’d rather you didn’t have. wouldn’t it be great to dump them and make them some other accountant’s problem?

but how do you spot a problem client before they swell into a catastrophe? arvid mostad, president of mostad & christensen, a supplier of marketing materials to accounting firms, outlines 15 habits of bad clients: read more →

outlook & analysis

tide turning for the better on cpa jobs

another view on when will accounting firms be ready to start hiring again?

by geremy cepin
www.pdiglobal.com

geremy cepin, national director, pdi executive search
geremy cepin, national director, pdi executive search

we are seeing a huge uptick hiring in hiring by accounting firms of various sizes across the u.s. for tax, audit, and marketing/sales positions.

currently my firm, pdi executive search – a division of pdi global, inc.  – is currently engaged by 12 different cpa firms to recruit for tax partner, senior tax manager, tax manager, audit partner/senior manager, director of practice growth, and business development executive positions.

in fact, just yesterday a regular client called for help in recruiting two tax managers with outbound international tax experience.

not all of the positions we represent are in specialty service lines. many of them are for private client services, serving privately held corporations, partnerships, and high net worth individuals.

these positions i speak of are in cities including san francisco, seattle, chicago, northern virginia/washington d.c.. philadelphia, new york city, los angeles, and boston. all provide tremendous career growth opportunity.

the tide has definitely turned for the better.

outlook & analysis

top three ways to go paperless at home

financial record-keeping in the virtual world.

by sharey wang, cpa
partner, nsbn llp

sharey wang
sharey wang, partner at nsbn, provides audit, taxation and business consulting services. her client base includes large, multinational, nonprofit organizations; the broadcasting industry; and the real estate industry, including those under hud.

“going green” – sounds like just a buzzword – but the benefits are numerous and will provide tremendous value and forever change the way we do many things.  the day after we implemented our firm’s paperless work environment, i began to contemplate the growing files in my home storage area and realized there were three areas to consider “greening” — my mailbox, my file cabinets, and data safety issues.

1. greening your mailbox

think about all the mail you receive on a daily basis… and along with every bill comes a bulky advertising insert! it takes time to sort, write checks, affix postage and mail them by the due date.  and if you’re on vacation or business travel, you risk a late payment! wouldn’t it be nice to never see them again plus cut down your clutter?

here are some steps to follow:

1.  request your vendors to send you “e-statements” instead of paper statements.  you can either call them to request this or log online to their websites to change your account settings to receive paperless statements.

read more →

client service opportunities

client-centric cpa? it’s not just numbers

helping a retailer client by looking beyond accounting.

[editor’s note: we’ve been asking accountants what “client-centric” means to them. here’s one of the many pithy answers we’re getting. send yours to editor@www.g005e.com, or use comments.]

by june ball, cpa
owner, north star accounting

many of my business clients are new and very small.  they know their own industry, but don’t know who to turn to for things like branding, marketing, signage, health care and business insurance, etc.

i keep what i call a “referral rolodex” in my office.  say a client needs some signs made.  i will retrieve from my rolodex some cards of reputable sign shops in the area that i know well.  i make sure the client knows that i know the owners, but by giving them the cards, i am not endorsing any of them.  it’s a way i help my clients find good, reputable people they can depend on.

read more →

outlook & analysis

when will accounting firms be ready to start hiring again?

firms maintain headcounts 4% smaller than last year and 8% off pre-recession peak.

by rick telberg

while the rest of the u.s. economy shed 131,000 jobs in july, sparking fears of a double-dip recession, rosters at accounting and bookkeeping services remained unchanged from the month before at a seasonally-adjusted 893,200 workers. that’s the good news.

accounting and bookkeeping services, total employment (by month, in thousands)

the bad news:  july’s employment for the industry represented a 3% decline from the year-ago month, and, possibly, an acceleration in job losses because the 3% year-to-year decline in july followed a 2.8% year-to-year decline in june, 2.9% may-to-may, and 1.8% for both march and april.

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growth strategies

six tips to improve your email marketing

with email marketing emerging as the weapon of choice for business-hungry accounting firms, we figured some firms could use a few pointers

e-mail marketing giant mailermailer’s latest e-mail marketing metrics report reveals the six key factors that determine whether or not clients and prospects open (and respond to) your e-mail newsletters and promotions.

here are the study’s six key findings, based on a study of over 300 million business e-mails sent over two years:

1. e-mails with subject lines that are less than 35 characters are opened 3-4% more often than those with longer subject lines.

read more →

leadership

accelerating execution: three critical factors

do you need to slow down to go faster?

in today’s world, it’s all about speed. faster companies have an average of 40 percent higher sales growth and 52 percent higher operating profit than slower companies, according to the new book, “strategic speed: mobilize people, accelerate execution” by three forum corp. consultants.

on average, the book notes, organizations abandon 50 percent to 70 percent of strategies because they fail to take hold in the organization or fail to achieve the desired results in the time expected. in other words, only 30 percent of strategic initiatives fully succeed, on time.

the book points out a surprising fact: you achieve strategic speed by focusing on people, but many leaders mistakenly pursue speed mainly by manipulating processes, systems, and technologies in a bid to become more efficient.

“many leaders assume there’s a trade-off between speed and engagement, speed and learning, speed and alignment: when you want to go fast, there just isn’t time for all that ‘people stuff,'” the book says.

read more →

management

recession undermines trust and ethics in the workplace

are you ready for massive staff turnover?

during challenging economic times, the relationship between employees and employers often is tested.

frequently, leaders are forced to make decisions that broadly affect their workforces and alter what matters in the workplace.

today’s business environment is no exception: according to deloitte’s fourth annual ethics & workplace survey, it appears that the recession has diminished two important forms of business currency — trust and ethics.

highlights of the 2010 survey, conducted among 300 fortune 1000 executives (vp or higher) and 754 full- or part-time employed u.s. adults ages 18 and older, include:

  • one-third of employed americans plan to look for a new job when the economy gets better.
  • of this group of respondents, 48 percent cite a loss of trust in their employer, and 46 percent say that a lack of transparent communication from their company’s leadership are their reasons for looking for new employment at the end of the recession.
  • additionally, 65 percent of fortune 1000 executives who are concerned employees will be job hunting in the coming months believe trust will be a factor in a potential increase in voluntary turnover.

free download: click here to get the report (pdf, 24 pages)

outlook & analysis

sageworks, adp report continuing small business slowdown

sales, profits, payrolls under pressure.

dreary new economic trend reports from sageworks and adp are mirroring last week’s dismal findings from intuit, surepayroll and the u.s. bureau of labor statistics.

adp’s monthly payroll survey shows american business added a paltry 42,000 jobs in july, continuing a six-month stall in hiring. at the same time, sageworks, the financial analytics software maker, shows small business cost-costing was the only thing supporting margins.

read more →

outlook & analysis

top ten posts: what accountants are reading this week

most popular articles at 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间, seven days ended aug. 4, 2010:

  1. three secrets to easy billings
  2. the 24 personalities of individual tax returns (and the clients behind them)
  3. 80 ways for accountants to use twitter
  4. are you already missing the next generation of clients?
  5. how to close a sale: the four corners
  6. the “bush” tax cut debate: how to read between the lines
  7. new wrinkles in cpa exit strategies
  8. why no one listens to you
  9. eight ways the smallest accounting firms compete and win
  10. new survey results: accounting firms dive into digital marketing
outlook & analysis

intuit, surepayroll see weak economy

little or no good news.

alter

the numbers may vary, but surepayroll and intuit seem to agree that the state of the economy for small businesses and small business workers is, at best, weak.

“small business hiring continued at the same rate as june, giving us two consecutive months of 0.2 percent nationwide hiring growth,” says surepayroll inc. president michael alter.

“the average paycheck, however, has leveled off,” he added. so far this year, small business hiring is up 4.1 percent — a 0.2 percent increase over june — while year-to-date pay decreased of 0.4 percent.

according to intuit, small business employment grew slightly in july, but at a slower rate than in the past, while wages and hours worked by employees increased at a much faster pace, according to intuit’s online payroll index.

the monthly report finds small business employment grew by 0.2 percent in july, equating to a 2.4 percent annual growth rate. the index is based on figures from the country’s smallest businesses that use intuit .

read more →

outlook & analysis

the “bush” tax cut debate: how to read between the lines

to follow the debate intelligently,  you need to ask the right questions.

there are a lot of numbers being thrown around in regards to the issue of to what extent congress should extend the so-called “bush” tax cuts that were passed between 2001 and 2006 and scheduled to sunset on december 31.

one of the key figures is how much extending the tax cuts (or various parts) would cost.

according to the non-partisan tax foundation, a few things should be kept in mind when considering such a figure:

read more →