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outlook & analysis

2014 roundtable: tax season tech boom

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buying opportunity: firms trailing the tech curve will need to merge out – cheap.

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by roman kepczyk
xcentric

analysis

firms are getting optimistic again and gearing up for slow steady growth. we are seeing investments in many specific technologies (workflow, cloud, remote access, security, byod) and projects targeted for handling this growth.

kepczyk
kepczyk

outlook

i think cautionary investments will be the rule and we can expect to see major activity coming out of busy season for both investments in firm technology and processes, particularly cloud applications that are more secure, available from any internet-enabled device and less expensive. read more →

outlook & analysis

2014 roundtable: partners already checked out

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passion. succession. growth.

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by august aquila
creating the effective partnership

analysis

the biggest issues that i am seeing revolve around partner engagement (commitment), succession issues and growth. the economy has been pretty much in a no-growth environment the last 12 months.

aquila
aquila

markets are becoming saturated by the national and super-regional firms. many secondary markets now have five or more of these players going after the same clients. the result is that this competition drives down fees and we are training clients to constantly go out for bids.

outlook

i personally don’t see a lot of change in the economy in the near future. succession, growth, commitment will continue to be major issues for a lot of small to mid-size firms.

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outlook & analysis

2014 roundtable: replacing the rainmakers

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next-gen leapfrogging. aggressive pricing. widening gaps.

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by jeff pawlow
the growth partnership

analysis

the demographic tsunami is upon us with firms finally being forced to face what the successor generation is going to look like. loyal technicians are next in terms of tenure, but i see many next-gen practitioners leapfrogging these long-term managers / non-equity partners and landing in key firm leadership roles instead.

pawlow
pawlow

opinions are mixed when it comes to the overall economic outlook. the recession may be falling behind us but main street doesn’t seem to have recovered as quickly or as deeply as in the past. as a result, we continue to see very aggressive pricing in the market, which is placing pressure on some long-held client relationships.

outlook

anecdotally, we see the business development and leadership development areas of our practice growing, which suggests a deeper level of engagement by most firms in these areas going forward into 2014. read more →

outlook & analysis

6 questions to test your firm’s partner pay system

how to create a fair and effective comp plan that unites partners and pushes the firm forward.

by robert j. lees and august j. aquila
creating the effective partnership

the right partner performance bonus plan encourages and rewards partners for achieving firm, team and individual goals, enabling the partners to see a clear cause-and-effect relationship between what they do, what it means to the firm and how they get rewarded.

unfortunately, in too many firms, partners can’t see these linkages. the compensation system is a failure.

consider, for a moment, these six questions for your firm: read more →

outlook & analysis

going global: 3 tips for growing an inbound tax niche

without building an entire international tax practice.

as the business tax practices of cpa firms across the united states look for ways to expand their opportunities, inbound tax services have become a lucrative niche. the complexity of u.s. corporate taxation for closely held foreign parents provides a ripe opportunity for experienced tax professionals to provide this valued service.

but firms don’t necessarily need an international tax practice to pursue global business opportunities. they simply need a focused strategy to attract companies with inbound tax compliance needs, and the relationships to support them.

here are three ways that firms can successfully build or expand a more globally aware tax practice, according to members of bkr international. read more →

outlook & analysis

marketing wars to escalate in 2014

the bigger they are, the harder they’ll fight for new business.

by rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

if you thought it’s been tough in 2013 to find and keep new clients, you won’t like 2014 any better. firms of all sizes are planning to escalate their sales and marketing programs in the coming year, according to an exclusive new 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 survey.

join the survey; get the results.

the number of tax and accounting firms battling hard for new business will rise to about 73% in 2014, up from 65% in 2013, according to the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 survey of more than 670 practitioners nationwide. read more →

outlook & analysis

13 questions to ask yourself for personal growth

how leaders can adopt the three modes of learning for change and improvement.

by august aquila
creating the effective partnership

the best leaders, managers and managing partners practice what i call the push down theory of accounting.

they take a certain percentage of the billable or administrative time they performed last year and give it to someone else to do. this frees them to do things that are worth more to the overall practice. but it requires a personal commitment. read more →

outlook & analysis

pcaob chief: “the audit is largely irrelevant”

james doty
james doty

also, pcaob plans investigation into the big four return to consulting.

talking bluntly to cpas, the chairman of the public company accounting oversight board said:

“the public has trouble discerning the difference between one audit and another. with little information about particular audits, a conventional wisdom is gradually developing that the audit is largely irrelevant to the investment process today.”

in addition, chairman james doty raised questions about cpa firms’ increasing involvement in consulting as a potential conflict of interest. “what will firm management do to meet the compensation and cultural challenges that destabilized arthur andersen?”

the move toward consulting was spotlighted in october when pwc agreed to buy management-consulting firm booz & co. in an effort to beef up its consulting capabilities.

moreover, doty questioned: read more →

management

partner problem? first, ask yourself these 21 questions

dealing with dysfunctional partners: the six-step process.

by august aquila
creating the effective partnership

as much as you would like to, you cannot ignore them; nor can you accept them as they are. doing that would be unfaithful to your core principles and ultimately cause more harm to the firm than any one of them is worth.

that leaves us with three options: rehabilitate them, fire them or place them outside of the firm. but first, be sure it’s not you.

read more →

outlook & analysis

report: ifrs spreads to 122 nations

the ifrs foundation says it has “solid evidence” that ifrs has already become the de facto global language for financial reporting in an additional 41 countries, bringing the total number of countries surveyed to 122.

key findings based on all 122 jurisdiction profiles include: read more →