client service opportunities

when discounts don’t work

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don’t just report numbers; help clients see the big picture.

by ed mendlowitz
call me before you do anything: the art of accounting

my father’s largest client was a luggage manufacturer with a national brand sold in specialty luggage stores, but not in department stores.

more: it’s not always about the money | perception becomes reality | call me before you do anything | the value in value consulting | the making of a consultant | learning to delegate: slow is faster | a cpa looks back across the generations
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he did this because he wanted to maintain the selling price, did not want discounting and felt his customer base would be more loyal if they did not compete against the larger stores’ discounting policy. he was very successful and very profitable, but probably not as large as he could have been had he had the volume that department stores would have provided.
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what the value-pricers get wrong

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and 5 ways to fix it.

by frank stitely

beeeeeep.  briiinnnnggg.  boooooop.  you reach over to turn off the alarm.

but it’s not your alarm, and it’s not 6 a.m. yet.  it’s the coffee maker.  or is it the dishwasher?  or the washing machine?  it turns out to be a text message.  you glance down at your smartphone, and you see 14 app notifications, 27 e-mails, and three texts.  your smartwatch yells at you for not meeting your “fitness” goal yesterday.

by 6 a.m., half of humanity competes for your attention.  every computer programmer on the planet believes his notifications rock your world.  when everything beeps, do any of the beeps really matter?  the rock group, chicago, wrote, “does anybody really know what time it is?”  yes, it’s time for another notification.

we don’t suffer alone.  our clients share our pain.

the value pricing people tell us that we aren’t selling time.  but we are.  we aren’t selling our time.  we are selling our clients’ time – back to them.  21st-century clients want perfect compliance, fast service, and a competitive price – as a start.  most importantly, they want us to save them time.

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new tax advice: what clients need now

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16 hot topics for tax planning – all billable.

by ed mendlowitz
the practice doctor

it seems all anyone is talking about these days is the new tax act. for over a year i have been posting a tax blog every four weeks on www.bottomlineinc.com. so now there are more than a dozen.

use the titles below to select what you are interested in, and i am sure you will get some valuable information you could use with clients.

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the w-4 time-bomb and what to do about it

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you don’t want clients to blame you for any unhappy surprises.

by barry j. friedman, cpa
industrynewsletters

with so many recent tax changes, two-income families and people who work multiple jobs should check their withholding amount.

more hot-button topics for clients: supreme court’s wayfair ruling on sales tax sows more confusion  |  making passwords hack-proof |

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the irs is urging two-income families and folks who work multiple jobs to complete a paycheck checkup to verify that they’re withholding the right amount of tax from their paychecks.

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supreme court wayfair ruling sows confusion – and opportunity

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the cost of compliance could be enormous.

by barry j. friedman, cpa
industrynewsletters

the supreme court has ruled that a company does not need to have a physical presence in a state to be subject to its sales tax.

it has long been the rule that a state cannot collect sales tax from a vendor that is selling products in that state, unless that vendor has a physical presence, called a nexus. however, on june 21, in a 5-4 decision, the supreme court swept away the nexus rule in south dakota v. wayfair, inc., saying states could collect sales tax even if there is no physical presence.

the brick-and-mortar stores are happy with the ruling, because it levels the sales tax playing field. the states are ecstatic because they can collect more sales tax. but there are complexities, and no one is entirely sure how it will play out in the long run.

who is affected?

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