and now a word to accountants who think they know marketing. unless you’re that rare bird who’s had some successful experience because you have some kind of inborn talent for marketing – and there are some of you like that – you don’t know beans.
and you won’t know beans until they start teaching marketing in accounting schools, which is long overdue. or until you’ve had long experience with a terrific marketer on your staff. but if you don’t have a natural affinity for it, there are things you should know that will result in your competing successfully in this wildly competitive market. or until you hire marketers who know their stuff, and can teach you what you should know. read more →
i don’t want to stress you out, but we really do need to do something about our stress levels.
the american psychological association says our kids are getting headaches, having difficulty sleeping, and eating too little or too much due to pressure from school and household finances. the worst part is that most parents were not aware of the severity of their children’s stress.
many adults reported not knowing what to do to change their lifestyle so they could reduce their stress, so it just makes sense to talk about this a little.
here are the most common stress-reducing tasks that some people do, according to the survey: read more →
urgency creates stress and pressure and leads to mistakes and improper perceptions of the quality of the work.
planning and execution reduce urgency. one way to eliminate urgency is to properly plan the work with realistic deadlines and proper resources. read more →
note: in this dialog, ed creates a checklist of the steps necessary to writing an article and getting it published.
question: i would like to write an article and have it published. can you assist me writing an article for an industry trade journal?
response: before we start, a few questions and comments.
have you ever been published? if so, what were titles of your last two articles and when and where were they published?
if you haven’t been published, your focus should be a smaller publication with a shorter article.
if you want to have an article in the magazine, you will need to review the last few issues to see the type and style of articles they publish and send me a listing of three topics appropriate for the journal with a short description of what you will cover in the each article and the reasons why their subscribers will want to read it.
question: thank you for taking the time to assist me, i have not written any articles yet. here are three ideas i thought of: read more →
if you’re having one of the toughest tax seasons in years, you’re not alone. in fact, you’re one in an unusually large crowd.
unless trends reverse in the last four weeks of tax season 2013, many practitioners – mainly those practicing solo or in small firms – should be bracing for significant declines in revenues and profits from last year.
tax season trending:
better or worse than last year?
some 64% of solo practitioners are reporting “worse” trends than last year, with half of them terming it “much” worse. about 16% are enjoying “better” trends overall.
to be sure, small firms may be feeling more than their fair share of pain. but many larger firms are hurting too. among the largest firms surveyed, 30% are experiencing positive trends, with 50% reporting negative trends.
practitioners across the nation are reporting severe issues. for one practitioner in monroe, la., the season has been running “slow as molasses!”
for some, tax season 2013 may be the last straw. “between the delays caused by the fiscal cliff, software delays and angry clients, it may be time for retirement,” says one veteran of 35 tax seasons and a partner in an 11-partner firm.
“all the irs delays have put my clients in slow motion mode!,” says liz hegarty, an austin, texas, soloist. “my in-flow is down 25% but all that means is a really compacted ‘extension’ craze in april! and i already have a crazy extension ‘season’ due to late k-1s.”
the latest analysis of survey data sheds light on key financial metrics, including trends in:
in allocating partner income, a firm needs to look at all performance attributes of each partner.
from a 35,000 foot altitude, firms should be reviewing these items for each partner:
the partner’s role in the firm, the relative values of the various roles (mp, rainmaker, client handler, qc expert, niche specialist, administrator, etc.) and how well the role was performed.
the extent that the partner achieved his/her goals.
six rules of professionalism that accountants need in their marketers. by bruce w. marcus professional services marketing 3.0 there’s a wonderful cartoon in which a guy in a business suit is looking over the shoulder of an artist at his … continued
many accountants these days are anxious to hit the golden $100,000 mark this year. others are interested in growing their revenues steadily and incrementally. still others are focused on lowering costs, raising profits from that side of the equation.
all of these approaches are well and good to help you keep more of what you make, but there are far more options to grow your take-home dollars besides raising revenue and lowering costs.
here are six more ways to get more profit out of your practice: read more →
you know why i like writing articles? it keeps me out of the kitchen, where from bachelorhood through fatherhood, i still make any culinary task a bumbling trip down a path of missed ingredients and inaccurate measurements – right to the doorstep of “didn’t-turn-out-like-i-expected.”
why is our local pizzeria on the speed-dial? for those (thankfully infrequent) times when my wife is traveling, and i’m on the hook to keep my two youngsters relatively nourished.
unlike my cooking endeavors, yours in public accounting surely go beyond the simplicity of cold cereal or the occasional peanut-butter sandwich.
today’s modern engagements require delicate management of people, their work, the client’s demands and the firm’s expectations.
beyond paperless: cpa firms launch a new arms race for cloud and mobile technologies.
by rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
leading cpa firms have clearly broken the going-paperless barrier and are adopting cloud and mobile technologies at a record pace, according to new data obtained by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research.
indeed, the question for practitioners is no longer “have you gone paperless yet?” or even “how paperless have you gone?” it is now “how much of your workflows have you moved to the cloud and made mobile and accessible everywhere and any time?” and the rest of the firms are asking themselves, “can i catch up?”
but the pace is astonishing. a new survey of 115 of some of the best-managed firms in the business shows:
smart phones for handling email, contacts and schedules are all but universal.
email now dominates client communications, not the phone call.
paper w2’s and 1099’s are practically extinct, having been scanned at first touch.
and if you’re using only two monitors on your desk, you’re getting left behind. most of the advanced firms are now using three per person. and that’s not counting the smartphones or ipads that are always nearby.
the last time tax professionals slogged through a tax season from hell, it was 2008, the financial world was crashing into a million little pieces, and 1 in 4 accountants was reporting disastrous operations.
before that, long-timers might recall 1995, when the irs deployed a filing fraud crackdown that delayed millions of refunds.
