by ed mendlowitz
top 101 practice management answers
question: it is tax season and i am very busy, but many clients need financial planning advice and i want to make it a separate engagement for after tax season. what can i do now to get the work? read more →
new trends emerge in net profit margins and accounts receivable.
after years of intensifying and debilitating pressure on bottom lines, profits at tax, accounting and bookkeeping firms appear to be hitting 10-year highs, according to information obtained by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 from sageworks, the specialist in tracking private-company financials. read more →
what successful managing partners do
by robert j. lees and august j. aquila
how to engage partners in the future
the problem is that in the majority of cpa firms there is no clarity around what being a managing partner actually entails and, specifically, what managing partners should do to create and sustain their partners’ commitment to actively participating in delivering the firm’s future.
our research involving in-depth interviews with 150 managing partners at the world’s leading firms identified that the truly successful managing partners share three key activities: read more →
6 reasons why innovation is so difficult at accounting firms and 6 practical ways to launch new money-making ideas.
by august j. aquila
creating the effective partnership
the mantra over the last few years has been “change or die.” so, why is it that professional services firms, especially accounting and law firms, have found it so difficult to embrace change, innovate and spend time and resources on research and development in order to build a stronger future?
here are six reasons why firms fail to innovate: read more →
do the math: pro market shrinks by 2 points.
the nation’s tax professionals have e-filed fewer than 44 million returns through march 21, off 1.3% or 571,000 returns, from the same point past year, while self-filers are running 5.9% ahead of last year, having transmitted 31.7 million returns.
do the math and you’ll find professionals’ 60% share of the e-filing market last year has slipped to about 58% – a seemingly small amount that, nevertheless, translates into hundreds of thousands of returns and millions in lost revenues. it’s a trend that shows no sign of slowing or reversing, according to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 analysis.
learning how to to ask all the right questions.
accounting firms combine for a reason, or not at all. in fact, firms may need many reasons to merge. making sure the merger discussions end in a successful deal requires hard work, some compromise and not a small amount of luck. according to marc rosenberg in how to negotiate a cpa firm merger, it shouldn’t start with “love at first sight.” but it must start with at least 13 ingredients necessary for success. read more →
item 5: brace for new work.
by hitendra patil
pransform inc.
you may need to start asking your clients about bitcoin. new irs guidance treats bitcoins and other crypto-currencies not as money, but as property, for tax purposes and applies immediately to all returns. see the full text of notice 2014-21 (pdf).
among other things, the irs advised that:
the 9 essential elements for a successful partner comp plan.
by robert j. lees and august j. aquila
creating the effective partnership
every compensation plan should be constructed to help the firm achieve its strategic goals, including servicing its clients and attracting and retaining the right people. read more →
by ed mendlowitz
101 questions and answers
question: i assigned four projects to a manager who reassigned them to a staff 2 person and i gave a date when they were needed that was three weeks away. when i asked about the progress after two weeks, i was told that nothing was near completion. now there is a super rush with much stress. how could this situation have been avoided?
response: first off – you are to blame. you did not work with the manager to see how she would assign the work and to whom. read more →
what to do when every client is in play. by bruce w. marcus independent studies, including those from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间, show that a large percentage of accounting clients are dissatisfied with the levels of service from their accountants. good work … continued
is it part of a trend?
what’s the future of the tax business?
click here to join the survey; get the results
the irs says it has received more than 75 million individual tax returns as of march 14 and projects that it will receive about 149 million individual income tax returns by the end of the year.
see also:
what’s the first sign a deal won’t work? you can’t agree on the name of the new firm.
marc rosenberg, author of how to negotiate a cpa firm merger, sees negotiations unravel for too many reason. some of the reasons are serious, others just seem ridiculous. for example, rosenberg recalls one deal failed when one side insisted on “requiring a positive attitude toward employees.” in most cases, one firm wants something, the other firm doesn’t, and the two can’t agree on how to resolve the conflict. sounds simple. it isn’t. here are 15 ways to make something that should be simple into something way too complicated. read more →
plus: 4 keys to tie pay to performance.
by robert j. lees and august j. aquila
how to engage partners in the future
partners are the culture in a professional service firm – what they believe, what they reward, what they do and how they do it determines what and how things get done. partners are the owners – they, and they alone, are responsible for the firm’s vision and its implementation.
being a leader means each partner must: read more →