today’s bissett bullet: “you can have as large a pipeline as you like but if you lose your existing clients as quickly as you gain new ones, then no progress is actually made.”
by martin bissett
see more bissett bullets here
don’t be blinded to the benefits of standardizing services.
by jody padar
radical pricing – by the radical cpa
the accounting profession will never resemble an automotive production line, perhaps for no other reason than we don’t look good in steel-toed boots. we’ll never be widget producers and, from my viewpoint, that’s a good thing. however, our position among the professional class shouldn’t blind us to the benefits of standardizing many of our services.
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anyone who has been an accountant for any length of time has certainly seen enough to eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel every time they start a new engagement. an entire firm has even more institutional knowledge to draw from. you can develop reliable and repeatable recipes for different services and deliverables by capturing this institutional knowledge. this is standardization, and it makes your service offerings more efficient, cheaper, consistent and predictable – all good business practices. you’ll be able to predict with better accuracy the time frames required for new projects, and you’ll be able to scope out exactly what will be required to bring the project to a successful conclusion. read more →
where is your next money coming from?
by martin bissett
passport to partnership
if i could give you one tip that would assure that you could predict your consistent practice growth, it would be to look at your calendar.
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you need to look at what is on your calendar and to look at today’s date and ask, “where is the money coming from this month?” look at what recurring fees you have, look at the value of those fees and what they bring in. then consider what would happen if any of those fees did not recur. look at what would happen if those fees dropped out of the equation and think about how you would replace that income.
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the popular search engine and its related apps are getting a cybersecurity upgrade.
by rick richardson
technology this week
during its recent google i/o 2024 developer conference, google unveiled private space, a new android feature that allows users to segregate a part of the operating system for sensitive data. it partitions specific apps into a “container,” like the mobile operating system’s incognito mode.
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the launcher makes the space available and can make it secure as an additional degree of authentication. notifications, settings and recents will not be displayed for apps that are in private space. if the private space is unlocked, users can continue to use the apps using the system share sheet and photo picker in the main area.
“we all get stuck like this.”
by ed mendlowitz
202 questions and answers: managing an accounting practice
question: a longtime business client who owed me a large balance for unpaid fees sent a letter dropping me. he then wrote me a letter requesting me to send “his” papers to his new accountant.
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can i insist on being paid first or do i have to send the papers? i made some notes on a worksheet adjusting his numbers that went on the tax return. do i have to send this also and if so, do i have to write these up in proper journal entry form?
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create deeper audit relevance by diving into your client’s business … in the actual business.
by alan anderson, cpa
transforming audit for the future
once your team understands the critical role planning plays in creating a foundation for audits and how that enables your team to have the mental bandwidth to deliver relevance, it’s time to focus on other ways to develop a relevance culture in your firm.
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at the planning stage, set out the expectation that everyone will add value to the audit by identifying areas where the client can improve. one way to do this is to assign each audit team member the task of interviewing someone outside of accounting who has something to do with their audit area. have your team members ask this person these five questions and write up a summary of what they learned:
what is driving the sale? is your firm ready?
by august j. aquila
price it right: how to value accounting services
the trend for small and midsized cpa firms to merge is accelerating as the competitive environment becomes even more demanding. while hundreds of firms merge every year, history continually shows that at some point in the future, things don’t always work out. like marriage, some mergers are successful while a great majority fail. many of the reasons for failure can be avoided if firms do their homework at the front end before entering the merger.
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the merger and acquisition drivers are constantly changing. some of the drivers we see today are a constantly changing marketplace, the creation of megafirms beyond the big 4, the sophistication of clients, the high demand for qualified people, technology, the cost of acquiring new clients, and finally, the accounting industry being in a mature market.
as we will see, most mergers fail because of non-financial reasons. unlike the sale of the manufacturing company, mergers of accounting firms are a lot more difficult to accomplish.
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sometimes it’s improvement. sometimes it isn’t. what role will you play?
by bruce marcus
professional services marketing 3.0
editor’s note: 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 was privileged to have a long relationship with bruce w. marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. we are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.
speaking of change, as we have been, in the several months it took me to write my book and to choose from the hundreds – maybe thousands – of articles i’ve written over the years, a great deal has changed. and not just trivial stuff.
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the movement to replace the hourly billing with value billing has accelerated. firm mergers, consolidations, new boutique firms that bear little resemblance to the historical professional firms, new technology that makes obsolete technology that was itself only months old. it seems that observations (i don’t make predictions) that i made decades ago about the need to go outside the firm for new sources of capital to finance growth have turned out to be accurate. new professional/marketers partnerships are springing up. professional services marketing 3.0 is in full swing.
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don’t have a skill? hire someone who does.
by sandi leyva
the complete guide to marketing for tax & accounting firms
if you’re a sole practitioner or small-firm operator, you’re probably very good at what you do – or you wouldn’t be in business today. but when it comes to marketing and selling yourself, well, many of us didn’t voluntarily sign up for that part.
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as a matter of fact, some of us are resisting – kicking and screaming – marketing ourselves. so no wonder, for some of us, business is slow or not growing at the rate we’d like.
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today’s bissett bullet: “how long does it take for a technical professional such as an accountant to move out …”
by martin bissett
see more bissett bullets here
how big should the buyout be?
by marc rosenberg
the rosenberg practice management library
question from a reader: we didn’t contemplate an owner leaving before normal retirement age unless it was because of death or disability or we had to fire them. however, as we were discussing hypotheticals at a recent partner meeting, we came to the uncomfortable conclusion that, currently, there’s nothing to stop owners from accumulating large buyout balances and just walking in one day and offering up their resignation pursuant to our partner agreement, thus entitling them to receive substantial buyouts as long as they give us a one-year notice. our vesting provision has a very limited penalty for early retirement: the buyout is reduced by 2 percent a year for every year before 60 they leave.
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no matter what, we need to modify our agreement so that if someone wants to leave early, they can do so, but they must know there will be a stiff penalty. we don’t want our partners to see their vested buyouts as large savings accounts that can be withdrawn at any time. instead, we want them to see our buyout as a true retirement plan, one that is redeemed close to or at a normal retirement age. my current thinking is that we restrict it in a similar way to an employer-funded retirement plan. the first day you can withdraw is the day you reach 55½, subject to vesting provisions and stiff penalties for early withdrawal. we think there should be a minimum number of years as a partner in order to receive any buyout.
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taking steps “little and often” works, but you have to get started.
by martin bissett
passport to partnership
a big concern in recent years has been how the incoming partners will purchase equity or fund the capital account and exit of a retiring partner.
much has been written that examines the mathematical complexities of this topic but the bottom line is simple. would-be partners in the age demographic of 28-42 are part of a generation who are already heavily borrowed in the form of credit card debt, mortgage debt and other forms of personal loans.
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their capacity to borrow in the current economy is extremely limited and it would appear that this will be the environment for the foreseeable future. in turn, banks’ willingness to lend has also been largely withdrawn in recent years.
this has produced a cash impasse that has forced partners to consider gifting equity, especially on the basis of time served in the firm. there is not scope within this piece to give full examination of best practice within this area except to highlight that 72 percent of partners surveyed highlighted that a senior manager’s ability to “buy in” to the firm and assume responsibility for funding the retirement plans of exiting partners was among their top three concerns about passing their practice on to existing employees.
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are your skills up to snuff?
by rick richardson
technology this week
according to a january 2024 deloitte study of 100 business executives, nearly half, or 45 percent, of high-level executives indicate they are aggressively upskilling and training their work force in artificial intelligence. approximately the same percentage, 44 percent, state they are hiring for it.
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therefore, it should not be shocking that generative ai ranks first among the highest-paid it skills. this is supported by a recent study from the job search firm indeed, which determined that computer abilities have the largest impact on pay. according to indeed, a job’s salary was 47 percent higher when generative ai was listed as a required talent.
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