disruptors wiley, deshayes, satterley, etienne, penczak and vanover offer their takes on staffing in the accounting profession.
by amy welch
in a post-pandemic gig economy, the rest of the world laments the staffing crisis. however, while the solutions may not be easy, they seem to be pretty simple.
in the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 disruptors one-on-one interview series with liz farr, some of the profession’s most innovative thinkers suggest solutions ranging from re-examining your firm’s culture to tapping into two-year colleges for new talent. here, several weigh in on what they see as the potential answers to one of the most troubling issues in the accounting profession.
with 74 percent of internships designed to lead to permanent employment, these programs are not just supplemental but foundational to preparing students for professional roles.
still, only 28 percent of college programs make internships integral to the curriculum. read more →
to weave relevance into the fabric of your firm culture, your team must shift from just getting the work done, with relevance as an afterthought, to putting the client at the center of the audit. that starts by building a foundation with the four u’s of understanding your client, the industry, the standards and how to audit.
to master these, you first need a natural sense of curiosity. out of curiosity comes inquiry. we’ve all been taught that inquiry is one of the fundamental components of the audit process. but too often, inquiry doesn’t go any further than getting some answers to the questions on a checklist. and too often, those questions are the same ones that get asked at every audit engagement. the client has probably heard them (and answered them) more times than you can imagine.
question: i have a close friend who is also a client. he went through a rough time with his wife threatening a divorce and we spent a lot of time talking about it (out of office settings).
i sent him a bill and he returned it with a notation that “we spoke as friends and not as a professional consultation, and the bill should be canceled.” what should i do?
in a universe where financial chaos threatens to overwhelm even the bravest souls, our trio of accounting change agents emerge to restore order, one ledger at a time. these stewards of integrity are uniting to serve the integrated ecosystem of families, businesses, and communities and aligning their efforts to unlock the power of the accounting profession with their unique blend of wit, wisdom, and, yes, a dash of comedy.
in the inaugural episode, our agents pull back the curtain to reveal the origins of their financial prowess. delve into the captivating backstories as they share their personal journeys, unveil the driving forces behind their decision to become accounting professionals, and what led them to seek and find ways to improve the world.
stop allowing your business bar to maintain the status quo – or worse, lower.
by seth fineberg at large
as most accountants prepare to shake off the effects of yet another tax season, the question remains: what will take you and your firm to the next level?
perhaps you’re not thinking about what’s next for your business, but you kind of should. if you’re frustrated with aspects of your business, you need to take a good, hard look at what is making it that way and ask yourself, “what is going to raise the bar?” staying the same is easy, but it gets harder as you look around you and see other practices making core changes to improve life-work balance and revenue and remove blockers through technology, service, or client mix.
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.
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. read more →
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.
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. read more →
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.
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. read more →
today’s bissett bullet: “how long does it take for a technical professional such as an accountant to move out of their comfort zone and build business development habits?”
by martin bissett
as a rule – nine months. the journey begins with discomfort and bewilderment, but if you practice consistently then not only will you become used to proactively building your pipeline, you will reap the rewards and become eager to do more of the same.
start by taking every opportunity to tell people the impact of what you do, on your clients. reach out to them on linkedin, speak to them at events, post helpful content on social media. positive feedback from prospective clients provides external validation, convinces you of your own value and helps you to ascend the mindset curve.
today’s to-do:
start now. find a space in your diary in the next two weeks, decide on a means to communicate with your target audience and schedule it in. will you write a blog? attend a networking event? record a video with some top tips to post on your social media? the choice is yours.
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.
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. read more →
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.
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. read more →
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.
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. read more →
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