Accountants Round Up

"CPA as Client Trustee"

By Christopher D. Carico: The family CPA is often the best choice as successor trustee of the family trust.

As a group, CPAs are highly educated, detail oriented, tax-sensitive and cost conscious. Since a trustee’s duties include preparing an annual accounting, filing yearly tax returns, monitoring trust investments and determining distribution amounts to be given to beneficiaries, CPAs ordinarily possess all the needed skills. While it may make the most sense for the family members to select the CPA to act as successor trustee, the same may not be true for the CPA. Before saying “yes,” the CPA should have answers to the following questions:

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Source: WebCPA, 28 July 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Bye, Bye Batch Processing"

By Trish McIntire: We know the drill. If the taxpayer hasn't received their tax refund by Tuesday, they won't get it until the next week. The IRS mails the checks on Friday because they batch process the returns. Noon on Thursdays the gates open and all the return that have been received since the prior Thursday are admitted to the processing queue. A return arriving at 2pm on Thursday will sit for a week. This system was in place when all returns were mailed and has continued with e-filed returns. In fact, the IRS publishes a chart each year, the Refund Cycle Chart, I use to tell clients when to expect their refund.

This will be changing next year with the introduction of Modernized e-File (MeF).

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Source: Our Taxing Times, 28 July 2009.

"Policies for Emerging Technologies"

By Michelle Golden: This topic keeps coming up. People have differing comfort levels with newish technologies and therefore have very different tolerance levels for others using it.

True that some people just don't "get it" when it comes to being polite. The cell-phone screamers and mid-conversation texters or email-checkers come to mind.

The common reaction seems to be "We need a company policy for [fill in technology here]?"

Read complete post Policies for Emerging Technologies
Source: Golden Practices, 25 June 2009.

"Client Retention Worries CPA Firms"

By WebCPA Staff: CPA firms of all sizes are facing challenges with client retention, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

The institute’s CPA Firm Top Issues Survey gathers information from a wide range of practitioners in five different size segments, from sole practitioner to firms with over 21 professionals, to get a snapshot of the most critical challenges facing AICPA members.

Read complete article Client Retention Worries CPA Firms
Source: WebCPA, 7 July 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Picking the Best Mobile Devices for Accounting"

By Liz Gold: Putting mobile technology to work, and choosing which devices to use when, was the main topic during a session at the Accounting Technology Show and Conference in New York.

James Bourke, a partner and director of firm technology at WithumSmith+Brown in Red Bank, N.J., offered a quick run-through of laptops and handheld devices that CPAs can and do use to make their lives more manageable. “I’m a really big advocate of making things small,” he said.

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Source: WebCPA, 21 May 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Consultant: Challenging Work Needed to Keep Younger Employees"

By Bill Carlino: To recruit and retain your younger employees and promote your firm as an “employer of choice,” you need to keep them continually challenged and not burden them with an ongoing workload that includes such repetitive accounting staples as tax, audit and write-up.

“There are more college students in accounting but only a small portion of them are coming into public practice,” said Chris Frederiksen, head of the 2020 Group USA, a membership organization of smaller firms, in a break-out session during the AICPA's Practitioners Symposium in Las Vegas. 

Read complete article Consultant: Challenging Work Needed to Keep Younger Employees
Source: WebCPA, 4 May 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Preparing the Next Generation for IFRS"

By Liz Gold: So far, just a few universities have been educating students in IFRS, which poses a potential problem – if colleges and universities don’t modify their curriculum it could impair the value of these students when they reach the job market, according to “Bridging the GAAP: Understanding & Updates on IFRS” a newsletter published by Mazars LLP, Weiser LLP and Moss Adams LLP, all members of Praxity, a global alliance of independent accounting firms.

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Source: Accounting Tomorrow, 3 June 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Recession Makes Training, Retooling Key Survival Tactics for CPAs"

By Rick Telberg: With recessionary pressures bearing down on accounting firms and finance departments, it’s almost understandable that one of the first budget items to get the red pencil treatment is training and education. But I said “almost.”

In fact, cutting back on continuing professional education (CPE) is probably the singularly worst strategy for CPAs in times like these. In a business based on an evolving body of knowledge and understanding, you can’t take the “learned” out of “learned profession” and still serve competently as a trusted professional.

Read complete article Recession Makes Training, Retooling Key Survival Tactics for CPAs
Source: CPA Trendlines, 11 May 2009. Copyright 2000-2008 Bay Street Group LLC.

"What it is Really Like Inside a Big 4 Firm?"

By CA revealed: "Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you're an Employee"

A common question people want to know is how life is working inside the big 4. Not the BS the industry feeds you about "work, life, balance." But, actually, what it really is like.

After all, during recruitment season, they make it seem like a dream job.

Read complete post What it is Really Like Inside a Big 4 Firm?
Source: CA revealed, 4 Apri 2009.

"Liability Attorney to CPAs: Trust Your Instincts!"

By Bill Carlino: Accountants need to be proactive in protecting themselves and their firms from liability and malpractice claims, particularly in the wake of the legal fallout from the Bernie Madoff scheme and similar high-profile scandals, where auditors have become a litigation target for burned investors.

“You are at the eye of the storm,” Mary Eklund, a malpractice attorney at the firm Eklund Rockey Stratton in Bainbridge Island, Wash., told attendees at the AICPA Practitioners Symposium, here. “I can’t give you a rulebook or a checklist, but you need to know how to select and fire clients."

Read complete article Liability Attorney to CPAs: Trust Your Instincts!
Source: WebCPA, 5 May 2009. © 2009 Accountants Media Group and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.