Management

Many of the problems arising from CPA firm mergers and acquisitions can be traced back to insufficient due diligence, critical thinking, foresight and planning. The first step toward a successful merger or acquisition should be to clarify and agree on the reasons for your firm’s interest in a potential merger.

How you choose to solve the partner comp question in your firm depends on a number of things including size, number of partners and where you are on the firm age/evolution spectrum. There is a movement to more performance and goal driven systems even in smaller practices, and moving away from “we’re all the same.”

Do you have the appropriate skills, strengths, and competencies to make the leap from controller to CFO?

I want you to pull out your agreements, dust them off and read them. You might be surprised at what you see. Remember their primary purpose is to protect the firm and define the relationship between the firm and each partner. If you get motivated to update them, or create them, here are a few tips.

Confidence among business leaders worldwide in the global and national economies, and in their own organizations, is growing; however, overall they remain cautious in their optimism about the economic outlook.

If done well, partner goal setting will raise the bar for each partner which in turn will raise the bar for the firm. Here are a few ideas to really juice up your process for better results.

The world’s CEOs, CFOs and other senior management accountants have a cautious, yet increasingly positive outlook for the global economy over the next 12 months, according to the first CGMA Global Economic Forecast.

A firm's billing rates are only part of the equation. How do you maximize the billing number and minimize the hours?

In recent months, lenders through out the United States have made it a practice to request “comfort letters” and “solvency opinions.” These requests can impose tremendous professional responsibilities on practicing CPAs, as well as expose them to the risk of malpractice lawsuits.

Like other business professionals, CPAs continue to wrestle with the best strategy to maximize the benefits of emerging technologies, such as mobile devices and cloud computing, according to the 2012 Top Technology Initiatives Survey by the American Institute of CPAs.