After stints in both public accounting as an audit manager and in industry as a software consultant to CPA firms, Alexander Vuchnich was driven to start his own practice because of what he described as the continued resistance of traditional firms to change.
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"What I have learned is that audit risk keeps
increasing while fees don't and that tax practices keep facing more competition
from home tax-prep software," said Vuchnich, 31, a sole practitioner in
Charlotte, N.C. "When I made the leap it was because I didn't want to
spend years working for a firm to buy into a service industry that is
high-risk, low-reward, or where my services would be regularly compared to a
$40 software package."
He's not alone in his exodus.
Jody Padar, 37, left her position of four years at a
midsized firm after feeling management saw her as just a stay-at-home mom with
a part-time tax job. "The sacrifices I was making to be a competent,
exceptional professional were never appreciated. So I left."
Padar has since joined her father's practice in Park
Ridge, Ill., and plans are in the works for her to take it over. In the last
three years, the firm's gross revenues have tripled, she said.
"It's happening," said Mark Koziel, director of
specialized communities and firm practice management for the American Institute
of CPAs, of young CPAs hanging their own shingle. "I don't think it's at
the rate you would have seen in the 1970s, when a lot of these firms you see
today were founded. But there are folks doing it today. You have the opportunities
due to layoffs and reductions of workforce. It's a great possibility."
While there may not be a surge of young CPAs leaving
firms and starting their own practices, young people are catching on that it is
indeed an alternative to the more conventional course of staying within an
established firm.
Younger CPAs leave their firms for a multitude of reasons,
experts say.
"Why would employees leave? Because they're not
getting the development experience they want at their current firm and think
they can do better on their own," offered Rebecca Ryan, chief executive of
Next Generation Consulting in Madison, Wis. "Firms that don't challenge
their young talent to stretch and grow will lose them to new ventures, industry
and competitors."
Large firms usually have the resources to offer
leadership development and mentoring programs, so it may be the small and midsized
firms lacking funds in these areas that might be faced with losing their
up-and-coming stars, Ryan said. "Young professionals will leave if they feel
that they can innovate better than their firm and 'do' CPA work in a better
way. This may be as a free agent, or it may be as a solo practitioner."
