Practice management

In the world of accounting marketing, as in any marketing, building your network of referral sources and centers of influence is critical. Many young CPAs are tasked with building their professional network early in their careers, but are not always given the necessary tools and training on how to do it.

As the annual price tag for fraud at American business soars to nearly $1 trillion, the demand for CPAs that provide forensic accounting services has increased exponentially - a spike that appears in no danger of waning over the next several years.

Codification of the economic substance doctrine by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 has produced a palpable level of anxiety among many tax practitioners over how the new law will be applied to a variety of tax strategies.

CPA firms, like many other businesses throughout the country, are feeling the sting of the recession. The mood of the client-firm relationship is somber at best and panicked at worst. In light of these realities, it is of crucial importance for accounting firms to frame the value of their "softer" assets. By softer assets, I mean a number of intangible but highly valuable characteristics embodied by most CPAs and their firms.

In this challenging environment for the accounting profession, large regional firms, and small and midsized firms, have to come up with innovative strategies to grow their top line.

TREASURY REQUIRES MORE ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS

Accountants are squarely on the front line of the problems with the 2010 estate tax hiatus, according to practitioners and estate-planning attorneys.

Have you ever attended an event where some captain of industry was giving a keynote presentation and you thought to yourself if you could only spend some one-on-one time with them, you could discover the key drivers that made them successful?

Aggressive business development and a heavy investment in marketing and sales initiatives has proven to be a successful strategy for The Bonadio Group, the second-fastest growing firm in the Mid-Atlantic region outside of New York City, and the ninth-fastest growing firm in Accounting Today's 2010 Top 100 Firms ranking.

Jerry Topp, managing partner and chief executive officer of Midwest regional firm Eide Bailly, attributes the firm's success in large part to its centralized management and the unique culture generated by its training programs.

Likening the varying facets that comprise the corporate culture at Denver-based Ehrhardt Keefe Steiner & Hottman to the makeup of a tree transcends mere arboreal allusion.

Louisiana CPA firm Postlethwaite & Netterville has been growing - especially in the past year-and-a-half, as the Baton Rouge-based firm expanded its operations, acquiring Lafayette-based Veazey & Co. in January 2009, and the audit and tax practices of New Orleans-based Legier & Materne in December 2008.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., plans to convene a hearing to consider White House proposals for reducing waste and overpayments in the unemployment insurance program.

ParenteBeard has introduced an Emerging Growth Business Services Practice to service startup and early-stage companies.

The Treasury Department released new guidelines for applying for tax credits to fund promising new therapies, with small medical research firms eligible to receive up to $5 million each out of a $1 billion pie.

Tax Credit Company president Brandon Edwards calls the HIRE Act a “game changer” for mid-market and smaller companies that now can take advantage of the hiring incentive program.

The Senate voted last week to approve a historic financial regulatory reform bill that would make sweeping changes in how the financial system is regulated.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell has vetoed legislation that would have taxed bonuses paid to people who work for financial companies that received federal bailouts.

The Center for Audit Quality and the Council of Institutional Investors are protesting two proposed amendments to the financial regulatory reform bill that would exempt smaller public companies from compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404(b) audits of their internal controls.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., have introduced legislation that would extend unemployment insurance and the 65 percent COBRA health insurance subsidy for the unemployed through the end of the year, as well as many expiring tax breaks.