paying the managing partner: today’s trends and best practices

businesswoman holding giant dollar symbolhow firms are balancing base salaries against billable hours.

by bill reeb and dominic cingoranelli

the managing partner should have a compensation plan unique to that position focused on carrying out the strategic and tactical objectives of the firm.

more on performance management: how to elect a managing partner … and how to fire them | why accountability falls to managing partners | how to implement strategy, step by step | how to decide who decides pay | accountability includes partners | succession plan requirements | how retired partners are robbing their own firms | 4 ways to create more capacity | partner retirement and the war for clients | succession: the questions to care about | hazards of not reallocating equity

goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

while there can be some individual performance goals assessed, the bulk of the managing partner’s incentive package and focus should be on overall firm performance. the key here is that you don’t want an incentive system for the managing partner that is overly focused on individual goals because the real value of this position is in driving firmwide change.
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3 tools to boost your metrics

overhead view of several people working on an oversized spreadsheetonce again, accountability is key.

by domenick j. esposito
8 steps to great

in my experience, making sure that your economic model becomes reality only happens with persistent and consistent accountability.

more on strategic planning: how many partners do you need? | is your pyramid upside down? | start with sound firm governance, economics | how to develop tactics for your strategic plan | taking a balanced scorecard to your partners | as tax season ends, strategic planning seasons begins | the big eight: harsh realities for firms today | seizing the $10 trillion opportunity | learning to ‘run with the big dogs’

to achieve accountability, i recommend three management tools that will help you create focus and improve performance:

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managing partners: how to elect them… and fire them

midsection of businessman moving out with cardboard box from officeand why a five-year term is ideal.

by bill reeb and dominic cingoranelli

often, firms elect a managing partner with a majority vote, but to dismiss a managing partner within their elected term requires a higher vote, commonly two-thirds of the equity vote. in some larger firms, the people running for managing partner might not be eligible to vote in this process, but in many others, everyone can vote.

more on performance management: the job of managing partner: empowered or emasculated? | how the best managing partners turn ideas into reality | make accountability a process | accountability requires clear expectations | base retirement on today’s operations | how involved should retired owners be? | how to find a partner’s replacement

the reason why everyone should be allowed to vote is simply that the smaller the firm, the more likely that removing the candidates being considered for the position puts too much control in the minority ownership of the firm. for example, consider the following six-partner firm scenario:
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how many partners is too many?

older businessman leaning back thinkinghint: probably fewer than you have.

by domenick j. esposito
8 steps to great

more often than not, cpa firms support too many partners relative to the firm’s revenue, profitability and its anticipated growth rate. that usually means, too, that the partners are doing a lot of work that could or should be done by staff.

more on strategic planning: is your pyramid upside down? | start with sound firm governance, economics | how to develop tactics for your strategic plan | taking a balanced scorecard to your partners | as tax season ends, strategic planning seasons begins | the big eight: harsh realities for firms today | seizing the $10 trillion opportunity | learning to ‘run with the big dogs’

look at the average revenue per partner for the mid-market sustainable brands and you will see that the trend is to get more done with fewer partners, more staff and more effective use of technology.
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how committees kill firms

businesswoman working at deskwhy managing partners need to be accountable.

by bill reeb and dominic cingoranelli

as we have said so many times before, everyone likes the idea that “i” will hold “me” accountable. but few like the idea of “anyone else” holding “them” accountable.

more on performance management: the job of managing partner: empowered or emasculated? | partners as role models: the good, bad & ugly | managing the managing partner | pay varies when performance varies | accountability is for everyone | who decides what? | cpa firm performance assessments: 15 core competencies, 21 questions

so, once it is decided that accountability is important and someone needs to be responsible for implementation, the discussion quickly shifts to “let’s form a group of people, like an executive committee or a compensation committee to hold us accountable.”
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is your pyramid upside down?

esposito_pyramididentify the issues you face, then prioritize them.

by domenick j. esposito
8 steps to great

there is no question that the most profitable cpa firms (i.e., those with the highest average partner earnings) have figured out that leverage and a well-managed partner/staff pyramid is one of the key ingredients for success.

more on strategic planning: start with sound firm governance, economics | how to develop tactics for your strategic plan | taking a balanced scorecard to your partners | as tax season ends, strategic planning seasons begins | the big eight: harsh realities for firms today | seizing the $10 trillion opportunity | learning to ‘run with the big dogs’

why is it then that so many firms today are struggling with just the opposite – an upside-down partner/staff pyramid where there are

  • too many partners and managers,
  • too few staff and
  • too little use of technology?

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henry & horne offers flex time, loans to future cpas

goodmiller and inderieden
managing partners goodmiller and inderieden

monthly videos help communicate management plans.

henry and horne cpa logo

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 staff

for henry & horne, keeping up with technology and finding and retaining good workers are primary concerns. while the phoenix-area cpa firm can only wait and watch while others develop new technologies for accountants and their clients, it’s proactively confronting its personnel concerns.

more from the corner office: lee beall: finding next-gen leaders at rea & assoc. | joe kask leads ‘paradigm shift’ at blumshapiro | ceo charles weinstein: eisneramper targets work-life balance | hbk’s allegretti says firm must stress excitement factor | lou grassi focuses on recruiting, retention at namesake n.y. firm | richard berkowitz drives berkowitz pollack brant to ‘warp speed’ | randy myeroff at cohen & co.: winning the youth movement | rick dreher innovates wipfli for clients, younger workers | how blain heckaman drives value at kaufman rossin | weisermazars mp blake charts u.s. expansion | frank longobardi: cohnreznick’s battle for top talent | the robo-cpa: jim sikich prepares for disruptive technologies |  exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

“for many cpa firms, recruitment, retention, and succession is the critical issue, but progressive, forward-thinking firms should see this as a true opportunity,” says chuck goodmiller, co-managing partner with chuck inderieden.
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the job of managing partner: empowered or emasculated?

woman executive coaching a male employee across deskwhy eat-what-you-kill firm cultures produce weak ceos.

by bill reeb and dominic cingoranelli

let’s review some best practices as to how the managing partner is elected, what is expected, for what term and how he or she is protected if removed from that role.

more on performance management: how to monitor goal progress | how to implement strategy, step by step | how to decide who decides pay | accountability includes partners | succession plan requirements | how retired partners are robbing their own firms | 4 ways to create more capacity | partner retirement and the war for clients | succession: the questions to care about | hazards of not reallocating equity | cpa firm performance assessments: 15 core competencies, 21 questions | 5 harmful management attitudes (and how to fix them)

the job differs whether it is being filled under the eat what you kill (ewyk) or building a village (bav) models. for example, under the ewyk model, the managing partner is likely the largest equity partner, or if not, then the default would be that the role of the managing partner would be that of administrative partner.  because the ewyk model is usually a silo model built around superstars, the managing partner’s role is to handle all of the matters that the other partners don’t want to do.  it is not uncommon in these scenarios that the managing partner earns a stipend to fill that position, and that the stipend is not very much (maybe $25,000 to $75,000 a year).

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ceo cooperman blames aicpa, lowballing for profession’s ills

head shot of joel cooperman
cooperman

“the five-year rule is ridiculous and limits the number of people needed in the industry.”

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

finding qualified staff is among the most significant problems facing the accounting industry, and the american institute of cpas is partly to blame, according to joel a. cooperman, chief executive officer of citrin cooperman & co., a new york-based accounting and consulting services firm with more than 650 employees.

more from the corner office: lee beall: finding next-gen leaders at rea & assoc. | joe kask leads ‘paradigm shift’ at blumshapiro | lou grassi focuses on recruiting, retention at namesake n.y. firm | rick dreher innovates wipfli for clients, younger workers | frank longobardi: cohnreznick’s battle for top talent | the robo-cpa: jim sikich prepares for disruptive technologies |  exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.citrin cooperman logo

“the aicpa does a very poor job promoting reasons why accounting can be a very exciting and very rewarding career,” says cooperman, who co-founded citrin cooperman in 1979 and has overseen the firm’s growth to its ranking of 22nd on accounting today’s top 100 firms list with $175 million in revenues during 2014.

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10 best practices for setting goals

smart goal setting diagram, business conceptplus mission statements vs. vision statements.

by marc rosenberg
cpa firm retreats

a mission statement is:

  • an overarching purpose or reason for being
  • why we exist
  • motivating, distinctive and feasible
  • action-oriented; it should lead to change and improvement or it has no value

more on retreats: 5 reasons cpa firms are bad at succession planning | staff best practices … for the firm | staff likes and dislikes about the accounting profession | 25 ways to turn good firms into great firms

cpa firms have a very difficult time creating mission statements that are motivating and distinctive. regardless of how hard firms try, most cannot come up with a mission statement that is different from every other firm. for this reason, i advise firms to skip the creation of a mission statement.
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lee beall: finding next-gen leaders at rea & assoc.

beall
beall

nextgen participants spend 12 months developing skills and one major project.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 staff

rea & associates logodeveloping leaders from within the ranks of his firm is by far the top practice management issue for lee beall, chief executive officer of rea & associates, a central ohio area accounting and consulting firm that generates more than $35 million a year.

more from the corner office: joe kask leads ‘paradigm shift’ at blumshapiro | ceo charles weinstein: eisneramper targets work-life balance | hbk’s allegretti says firm must stress excitement factor | lou grassi focuses on recruiting, retention at namesake n.y. firm | richard berkowitz drives berkowitz pollack brant to ‘warp speed’ | randy myeroff at cohen & co.: winning the youth movement | rick dreher innovates wipfli for clients, younger workers | how blain heckaman drives value at kaufman rossin | weisermazars mp blake charts u.s. expansion | frank longobardi: cohnreznick’s battle for top talent | the robo-cpa: jim sikich prepares for disruptive technologies |  exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

beall and his leadership team first became aware of the need to internally cultivate leaders a few years ago, when, he recalls, “we looked at our employee base at the time and didn’t have a clear picture of who would be the next generation of leaders in our firm. this was a sobering reality.”

today, rea has a set goal of selecting beall’s replacement as ceo from an internal pool of candidates and committed to not looking outside for new leadership positions.

“if firms simply ignore the responsibility to identify and develop leaders within, the success, future and sustainability of these firms will be at risk,” beall says. he adds that leadership impacts most all of the other key practice management issues, including mergers and acquisitions, finding and retaining good workers, and meeting clients’ changing expectations.
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why some partners don’t deserve equity shares

woman and man shaking handsuse these 7 sets of criteria to decide.

by domenick j. esposito
8 steps to great

i suggest two lines of business for a sustainable cpa firm brand. given that, let’s begin with a basic principle: every firm should have two classes of partners:

  • equity partners and
  • non-equity partners.

more on strategic planning: start with sound firm governance, economics | how to develop tactics for your strategic plan | the big eight: harsh realities for firms today | seizing the $10 trillion opportunity

equity partners are those partners who have demonstrated that they consistently build enterprise value through a combination of relationship, business development, technical and management skills. these partners contribute capital to the firm, usually each and every year.
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joe kask leads ‘paradigm shift’ at blumshapiro

kask
kask

business at the speed of change: internal conferences educate employees on specialties, solicit feedback.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 staff

attracting and retaining talented employees is the key issue at blum shapiro and for the firm’s managing partner, joe kask, that means offering more than just the traditional workplace incentives.

blumshapiro logomore from the corner office: ceo charles weinstein: eisneramper targets work-life balance | hbk’s allegretti says firm must stress excitement factor | lou grassi focuses on recruiting, retention at namesake n.y. firm | richard berkowitz drives berkowitz pollack brant to ‘warp speed’ | randy myeroff at cohen & co.: winning the youth movement | rick dreher innovates wipfli for clients, younger workers | how blain heckaman drives value at kaufman rossin | weisermazars mp blake charts u.s. expansion | frank longobardi: cohnreznick’s battle for top talent | the robo-cpa: jim sikich prepares for disruptive technologies |  exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

“it’s not just about offering flexible work hours providing people with the technology to work from anywhere or providing collaborative work spaces it’s a paradigm shift in the way your organization thinks and operates,” says kask, who took over the reins at blumshapiro in january 2016. the west hartford, conn., firm’s $72.7 million in revenues during 2015 make it accountingtoday’s 52nd largest accounting firm in the united states and the largest in new england.
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