succession & retirement

is mandatory retirement a best practice?

by

consider retention, both staff and clients.

by marc rosenberg
the rosenberg practice management library

i’ll start with the punch line. yes, it is a best practice.

but only if your firm’s vision is to stay independent into the next generation by developing future leaders and retaining retirees’ clients.

more: covid-19: how your firm can respond | reward partners for performing like partners | 7 points of a well-crafted partner buyout agreement | 6 ways to retain nextgen staff | partners: when to speak up and when to shut up
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

if you are a small firm with partners who love what they do, have no hobbies to pursue in retirement and basically want to die at their desks, then no, it may not be a best practice. these partners are saying: “this is my firm and no one tells me when to retire, especially based on my reaching some arbitrarily decided age.”
read more →

five keys to successfully selling a cpa firm

by

no.1: timing, timing, timing.

by brannon poe

selling an accounting practice can be a hard decision, and an emotional one. having a clear vision of what success looks like is a great place to start.

more brannon poe: 10 questions to ask yourself before buying an accounting practice  |. five key decisions for your exit strategy  |. how to transfer a boomer-owned cpa practice to a millennial

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

one of the first tasks of developing any strategy is to have a clear definition of what success looks like. successfully selling a cpa firm is no different.

there are five key components in a successful deal: read more →

mergers: what could go wrong?

by

deal-breakers: culture, personalities, and values. (卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research)

m&a veterans cite culture, personalities, and values as top deal-breakers.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

why do firms merge? why do sellers want to sell, buyers to buy? what attracts them? what worries them? what can go wrong?

and how does that affect you?

the new 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 mergers & acquisitions survey, conducted in conjunction with capstone marketing, has some of the answers.

and who better to answer than practitioners who have been through the merger or acquisition process?

the survey, which delves into the attitudes and behaviors of the m&a phenomenon like no other study, is yielding a raft of surprising findings.
join the survey. get the results.

read more →

why firms merge: hint, it’s not for the clients

by

survey shows few firms will be left untouched today’s m&a tsunami.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

roughly 7 in 10 accountants have been through a merger.
been through a merger yet? roughly 7 in 10 accountants have, and the signs point to even more m&a activity.

the world of accounting firm mergers is churning, and whether you’re in the market for a deal or not, the frenzy will affect your practice.

a third of accountants see a very active or extremely active m&a market in the works, and more than half say the trend is accelerating, according to the new 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 mergers & acquisitions survey, conducted in conjunction with capstone marketing.

the survey, which delves into the attitudes and behaviors of the m&a phenomenon like no other study, is yielding a raft of surprising findings.
join the survey. get the results.

your competition and client market are going to shift around, with smaller firms disappearing, then popping up inside bigger firms, and clients dragged here and there, some of them looking for new cpas. and if you’re scouting for talent, it could get hard to rope them in.

read more →

five key decisions for your exit strategy

by

the big issues owners would rather ignore – until it’s too late.

by brannon poe

we always hear about the lack of succession planning for cpa practice owners, but we find that a few key planning pieces can make a huge difference.

in fact, we get a lot of calls from owners who are three to five years away from selling. the key issues really don’t take a tremendous amount of time or complex planning. most of the difficult planning issues are the ones that only owners can answer anyway. a little guidance coupled with common sense will generally pave the way to a smooth succession.

here are five key areas of succession planning that we most commonly encounter: read more →

how to transfer a boomer-owned cpa practice to a millennial

by

riding the big gray wave.

by brannon poe

the demographic tsunami actually might surprise you. according to pew research, millennials are projected to soon overtake baby boomers as the largest generation. that’s right, they will be the biggest generation in the u.s. and they are almost there.

  • boomers – born from 1946 to 1964 – 74 million
  • millennials – born from 1982 to 2002 – 71 million

another very important consideration is the declining number of cpas in the profession. the total number of first-time licensed cpas has declined about 20 percent since the 1990s.

it appears that the “greying of the profession” may be more of a function of the number of people who have chosen the profession and those that have decided to get out of public practice altogether.

read more →

6 action steps for a smooth retirement transition

by

older businessman with jacket over shoulderplus 8 questions the retiree should ponder.

by august j. aquila

firms today are facing succession planning issues at an unheard-of pace. blame it on the baby boomers and the overall demographics of the accounting profession and population in general.

more: 7 succession planning best practices | 8 steps to make cross-selling work for your firm | what marketers need to know about pricing | client centricity leads to profitability | 6 steps to making your new pricing happen | preparing to change pricing philosophy
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

over the past year i have worked with several managing partners in helping them transition from one set of leaders to another. the question i often get is, when is the time right?
read more →

7 succession planning best practices

by

woman winking and holding thumb upnone of it works without the managing partner’s backing.

by august j. aquila

succession planning today is more complex for professional services firms than it was 15 years ago. practices have become more complex, the traditional business model that served firms so well in the 20th century no longer works today and clients have become more sophisticated.

more: 8 steps to make cross-selling work for your firm | the eternal riddle of being an effective leader | 7 pieces of leadership advice | tomorrow’s leader in 9 bullet points | 5 ways to get clients to accept a new pricing philosophy | 11 alternative pricing methods
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

fifteen years ago, it seemed that succession planning was nothing more than having the current firm leader announce who was going to take over the firm. and for the most part that process seemed to work. today the process is more complex.
read more →

change happens: how to master it.

by

what’s next: “smart” helmets powered by ai and ar.

by bill reeb

“change” isn’t something you are expected to do once in a while anymore, but rather, “change” is something we are asked to do constantly.

more on performance management: what happens when you don’t push work down | why you must constantly push work down
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

even while one change is in process, we often are asked to start another change.

read more →

what happens when you don’t push work down

by

pile of documents on desk stack up high waiting to be managed.“stop defaulting to asking every talented person you have to work more hours doing stuff other people can and should be doing.”

by tommye barie
the succession insitute

as we said in our previous column, why you must constantly push work down, we are talking about how firms will need to alter their thinking regarding outsourcing, administrative support and the administrative time of partners and managers. we discuss how the lack of delegation impedes competency development, why partners working more hours end up creating a weaker bench, and more.

outsourcing

in this case, we are talking about outsourcing offshore. for many years, firms turned away from this idea because of the fact that they need to inform their clients that the services they provide were not 100 percent made in america. and most of our firms would say something like, “our clients won’t tolerate us shipping their data overseas” or “our clients will leave us if we outsource some of our work to india or china.” both of those statements continue to be proven wrong every day.
read more →

why you must constantly push work down

by

woman in business attire with papers flying around behind her backnew staff won’t work the hours you did. forget that notion right now.

by bill reeb and dominic cingoranelli

as we work with firms throughout north america, one of the most constant, critical issues we find is that of staffing gaps. those gaps are manifested in shortfalls of billable hours, as well as shortages of people, and a lack of critical competencies of people – all at various levels throughout the firm.

more on performance management: when the inmates are running the asylum | the two most common management styles | different roles for different partners | how big ‘books’ hurt firms | developing a three-year vision [video] | more merger questions than you imagined | mps: how to elect them … and fire them | partners as role models: the good, bad & ugly
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

in these situations, we tend to find that often the partners, and sometimes the managers, are billing too many hours. meanwhile many staff, especially at the lowest levels within the firm, consistently are missing their billable hour targets.
read more →