Getting Back To Business

It’s been nine days since we’ve gotten our power back and though I wouldn’t exactly draw a comparison between having heat, running water (we’re on a well), and working — ahem — facilities, with winning the Powerball jackpot, there’s something to be said for your house firing on all cylinders — literally.

As described in this space last week, Mademoiselles Sandy and Athena played havoc with my utilities and flight schedules, but somehow I managed to wedge in a pair of accounting-centric conferences between the two angry storm systems.

My unplanned stops and on-the-fly itinerary aside, I came away from both sessions more convinced than ever that the accounting profession is headed toward a cliff — fiscal or otherwise — with regard to succession issues, and it doesn’t appear to be dissipating.

We exhibited at both events and fully 2/3 of the visitors to our little corner of the vendor showcase were struggling with one succession issue or another. Perhaps it was the uncertainty of whether an owner’s children would take over, or the case of a partner mulling when his 90-year old principal should begin slowing down, stories of looming transition issues were in no short supply.

Maybe the most jolting observation was put forth by a keynote speaker who revealed that every eight seconds someone turns 65 in the United States, so if my math is correct, at the end of her 90-minute presentation, America celebrated nearly 700 65^th birthdays.

Want more good news? Roughly 75% of the AICPA’s 340,000 members will be eligible to retire by the year 2020. If that sounds like a date far, far away, you’ll face a hard reality when you realize that it’s only seven years from now.

That’s just one year shorter than the current President will preside in the Oval Office  but that’s fodder for a future column and don’t get me started — I’ve already had enough aggravation from my utility company and the airlines.

Even if half that number of future AICPA retirees is currently toiling in private industry, that’s still an enormous amount of succession that needs to be addressed within the public accounting space.

And it needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Because now about 13 more people just turned 65. And when it comes to a lack of succession plans, that’s hardly cause for celebration.