Tuesday, October 14, 2014

In other news, water was found to be wet…

I’m sure there aren’t too many accountants across the country in need of crying towels now that the wrenching September 15th and October 15th deadlines are nearly in the rear view mirror.

The span in between those dual exercises in stress and overtime and January 1, is usually a period when firms review their final wish lists and address their respective needs – whether in personnel or software for the pending filing season.

It’s also the time when both pundits and consultants opine on what to expect for the coming year.

So, after scouring the accounting blogs and assorted media outlets on what the accounting profession can expect in 2015, here’s some of the prognostications (sorry names omitted) I found assuring us of what we will see in the ensuing 12 months.

Stop me if you heard these before.
  • The stream of mergers and acquisitions will continue through 2015. Actually, M&A will remain strong not only for 2015, but at least until 2017 – We’ve only been telling both our clients and attendees at our CPE events about this for the past three years. I’ll go one better and tell you that you’ll also see more examples of non-traditional mergers where CPA firms will acquire non-accounting entities along the lines of PwC absorbing Booz & Co., a global consultant or Friedman, acquiring Executive Sounding Board – a turnaround firm.
  • There will be a greater emphasis on niche services. Reality check: the days when CPA firms resembled your local Costco in terms of bulk client offerings were over at least 10 years ago. If firm A offers tax and audit and firm B offers tax, audit, financial planning, cost segregation or lit support, which one do you think has distinguished itself in terms of marketing to new clients?
  • Greater investment in marketing and training. Sadly, in the time of an economic downturn, the two areas that are among the first to be slashed are training and marketing, and in reality, those are the last areas that should be the victims of austerity. Would any firm manager possibly think he or she can grow with an untrained or poorly trained staff?
  • More non-traditional CPA firm formats – i.e. virtual. Since nearly 40 million people in the U.S. work remotely on either a full or part-time basis, the emergence of the virtual firm has enjoyed a steady climb. Besides, who wants to deal with those pesky long-term leases or expensive carpet installations, when you can work out of a local Starbucks and enjoy one of the calorie-laden lattes as well?

Along those lines, my 2015 horoscope predicted that I will experience some type of turnaround in an important aspect of my life. If it’s a decrease in bills, I’m all for it.

1 comment:

  1. The internet is bogged down with bogus blogs with no real message but the post was fantastic and well worth the read.Thank you for sharing this with me.
    Fort Collins CPA near me

    ReplyDelete