It’s all a matter of timing

Congratulations to those of you who lived to tell about another tax season. After taking some well-deserve time off, now is probably an opportune time to assess what needs to be done to burnish your firm for the remainder of 2017. I’m sure many of you already have at least thought about a comprehensive “to-do” list.

But one caveat: Don’t make the mistake of falling into the all-too-common pitfall of assuming that if something isn’t broken don’t fix it.

Case in point.

Earlier this week I got into a lively (read: heated) debate with a member of my health club who just happens to be a retired CPA. He worked the majority of his career in industry with a Fortune 50 company and operated a profitable tax preparation business on the side.

He also happened to be a long time member on the planning board of my town. So he basically was part of a panel who gave a thumbs up or down to any proposed development in my little hamlet.

The, ahem “discussion” centered around the town’s former supervisor who held that position for an incredible 44 years – winning 22 elections, each for a two year term.

During his career he helped attract several global companies to locate there (IBM chief among them) and in the mid-1960s was responsible for convincing then New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy to build an interstate that cut through the center of the county.

His accomplishments were monument worthy, but sadly like most politicians and many athletes, he hung around too long. He became too cozy with preferred builders, overdevelopment of “McMansions” became rampant and rumors began circulating of his overseeing a Huey Long type administration. The outcry from the citizenry became so widespread that eventually a building moratorium had to be enacted.

I told my CPA colleague that had the supervisor retired in 1994 instead of 2004 when he eventually lost his 23^rd re-election bid to a newcomer, there would undoubtedly be a statue in his honor in the town square.

He turned around and said angrily, “If it wasn’t broken then why fix it?”

The hard truth was that it was indeed broken and had been for some time. He was just too close to the situation to see it.

We’ve seen countless examples of that in accounting – audit and tax engagements that had basically been legacies from one generation to the next and often exploded in a malaise of wrongdoing (see Enron and WorldCom.) I’m sure the engagement partners felt much the same way as did my health club friend that everything was fine and it was no big deal about all those off shore entities.  Far funnier than the collapse of those two companies, was the much reported on snafu at this year’s Academy Awards, an engagement PwC has held for over EIGHTY years.

So when a semblance of normalcy returns to your firms, it’s probably a good time to check under the hood and look at everything regardless if it’s running like a wristwatch from Geneva.

If I’ve learned anything covering a number of industries in my career is that time never a guarantee of continued success. In fact, as a career ender, it remains undefeated and always will be.