CPA Insomnia

As I have gotten older this strange nocturnal phenomena has sort of manifested itself. At roughly 2 a.m., my body gets this peculiar urge to rise from a deep sleep and see what’s playing on HBO or Showtime.

Let me tell you, the cable programming at that hour is, well, shall we say, far different than what you see during the average family viewing time slot.

In medical parlance I think this is referred to as insomnia. I prefer to label it a change in circadian biorhythms.

But I digress.

I can only imagine that condition worsens if you’re a small to midsized owner of a CPA firm.

Recently, the International Federation of Accountants released a survey of what those overseeing small to midsized firms consider the most pressing issues – or in essence what’s keeping them up at night.

And what IFAC found is not particularly surprising, as CPAs across the country and probably around the globe have been bemoaning these issues for years.

For example, No. 1 is attracting new clients. I’ve been either covering or consulting on the CPA profession for 17 years and that was a top concern when I broke in so to speak.

Coming in the “place” and “show” slots are; keeping up with new regulations and facing client pressure to lower fees. The last is no doubt a painful hangover from the 2008 financial crises when undercutting was a standard practice and there was a race to the bottom with regard to fee pricing.

The No. 5 concern is something I’ve been writing about for years – differentiating yourself from the competition as those plain vanilla auditing and tax practices face a huge challenge from boutique firms offering a growing number of in-demand client niches such as CFO outsourcing and cybersecurity.

Surprisingly, succession planning came in at No. 11, which, in my humble opinion,is roughly 10 or so slots lower than it should be. Despite the alarming statistics in how many SMB firms have failed to address the issue whether formally or informally it continues to amaze me how many continue to place it on the proverbial back burner.

Not surprisingly, survey respondents said finding and retaining qualified staff had a high impact in their practices – and to that I say well, join the club.

I dare say this list has the potential to keep anyone awake at night. But should you find yourself up at 2 a.m., give me a call and I’ll provide you with a full lineup of channel surfing suggestions.