A Honey-Do List for CPA Firms

This past Saturday my better and half and I decided to take advantage of arguably the most beautiful back-to-back days of the year in terms of weather and went for a lengthy walk. While strolling past a neighbor’s house I noticed he was busy getting ready to stake a “For Sale by Owner” sign into the ground.

Selfishly this set off some minor internal alarms, since he owned what anyone would consider an older and decidedly smaller home, I knew instantly that anyone who bought it would immediately target the property for an immediate tear down and replace it with a much larger structure.

So, we got into a brief but lively conversation about his plans. His children were now grown and had moved out of state and he was growing weary of the seemingly endless New York winters (boy was I with him on that one). They had acquired a piece of property near Naples, Fla., on which they had planned to build their retirement villa.

But first, he had a laundry list of home improvement jobs that had to be completed. At the top of that itinerary was repaving his driveway, then painting several rooms as well as re-grouting his master bathroom.

Strangely I equated this “to-do” agenda with a CPA firm owner who decides its time to wind down and look for a successor firm providing his bench wasn’t deep enough to carry on internally. Almost always there’s work to be done to make a firm more attractive for a sale. Very few CPA firms I’ve seen could be classified as being in “move-in” condition.

Therefore, if you’re in that stage of your career and have formulated a rough timeline on when to slow down, now might be the ideal times to take a cosmetic look at your practice and determine what needs to be burnished.

What about your reception area? After all, that’s the first point of contact for anybody walking through the door. Does it reflect a 21^st Century firm or does the color scheme and décor harken back to the days when The Love Boat was on prime-time TV?

Are you paperless, or are there endless rows of file cabinets resembling the New York skyline? What about your technology? Are you up to speed with things like multiple screens, client portals and cloud apps. Much like a realtor will tell you that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, technology is often the tipping point for CPA firms.

So, if you’re looking at a 3-5-year timeline now is probably a good time the time to tackle those “home-improvement” jobs and get your firm ready for the parade of potential suitors.

But a critical caveat: it will take more than a weekend trip to Home Depot or Lowe’s.