December 2018

Close to 30 states have passed laws requiring out-of-state sellers to tax their sales into the state. How do state tax authorities know whether such businesses are collecting and remitting tax as they should?

December has come again, and it’s time to predict the big stories for 2019. Here are the seven trends I think will have transformational impact on practitioners and their firms in the coming year:

Your small business clients are uniquely suited to help your practice grow; in fact, they are very likely your most innovative thinkers who are most open to new ideas. However, due to limited finances and staffing, they may be more in need of your ...

Understanding the mind of the new millennial generation is one of the growing challenges firms of all sizes are faced with today and this challenge often results in firms feeling that these new millennials are entitled and lazy, but are they really ...

While word of mouth and referrals are still the best marketing tools for you, here are some additional tactics you can use to market your firm to in-home day care clients.

Should Employees Share Their Salary Information With Peers? By Isaac M. O’Bannon, Managing Editor Millennials (ages 18-37) are more likely than other generations to share their salary information with others, including coworkers, friends outside of work, romantic partners who they don’t live with, and family members other than their spouse, according to a new Bankrate.com report. […]

Eighty-four percent of executives say their companies have at least some involvement in a blockchain project, according to PwC's 2018 Global Blockchain Survey.

A colleague recently shared an amusing story with me. At a firm she worked for, an older partner refused to use email. Instead, he tasked a staff member with sending and receiving all email to and from clients on his behalf. As if that weren’t bad enough, the partner insisted the staff member format all […]

When we talk about AI, the image that comes to mind for most people is robots doing many of the jobs we’re doing today. But AI is not just a futuristic vision for accounting firms. In proactive firms, the future is already here.

This summer the Supreme Court ruled that states have the authority to require businesses to collect online sales tax on purchases even if the business does not have a physical presence in the state. This decision has the potential to impact the way your small business clients conduct business online, but so far they may […]

Overwhelmed by buzzwords like “blockchain” and “artificial intelligence”? While these technologies will no doubt be transformative over the next decade, there are plenty of ways for teams to get significantly more efficient and effective using ...

The old axiom that “words can never harm me” may have been true at some point, but that is certainly no longer the case in this age of #MeToo. Words spoken today, especially if they are lewd, profane, sexually explicit, or sexual innuendo can and ...

Over the past year, Intuit has actively sought feedback from ProAdvisors via one-on-one interviews, surveys, focus groups and in-person events to learn how the program can help them face the challenges of today’s ever-changing global accounting landscape.

The increasing rate of technological evolution and of software vendors attempting to integrate with that evolution continues to happen at a fever pitch. With that in mind we offer our predictions as to those items that we believe will have the highest ...

Top 5 Skills Modern Accountants Need in 2019 Kurt Avarell, Founder & CEO, Canopy To achieve success, accountants must understand the importance of investing in themselves. This means building up their skills beyond crunching numbers and preparing tax returns. It’s important for modern accountants to improve valuable skills and build on their strengths in areas […]

No More Deductions for Work Expenses & Mileage By Ken Berry, J.D., CPA Practice Advisor Tax Correspondent Notably, the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) scales back deductions for certain itemized deductions, including state and local tax (SALT) payments and mortgage interest. But another lesser-noticed crackdown may be just as significant. Effective for 2018 […]

Why Most Firms Don’t Make It to the Second Generation By Marc Rosenberg, CPA The short answer is that CPA firms stink at succession planning.  Firms’ entire operations are geared to maximizing short-term profits, focusing on today at the expense of tomorrow.  Evidence of this is the following: A 60 year-old sole practitioner wants to […]

How Businesses Can Combine Data and Systems Into a Winning Strategy By Greta Guest Most managers want to base their business decisions on solid information, but that’s not always easy. It can be challenging to figure out exactly what data you should compile and how you can best use it. Michigan Ross Professors Gwen Yu […]

Office workers on average, spend more than six hours each week looking for misplaced documents. Improperly managing documents not only is frustrating for everyone, it’s now estimated that nearly $2.5 million per year is wasted looking for ...

Time-consuming administrative tasks like staffing, daily planning, and payment collection can slow a daycare down and, at times, even grind the operation to a halt. Keeping physical records is likely the norm for no other reason than that it is how ...

  Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are natural partners, with decentralized control mechanisms and distributed models that emphasize secrecy as much as they offer privacy or security. For the IRS, secrecy is a problem. More precisely, it’s a missed revenue opportunity. In an effort to collect tax on the booming crypto trade, the agency has already […]

You’ve probably made a New Year’s resolution a time or two in your life, and, because you are an accountant, you might even have the mindset required to follow through and get your resolution(s) accomplished. But sometimes the list of life changes we ...

One year is ending and another is beginning. It’s a time for wrapping tasks up and starting new things. This includes your payroll. At the end and beginning of each year, there are certain payroll requirements you must complete.

As a trusted financial advisor, you can help your clients meet their tax obligations as it relates to household employees, but first you must understand whether their household workers qualify as employees. The IRS defines a household employee as an ...

This month’s Apps We Love takes us into the holiday season with favorite apps that focus on food and drink. We surveyed members of the CPA Practice Advisor community along with scouring the Internet to learn which apps you can rely on to keep the ...

One of the effects of a competitive hiring market is skilled accountants and auditors expect higher wages. Forty-six percent of U.S. workers responding to a recent Robert Half survey say they’re underpaid in their current position.

We’ve been through a year together learning about Emerging Technologies. While there will always be new technology, we are not likely to go through a period of time again anytime soon where the algorithms are changing so rapidly and the new ...

In professional settings, it’s easy to choose one side of our personality to showcase, while leaving other sides in the shadows. As we work, play, influence, and interact with the world around us, we’re challenged to make decisions about which sides ...

For accountants, the two key important words in the above description are “ledger” and “technology”. Accountants have deeply understood ledgers for centuries. They have been leveraging technologies for decades. Therefore, Blockchain, is not a ...