February 2018

U.S. accounting firms that use advancement programs for promoting women to leadership positions overwhelmingly view them as effective tools in recruiting and retaining talent, according to new research by the American Institute of CPAs.

We hope your busy season is a good one. Before long, it will be in the record books. In the meantime, we’ll do our best to keep you up-to-date on the latest developments that impact your accounting practice.

If you’re interested in trying an app for time tracking, PCWorld recommends Harvest, an app that lets you record time for multiple clients and also log your expenses. Scan receipts and enter notes to accompany expenses. The app has been around for ...

Creating a budget is one of the more challenging chores you must undertake as a business owner.

The CPA Practice Advisor Readers' Choice Awards give accounting and tax pros the chance to share the technologies and vendors that help them be more productive and profitable in their own firms, as well as the tech tools and programs that help their ...

The lines of work are blurring. Tasks previously carried out by in-house employees are quickly becoming outsourced to freelancers and independent contractors. These gig economy participants may live around the corner from you, or on the other side of ...

Focus on Pain Points for Gig Economy Client Success According to recent studies, an estimated 35 percent of the current workforce is made up of gig workers, which could increase to about 43 percent by 2020. With that diverse and geographically-dispersed group, you have to take a more out-of-the-box marketing approach. Here are five suggestions. […]

It’s a best practice to review policies, posters, and forms periodically to ensure that they adhere to applicable laws and evolving company practices. Since the New Year typically brings a host of new laws, now is a good time to conduct this review.

Sage has designed each of the pillars as a separate learning process, and Sage is offering training in each of these specific areas. While these pillars build logically on each other, practitioners can select the pillars that are the most relevant to ...

Top Firm Management Blogs & Social Media 10 Busy Season Exercises CPAs Can Do at Their Desk. AICPA Insights blog. http://bit.ly/2shGFBR Are You a Firm of the Future? Ron Baker, CPA, from FirmoftheFuture.http://bit.ly/2GYN7kz Building a Learning Culture in Your Firm. Roman Kepczyk, CPA, from CPA Consultants’ blog.http://bit.ly/2nV5AWu 5 Items You Need In Your Firm’s Owners’ […]

Top Small Business Blogs & Social Media 6 Business Lessons to Take Your Brand from Startup to Growth. Xero blog.http://bit.ly/2quuKjp Online Brand Guidelines for Small Businesses. Barbara Weltman, via the CorpNet blog.http://bit.ly/2GY6Ctk 12 Key Levers of SaaS Success. David Skok, via For Entrepreneurs blog.http://bit.ly/2k98DWU Top Tips for Negotiating with Restaurant Vendors. Annie Pilon, via Small […]

Top Accounting Blogs & Social Media Are You Too Busy to be a Proactive, Future-Focused Advisor? Tom Hood, CPA, via LinkedIn.http://bit.ly/2EvnBoE New AICPA Chair Shares Vision of the Future. AICPA Insights blog.http://bit.ly/2nSflo8 Re-Engineer Your Audit Process. Wendy Cable from the Wolters Kluwer blog.http://bit.ly/2ET1cPW U.S. Treasury Official Says FDII Rules are BEPS Compliance. Robert Sledz from […]

Top Payroll Blogs & Social Media Payroll Rates for 2018. James Paille, via the Thomson Reuters blog. http://tmsnrt.rs/2EN8nsF Creating an Employer Brand that’s a Talent Magnet. Connect@ADP blog.http://bit.ly/2nqNknG What Your Accounting Resume Should Look Like This Year. Robert Half blog.http://bit.ly/2BfKQB7 Are Your Employees Passionate About Their Jobs. HR Payroll Systems blog.http://bit.ly/2smPRFg 10 Common Payroll Mistakes […]

Top Tax Blogs & Social Media IRS Warns about Private Debt Collectors. Rick Telberg, via CPATrendlines.http://bit.ly/2Ew67Z4 Sales Tax Holidays in 2018. Gail Cole, via Avalara blog.http://bit.ly/2BLvZ2c IRS Alerts Taxpayers about Corrected Forms 1095-A.  From the Wolters Kluwer blog.http://bit.ly/2FYg5Ql State Corporate Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2018. Morgan Scarboro, via the Tax Foundation.http://bit.ly/2GY6D0z Higher Sec. […]

Enhancing employee engagement is a goal for many firms today. An employee who remains engaged throughout the year is better motivated, more productive and more dedicated to the firm than employees who are disengaged. One crucial way to improve employee...

It’s no secret that inadequate cash management is a major contributing factor to why businesses fail. Small businesses in particular need to implement proper cash management procedures into their everyday business, including timely reconciliation of ...

Freelancers have unique circumstances associated with filing their income taxes. They work on many jobs in a year which results in receiving many 1099-Misc forms. If they have jobs that pay less than $600 each, then they may not receive 1099s for those...

The Internal Revenue Service has released Notice 1036, which updates the income-tax withholding tables for 2018 reflecting changes made by the tax reform legislation enacted last month. This is the first in a series of steps that IRS will take to help ...

Over the last two to three years we have watched pundits and consultants promote ideas around emerging technologies. Some of the claims are ludicrous, loony, and ill-informed. Others are trying to position, parlay and learn. You’ve seen this column ...

Discounting. There is nothing worse for customer service in the world of SaaS than offering a discount, and yet every salesperson at every software and SaaS provider does it.

Whether you’re hiring a new worker whose responsibilities will include bookkeeping or you’re tapping an existing employee to take over the job, you have to find a way to transfer all your knowledge about your customers and vendors, your products or ...

Though many recognize that implementing a modern cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an obvious answer — many that take start the transition are surprised by marginal improvements, slow user adoption, and unchanged processes that still ...

Has your firm started the transformation to advisory services? If not, in the not so distant future you will be too behind to catch up. That sounds harsh, but it’s better to face the reality that soon the gap will be so wide that your options for ...

Innovation even affects your ability to hire the best and brightest to your team. An overwhelming majority (87 percent) of professionals in a Robert Half survey said they pay attention to a potential employer’s reputation for being innovative.

For most practitioners the estate tax hasn’t come into play for many years. Instead of eliminating the estate tax, the estate tax exemption has been raised to $11 million for an individual, and $22 million for a married couple that elects portability.

If sales tax is not charged at the time of sale, states expect use tax to be paid to the state in which the good is used or consumed. However, given the complexities of the many different variations of local and state tax laws, it’s no surprise that ...

The sexual harassment incidents that arise in today’s ordinary workplace are usually more mundane than the outrageous conduct reported recently involving the Hollywood set and some in the halls of Congress. The most frequently reported complaints ...

Your cheese is moving. You’d have to be living under a rock to not be aware how much of a leap forward we took as a profession in 2017. From technology to process, talent development to growth strategy – many firms underwent not just minor change but ...

Many firms focus first on the financial terms of the buyout as the most critical issue. While this is important (and discussed below) it pales in comparison to assuring you have competent replacement partners in place and a strong transition plan for ...

The new year has always been a time to reflect on the progress, challenges and goals of the past twelve months. And, while many are focused on personal health and growth, it is equally as important for business owners to focus on their company’s ...

Too often workplace policies are only considered in the context of some negative workplace action when it is actually occurs, such as a termination or other employment issue. Sometimes it may involve a legal claim by an applicant or employee.