Category Food For Thought

Looking back at when I started my practice from scratch, I laugh (cringe) when I think about how ignorant I was about how to run a good practice. I can’t believe I even survived.  What I loss due to my…

If this tax season felt like it was a matter of survival, you’re not alone.  Something most of us are wondering is “Where are all these new clients coming from?”.  Well, I’ve got my suspicions but that’s not important. What’s important…

From time to time, I’m asked to make presentations on how to read financial statements and how to use them to increase profits. Most of what I present is extremely obvious and would hardly seem worth presenting. In short, here’s…

Most practitioners fall victim to concentrating too much on increasing revenues rather than profits. Yes, greater revenues will often result in greater profits but that is far from always being true. It is not uncommon to see practices, or any…

If someone had asked me when I was first in practice whether it was possible to care too much for my clients. I would have answered: “Absolutely not. I will do whatever the client wants or needs within reason”. I…

Anybody who’s had a successful business will agree that building a successful enterprise requires a tremendous amount of resilience. My recent struggles with my mental health have got me reading books and searching the internet a lot for information on…

Strangely enough, this is one of the most common questions I get. In the past, before answering, I’d ask a bunch of questions related to their practice, backlog, etc. etc, etc. Lots of questions. Based on what I was told,…

A question I frequently get from practitioners is this: How do I determine this employee’s charge-out rate? GREAT question. Here’s the formula I use and how I use it to determine a person’s charge-out rate. As a general rule, every…

I always find it interesting how one practitioner will ask me a question, and I suddenly find myself being asked the same, or very similar question, by many accountants and bookkeepers.   The question is this: How do my manage the…

(or as one client refers to it – autopsy) For as many years as I can remember, my team and I always did a post tax season beef and bouquet team meeting where we would discuss the good, the bad and the…