[CPA TRENDLINES]

After three years at the telberg.com address,
Rick Telberg's CPA Trendlines blog
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Thanks to all our readers for your interest and support.
--- Rick Telberg / CPA Trendlines

Join the survey, get updated results.
Read the article: Rick Telberg/On Careers, "Benefits Packages: On the Fringe No More."
Email your comments.

RICK TELBERG / CPA TRENDLINES
Job Benefits: What Matters Most?
(Early data based on partial results, Aug. 16, 2007)


Join the survey, get updated results.
Read the article: Rick Telberg/On Careers, "Benefits Packages: On the Fringe No More."
Email your comments.

Early results, based on 691 responses as of Dec 31, 2007.

Highlights:
-- CPAs expext 6%-7% average rate of return on investments.
-- Plan on more than 25 years in retirement.
-- Clients' biggest problem: Under-funded retirement accounts.
-- 56% of respondents provide retirement planning services.
-- 66% of CPAs comlain financial services providers are "too sales-oriented."
-- 86% of CPAs expect the profession to expand its PFP services.

Hank Berkowitz of AICPA Media talks about "Beyond the Click," the research report that unlocks the secrets of B2B e-newsletter advertising.
Bay Street Group conducted the research and co-produced the report.

Click here for the free download of the report (PDF).

INTRODUCTION
At a time when overall spending on U.S. advertising is growing at just low single-digit rates, online advertising is growing at more than 20 percent a year and is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of nearly 15 percent1 through 2010.

Yet, for all the promise that online advertising holds –– and for its increasing share of business-to-business marketing budgets –– it is still widely misunderstood, particularly in the highly competitive accounting and finance channel. CPAs are the trusted gatekeepers for millions of corporate finance departments, small businesses and high net worth individuals. Yet they’re highly elusive. Risk averse by nature, they’re much less tolerant of the hard sell than attorneys, doctors, architects, insurance and other influential professionals.

In essence, marketers must learn to get their messages to (and through) CPAs more effectively and they must also do a better job of understanding the unique characteristics of sponsored electronic newsletters ("e-newsletters"), particularly those reaching influential, time-pressed professionals. So, how do you sell effectively to influential professionals online who don’t like to be sold to? That’s the impetus behind this report prepared by AICPA Custom Media Solutions and Bay Street Group Research.

Unlock the creative energies of people around you.

by Rick Telberg

Anyone who thinks CPAs don’t need to think outside the box probably isn’t a CPA. From audit firms to finance departments, you’re in a business. And any business, to remain a business, needs to grow and adapt.

Both growing and adapting demand creativity—new directions, new solutions, sometimes even solutions to problems so new that no one has even recognized them yet. Every finance or accounting organization, whether on the cusp of innovation or in the slough of the tried-and-true, can do something better.

And if you think your outfit can’t do anything better, then you definitely have some thinking to do. Not just thinking but creative thinking.

Is outsourcing a problem or an opportunity? Join the study. Get the answers.

by Rick Telberg

Outsourcing finance and accounting work, sometimes to providers in foreign countries, is producing revolutionary levels of cost savings and service improvements. But some parts of Corporate America have been slow to cash in.

While outsourcing is a primarily a Fortune 1000 type of issue, both the largest and smallest companies are losing major competitive advantages by failing to embrace offshoring F&A operations.

In fact, AMI-Partners, a market research outfit, is wondering if outsourcing is “losing steam” in the United States. AMI analysts figure that about 60 percent of medium-sized businesses, those companies with 100 to 999 employees, have opted in one way or another for business process outsourcing. That’s strong. But that’s also the same level of penetration as three years ago, without improvement since.

Many CPAs think so. How does YOUR office rate? Join the study; get the benchmarks.

by Rick Telberg

New workplace research provides some healthy food for thought for CPAs and finance professionals—particularly for managers of firms and accounting departments interested in their own profitability and in retaining superior employees.

The Gallup Organization reveals that companies with the highest proportions of “engaged" employees increase their earnings more than twice as fast as companies with low proportions of engaged employees.

Moreover, Gallup shows that companies in the top-quartile for employee engagement have 18 percent greater productivity levels and 12 percent higher profitability than the bottom quartile companies. That all translates to 2.6 times faster growth in earnings per share. But only about 29 percent of employees are actively engaged in their jobs, according to Gallup.

Join the survey here.

Read the article: Rick Telberg/At Large, "Home-Based Accounting Practices Thrive."

4 Key Findings:
97%: CPAs who know colleagues with “on-the-side” practices.
26%: CPAs who say they currently “moonlight.”
27%: CPAs working full-time in a home-based CPA business.
61%: Working in their home-based business year-round,” not just during busy season.

8 Top Problems for Home-Based Practitioners:
45%: Meeting clients, colleagues in a professional setting.
48%: Overcoming isolation from peers.
39%: Managing time effectively.
21%: Obtaining enough admin/support personnel.
18%: Backing up file and preparing for disaster recovery.
15%: Have the right mix of technology resources.
12%: Resolving equiment/technology breakdowns.
6%: Maintaining IT security & privacy.

10 Essential Strategies for Success:
69%: The right technology setup.
85%: The right attitude and self-discipline.
66%: A quiet, dedicated work space.
51%: Experience and maturity.
47%: Time Management: Balancing the need for new business vs. getting the existing work done.
35%: Good communications with co-workers, clients.
31%: The appropriate kind of work or tasks.
23%: Get out of the office and meet new people.
15%: Regular face-to-face meetings.
5%: Ccorporate culture of support.


Join the survey here.

Read the article: Rick Telberg/At Large, "Home-Based
Accounting Practices Thrive."

Send in your comments

Scenes from an exhibition, er, exhibitor hall...

... at the Florida Institute of CPAs Accounting Show in Fort Lauderdale, September.










More photos at Flikr/Trendlines....

It all begins with personal attention...

Join the Tax Season 2008 Study Group.
Benchmark your practice. Get the best ideas. See the trends... all season long.
Take the survey; get the results.



It all begins with personal attention... More tables and verbatim comments...

Robert Half releases "2008 Salary Guide"

MENLO PARK, CA (Robert Half International) -- Starting salaries for accounting and finance professionals are expected to increase an average of 4.3 percent in the coming year, according to the just-released 2008 Salary Guide from Robert Half International. Public accountants, financial analysts and internal auditors are projected to see the largest gains.

Read the full article at the new CPA Trendlines, here...

Accounting staff rosters surge with demand. How does your turnover rate compare? Join the survey; get the answers.

by Rick Telberg

Thanks to a surge in new-business formations, shifting financial laws and regulations and increased demand for assurance services, CPA firms and finance departments appear to be beefing up their staff rosters.

More than half of the CPAs in our soundings say their workplaces will be expanding staff levels over the next 12 months. The leading reason why: growth. Although some 55 percent expect growth, another 40 percent of respondents say their staffing levels are expected to remain the same, and only about 5 percent forecast a decrease in the number of employees.

How Engaged Are Your Co-Workers?

Executive Preview
(Early data, final results may vary)

Selected Highlights:
-- Most CPAs say they work with highly committed and engaged colleagues.
-- Most, too, say their offices are experiencing a chronic staff shortage.

Marketers missing up to 55 percent of online ad response

NEW YORK (AICPA.org) – U.S. spending on online advertising is growing at more than 20 percent per year and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 15 percent through 2010. However, marketers are missing more than half of all responses.

In fact, 55 percent of follow up to online ads appears to occur up to 30 days after the ad has appeared, according to “Beyond the Click, Maximizing Advertising ROI in B2B E-Newsletters,” a new online advertising study by the electronic media group of the American Institute of Certified Public and Accountants (AICPA) and Bay Street Group LLC.

Download the AICPA press release: Marketers_Missing_up_to_55_Percent_of_Online_Ad_Response2.pdf

The executive summary, which includes additional notes on the research and the “Top 10 Recommendations to Marketers,” can be viewed at http://www.aicpalearning.org/profdev_news.asp?id=10360.