Help Clients Choose What Is the Best Business Structure Without Fear of Unauthorized Practice of Law
What is the best business structure? Here's how to help your clients (and boost your revenue) without illegally engaging in the practice of law.
How to Hire a Ghostwriter for Your Accounting Blog
Does your accounting business need a blog? Yes, web content like blogs helps your business rise in the search engine rankings. So, if your business website doesn’t have a blog, it’s time to create one. If you already have a blog, are you keeping it current? When potential clients see a website with an outdated blog, it immediately gives them cause for concern.
But, you may be thinking, you’re so busy running your accounting business, you don’t have the time to create and maintain a blog. Why not hire a ghostwriter to write […]
How to Become a Virtual Bookkeeper
Coming from the corporate world, leasing office space seemed like the obvious choice when I started my own company. But after 18 months of commuting to an office and paying rent and other overhead expenses, my two partners and I realized the cost—and time—savings of transforming into a virtual business. Luckily, we all had space to work from our homes, and with the right equipment, we made the transition to being a virtual business without a hitch.
If you’re just starting out or, like us, tired of paying for office space, there is […]
Don’t Let Poor Accounting Firm Management Stifle Your Growth
What barriers to business growth is your accounting firm facing? Although the answers to that question might vary from industry to industry, I’m sure most boil down to similar sentiments.
I know in my business, bandwidth can be a barrier to growth—but not bandwidth in the technical sense. Instead, we’re sometimes limited by our own bandwidth and how much our team can accomplish with the time and resources we have. Sometimes we manage our bandwidth well, and sometimes we don’t.
There were times we tried to take on a task we should have outsourced, […]
Accounting Franchises: Are They Really Worth the Money?
Traditionally, when you think about starting an accounting business, you envision building the business from scratch and all that entails—doing market research, financing your startup, differentiating your business in the marketplace, etc. But there’s another option you may not have considered: buying a proven concept of accounting franchises.
There are a number of accounting franchises available, some of which you may have heard of and some you likely haven’t. The decision to start an accounting business on your own or with the support of a franchise system depends on what kind of operation […]
The Accountant’s Role in Business Formation
How much do you value your accountant? If you answered “plenty!” then you’re in good company.
According to a survey* by Wasp Barcode Technologies, small business owners ranked accountants as the most important professional to their businesses. Not surprisingly, when asked how familiar the business owners are with accounting functions, most answered in the middle range. Most business owners would never attempt to file their business taxes without the help of an expert accountant, so why wouldn’t you turn to your accountant for help with business formation, too?
Most business owners hire an accountant […]
The CPA’s Guide to Using Accounting Automation
What does accounting automation mean to your accounting business? From one perspective, you might mourn the loss of business related to simple accounting that your clients can now handle on their own thanks to automation. No longer are most business clients in need of basic services such as data entry, basic bookkeeping or preparing simple tax returns.
Here are just a few of the lower value accounting services that accounting automation now enables clients to handle on their own:
- Maintaining a database of customers and vendors
- Tracking customers’ accounts
- Maintaining a database of […]
Accounting Service Pricing: Change Your Philosophy to Increase Your Profits
Most small business owners don’t charge enough for their services. Because the competition is so fierce, they typically undervalue what they offer out of fear that if they charge too much, they won’t attract enough clients or the right kinds of clients. But the truth is, the more you strengthen your relationship with your accounting clients and demonstrate your value, the more you can charge for your accounting services.
If your competitors are charging more than you, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll attract more clients by charging less money. More often, […]
Can Accountants and CPAs Help Clients File an LLC?
This weekend there was a question posted on Facebook asking this very question. Can accounting professionals, like CPAs or staff accountants, help their clients file LLC formation documents? Is this considered “practicing law” or is it part of a firm’s standard accounting services?
Here is the Original Question
Here is an answer from a group member:
This woman hits the answer spot-on.
Since this is such a great question, I believe it deserves exposure outside of Facebook so I […]
Accounting SEO: Local Search Optimization You Need to Know
Just like traditional businesses, accountants and CPAs have many options available for promoting and growing their service revenue. One of the most vital options is search engine optimization or SEO for short.
I might be just a little bit biased since I’ve been working with SEO for fifteen years. But I am with good reason. I have experienced the benefits of SEO first hand and I know SEO can be a game changer for an accounting practice or single accountant office.
An […]