Firm Management

You may have heard it before, or you may have actually uttered these words, “Why did we wait so long to let an underperforming employee go?" In some firms today it may actually be called the underperforming epidemic or the underperformer drag, but no matter what words you are using to describe the problem, the results are the same - our firm suffers when the leaders do not take action.

Five years ago I embarked on an extraordinary journey by joining the editorial team of this magazine, known then as CPA Technology Advisor. Today, I share with you my final column as its executive editor.

The owners of Mattingly Zsebe, PA weren’t any different from most practitioners in terms of how they viewed marketing. In essence, “Marketing sucked…it didn’t work…it was a waste of time.” These were the sentiments of the partners, Bill Mattingly, CPA, and Dylan Zsebe, CPA, before they started their journey of understanding just a year ago.

What is at the top of your accounting firm's agenda when the sun rises on April 16? Is it all crash and burn? Do you have a pile of unanswered messages and unread articles to plow through?

How often do you talk on the phone, look at email messages, check the news or weather, read or composts text messages while you're driving? We take pride in our ability to multi-task, but at what cost? Centuries of accountants managed to drive from point A to point B without phones in their hands. Today, it seems everyone is connected.

Unlike traditional applications where it is very clear where one module begins and another ends, CCH Axcess users can perform many tasks from a wide range of menus throughout the solution. This flexibility may be confusing to new users, as the time capture functions are accessed from the user’s dashboard and not from within the Axcess Practice application.

ProSystem fx Practice Management was originally built as CPASoftware Visual Practice Management on the Microsoft Access database, but has been updated to support the Microsoft.net and Microsoft SQL Server platforms.

APS Advance Practice Management is a customizable solution which best meets the needs of large accounting firms. The solution is built on the Microsoft SQL server platform. The application is flexible enough that the firm will need to know how they want to work with the application, and should not be expecting a “standard” implementation with this very powerful and flexible tool kit. A number of stock dashboards are provided with APS Advanced Practice Management, but users will want to configure the metrics tracked to meet their firm’s specific requirements.