spotting opportunities is quite easy if you are looking for them – and extremely difficult if you don’t have a clue of client needs or wants. read more →
when i’m frustrated, here’s how i explain the importance to clients of letting us work our process:
“when you get your car repaired, you don’t look over the mechanic’s shoulder and tell him which wrench to use. the same principle applies to us. if you knew the best ways to prepare tax returns, you should become our competitor.”
editor’s note: a reader shared with us an open letter sent to the irs. we removed some capitalization, bold/italic type and extra punctuation, but every word is just as written.
open letter via priority mail; delivery signature required
the honorable daniel werfel, commissioner
internal revenue service
1111 constitution ave, nw
washington, dc 20224
re: aicpa presentation 11-14-23. please stop complaining about budgets. focus on setting priorities, allocating resources, taxpayer bill of rights and the strategic operating plan like the rest of us out here; stop whining and just do your job. read more →
successful people are happy with their practices and what they do and get joy from interacting and helping clients. i know a lot of accountants who continuously complain about tax season – yet they make most of their money during the period.
do they expect someone to knock on their door with a wheelbarrow of money to hand them? if they are financially secure, why do they keep working? if they are not, then, duh! either do it or find something else, but stop complaining. better yet, look at all the benefits from what you do (if you need me to tell you the benefits then find something else to do). read more →
one big accomplishment: by feb. 2, 2023, the irs had cleared the entire carryover inventory of unprocessed individual tax returns received in 2022 – a backlog of 447,000 paper returns and 445,000 amended returns. read more →
1. understand the physical limitations of “willpower.”
according to scientists, our willpower is replenished every morning after a good night’s sleep. it’s strongest in the morning (even if you’re an evening person like me), and it wanes throughout the day. the more stress you’re under, the faster it depletes during the day, and sometimes your willpower runs out before the day does. read more →
in accounting, you know that tax season doesn’t end in april, as it often extends well into october. so, now that another season has come and gone and you’ve endured all the things you swore you’d never do again this year, what will be different in 2024 and beyond?
every year, i speak to tax pros and accountants with tax work at their practice’s core. i listen, i read what they share on social media, and it always seems to be the same. they swear they’ll get rid of clients who regularly extend into october. still, they must hound those to the irs deadline. they rail against the irs and lack of guidance, or the hours spent on the phone trying to get answers or to resolve an issue for their clients. they exclaim, “this is the last year i’m going to…” and yet, little to nothing of significance changes. with more accountants getting increasingly frustrated with their careers and fewer coming into the profession, it is up to you to say what will change.
so, again, i ask you all, what do you need to change to make it more enjoyable, bearable and even productive for yourself?
here are a few suggestions based on my observations. take them for what you will.
black ore emerges from stealth with $60 million in funding to launch tax autopilot, an “autonomous” tax prep app for cpas and accounting firms.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research via black ore
black ore.ai, an austin, texas-based ai platform for financial services, bolts out of the gate with $60 million in financing led by a16z and oak hc/ft. the company plans to use the funds to onboard new customers, grow its team and accelerate the development of additional ai products across financial services.
kapovskishinar
black ore was founded by veteran entrepreneurs, ceo eyal shinar and cto pavel kapovski, who have proven track records building and operating global fintech brands with ai and machine learning technologies. shinar previously founded fundbox, a $1 billion fintech unicorn powering payments and lending solutions for smbs. kapovski previously led r&d at cme group and spearheaded the development of machine-learning technology used by globally regulated banks and financial institutions. they are joined by a powerful team from leading companies such as adobe, baker tilly, cisco, ey, google, goldman sachs, grant thornton, nasa, pwc and ramp.
black ore offers an ai and automation platform that accelerates core workflows for financial services businesses and simplifies the experience for their clients. as part of its launch, black ore also announced its flagship product, tax autopilot, which combines its proprietary ai technology with federal and state tax codes and regulations to simplify the tax preparation and review process for cpas and accounting firms. future product offerings will target wealth management, financial advisory and planning, insurance services and more.
ask if an assigned project has been completed and get the, “it’s done, but …” followed by a few reasons why said project is still – let’s be honest – incomplete.
in my last book, i recommended hiring younger staff. in that book, i cautioned that you might have to teach very simple tasks like breathing and using the bathroom to your newbies.
one reader posted that she didn’t believe it was the responsibility of an admin department to teach bathroom use. she was new to this hot new writing technique called sarcasm, but she did a great job making my point that you have to teach your staff a lot of basic things.
one of those teaching tasks is the meaning of “done.”
the serenity prayer states, “grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” keep that in mind for a moment.
when preparing tax returns and financial statement audits, one of the biggest challenges cpa firms face is either late or incomplete client information.
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
