CPA Now Blog

For a nonprofit to achieve its mission despite strong headwinds, it needs efficiency and innovation. Digital resources, for example, can make nonprofits more agile and responsive. Dashboards, specifically, offer a gateway to real-time financial reporting and operational visibility and can help nonprofit leaders drive change, accountability, and improvements.

The U.S. Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) Office of the Chief Accountant (OCA) is about to undertake a study to assess the quality of audit work with respect to financial statement audits of employee benefit plans for the 2020 Form 5500 filing year. Plan administrators and independent qualified public accountant firms need to be ready.

When reflecting on a career in accounting, it is easy to find a few situations that stick out as lessons learned. These situations often involve something dramatic, funny, or ironic. For those in the early stages of their careers, perhaps there is something in these observations that you can use in developing your practice.

The Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) decided several years ago to revisit the accounting model for goodwill and identifiable intangible assets. Given that there is close to $6 trillion of goodwill recorded on company balance sheets, the decisions that the FASB eventually settle on will significantly impact many companies.

Soon bank finance and accounting departments will start their annual budgeting. Marketing expenses are always a sticking point. There are areas within financial institutions where it is difficult to gauge the value that brand-building expenditures bring. This can be a stressful time for the marketing manager, but it doesn't have to be.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently updated its COVID-19 guidance for employers and employees. Following the lead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, OSHA recommends that employers consider requiring employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to regular COVID-19 testing, and to wear masks in indoor settings. The new guidance, coupled with the Pfizer vaccine receiving full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, has employers reevaluating their return-to-work policies.

Your education in debits and credits, tax law, and accounting principles prepared you for the technical aspects of becoming a practitioner, but your studies did not prepare you for the death of a client. Clients become part of an extended family, and each passing is equally hard. But even more difficult than coping with your feelings is talking about important tax matters with family members still raw with emotion.

The COVID-19 pandemic forever changed the way we think about working remotely. Fully remote or hybrid work options are becoming more commonplace as employers adapt their policies to allow for more employee flexibility. However, this shift will cause headaches for employers and employees as they attempt to navigate the evolving state and local tax ramifications.

The changing field can be daunting for those accustomed to old-school processes. Too many companies, in fact, still rely on manual processes to manage financial data. Those companies that are fully embracing digital transformation, however, are rapidly improving their overall business performance.

Service providers are taught that “the customer is always right,” but it is important to our sanity, and our bottom lines, to recognize that some prospects are wrong for us. Even poisonous.

CPAs who are hired to estimate individual or business damages (a money award) for matters in dispute never have it easy. Add to this difficulty the challenges presented by the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the endeavor gets very tangled very quickly.

We rely on the ability to receive information at a fast pace, and audio is the perfect on-the-go mode to make that happen. To retain clients and gain new ones, make sure your firm is top of mind by embracing new trends and ideas about business development. This blog discusses how and why using audio marketing can increase the brand awareness of your firm.

Corporate stakeholders have shown increased interest in companies’ qualitative and quantitative metrics relative to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Many large U.S. public companies do voluntarily provide some sort of sustainability disclosures, but recent market and regulatory trends are pushing companies to include ESG information with their Securities and Exchange Commission submissions.

The PICPA State Tax Steering Committee and their colleagues at the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants recently met to tighten the connections between the two organizations and to work collaboratively to uncover and resolve potential cross-state tax issues.

New skill sets and processes are transforming finance departments. Three areas shaping the role of accounting professionals include automation, forecasting, and a shifting emphasis on advisory responsibilities. CPAs are no longer bookkeepers; they are strategic business partners.

U.S. businesses that develop new or improved products are often eligible to claim the Federal Research and Development (R&D) tax credit. For Pennsylvania businesses, there may be additional opportunity to claim the Pennsylvania R&D state credit specifically aimed to promote business growth and foster development within the state.

Setting up a company-sponsored retirement plan offers some appealing tax benefits. Traditional 401(k) and safe harbor 401(k) plans both help boost tax savings and retain employees, but safe harbor plans have a few unique differences. Because of pending 2021 deadlines, now is the time to explore the potential for safe harbor plans.

The Pennsylvania CPA Journal Editorial Board recently held its annual content meeting to share ideas and come up with a consensus for the feature articles for the 2021-2022 year. The board members’ contributions were thought-provoking and plentiful. You won't want to miss our next four issues. Find out what the Pennsylvania CPA Journal has in store.

Many financial professionals plan a client’s retirement cash flow by using the 4% rule. The guideline, often called the SAFEMAX, basically states that one can confidently withdraw 4% from retirement accounts every year in a 30-year retirement and not run out of money. When the innovator of the SAFEMAX was asked if it was time to lower that number, he actually proposed that perhaps it should go up to 5.3%.

James J. Caruso, CPA, CGMA, has seen several sides of the accounting world, experiencing life in both public accounting and industry. He started his career at Deloitte and served as a partner with Fesnak LLP and RSM US LLP. He is now chief financial officer at J. Knipper and Company | KnippeRx. In this blog, Caruso discusses the differences between the two work environments, including daily routines, required education levels, and advancement opportunities.