Inc. published a short article on “working the phone” yesterday that touched on a number of things that anyone should take to heart if their job involves talking to people on the phone, which is to say, pretty much all office workers that do work. This is one of the bigger differ­ences between my previous gig […]

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I have often wondered whether the tradi­tional method of providing audited financial state­ments to clients is really serving them as well as we could be. We print them up on nice thick paper with the firm’s letterhead and spiral bound the package with a tasteful, under­stated title page, followed by our solemn audit report. Is […]

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Having lugged around three thick files repre­senting the full permanent file for an audit client for the past few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that my firm needs to consider digitizing these things. Perm files for accoun­tants consist of client documents that carry forward year to year. For example, engagement letters are good for […]

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A post today at VeraSage provided a perfect metaphor for audit planning: Once upon a time, there were two lumber­jacks who challenged each other to see which one could cut down more trees in a day. At daybreak, the first one began furiously chopping down trees. He worked up a sweat and by noon he […]

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It’s all the rage these days on accounting blogs — value-based pricing. You’ll see it every­where, hip accoun­tants (Who’s a hipper accountant than one who blogs? One who blogs about value pricing!) posting missives decrying the historical basis of hourly billing and extolling the virtues of pricing based on value. What value pricing means to them, […]

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