Forensic Accounting Today

Freelance and Solo-Practitioners...Organizing in Atlanta

Over the last few years, I've developed an informal, diverse network of very capable freelance accounting and financial professionals, primarily to help facilitate the growth of my own solo accounting and consulting practice. Earlier this month, I began formalizing this concept by launching the Atlanta Financial Professionals Network, also referred to as AFPN.

Several factors have fed my desire to establish and grow AFPN:

Atlanta is home to increasing numbers of quality financial freelancers - The trend towards freelance, work-from-home consulting practices continues to grow. This growing talent pool comes primarily from three broad groups: Baby-boomers leaving the full-time work force; young professionals desiring the flexibility and other benefits of self-employment; and traditional career-seekers who find themselves in-between full-time jobs.

Retaining others for client engagements is a "win-win-win" scenario - When clients look to me to help with specialized consulting assignments, I must assess whether my personal schedule, skill-set, or higher billing rate is the best fit for their needs. In many instances, the right thing for me to do is arrange for a JE Moore associate to fill the specific needs. If I can retain a quality freelancer to expertly meet the client's needs when I'm busy with other commitments, or at a rate significantly less than what the client would be willing to pay me...everybody wins. The freelancer earns a satisfactory fee, I earn a fair margin on the JE Moore associate's work, and most importantly, the client benefits from me identifying and coordinating the best, most cost-effective staffing solution for their situation.

I want to help other solo-professionals - I chose a freelance form of doing business for one primary reason...to help enable me to invest significantly in my daughter's upbringing. My practice allowed for this and much more, for the past 20 years. Through the AFPN, I will share what I've learned and will invest in others, with the hope that I might encourage and benefit those who wish to pursue self-employment, regardless of their own reasons for desiring this flexible, rewarding approach.

Web-based tools enable cost-effective collaboration - AFPN members have 24/7 access to a private, password-protected AFPN intranet which easily allows them to 1) showcase their credentials via personalized profiles and blogs, 2) connect with other members in niche groups and via online chat, 3) share knowledge with blogs, forums, videos, and training events, 4) refer, engage or hire one another through the AFPN job board, and 5) increase their income under a "finder/minder/grinder" fee-sharing program.

Membership in the AFPN is by invitation only. Sixty (60) professionals have already registered. To-date, twenty virtual groups have been established to organize members in loosely-aligned industry or functional niche teams. In the near future, these teams will be meeting in face-to-face sessions to share ideas on how to individually and collectively pursue and manage client assignments.

If you're an Atlanta-area freelance financial professional who wants to learn more about the AFPN, please send an email to jeff.moore@jemoore.com.

Avoiding Employee Reference Check Mistakes

A critical step in the employee hiring process is reference checking. Paul Barada, a salary and negotiation expert with Monster.com, has identified the most common reference checking mistakes made by recruiters and employers. He lists them in his article, "Reference Checks: Five Mistakes You Want to Avoid." Here they are: 

1. Not checking at all
2. Lack of consistency
3. Making the job offer contingent on a reference check
4. Not requiring references who have worked directly with the candidate
5. Asking leading questions and failing to ask follow-up questions

Barada adds, "Careful reference checking requires time, training and insight. If done properly, it can be one of the most useful hiring tools available to any employer. If done poorly, it can lead to hiring someone who not only can't do the job, but also who could do more harm than good for the company."

Read the entire article.

Maister: The Managing Partner's Speech

I just read the latest entry in David Maister's "Professional Business, Professional Life" blog. It's packed with practice management material which applies to the largest of CPA firms...as well as to you and me, the solo practitioners of the world. Here are a few excerpts:

In this profession, the need for personal development is life-long. The minute you begin to cruise, to rely on skills learned last year, that’s the moment you begin your decline. All of us, from the 30-year-old’s to the 60-year old’s must constantly be asking “What new skills can I acquire?”. And the firm has the right to ask that same question of you.

My experience has taught me that success comes not to those who swing for the fences every time at bat, but those who commit themselves to a continuous program of constant improvement, base-hit by base-hit.

There are many ways to make yourself more valuable on the market: intellectual leadership, better client counseling skills, greater ability to run large projects, and so on. But one stands above all else: specialized industry knowledge. Regardless of your discipline, and your command of it, I believe that each and every partner should have one or more industries that they know in depth, to the level that the clients perceive you as up-to-date in their industry as they are. There is no better way, in my view, for each of us to succeed than for every one of us to declare a specific industry specialization.

Read more...

Engagement Staffing: Using Client Personnel

A "win-win-win" solution!

One of the best steps a solo or small firm accountant/consultant can take is to maximize the integration of their clients' internal staff on various aspects of work engagements. This is especially important for the sole-practitioner who has few, if any, employees of his/her own. When a client employee is properly woven into the staffing mix the following benefits can be expected:

• The client employee gains valuable, specialized work experience that might not otherwise be available in his/her routine job function. She gets to work with and be mentored by the independent consultant on an important, interesting project. Her "stock" goes up as she becomes more valuable to her current...or future employer. In my experience, client employees have generally been very eager to assist in a variety of knowledge-building ways on most projects.
• The client enjoys a double benefit. As the involved employee's knowledge and experience is expanded, that person becomes more valuable to the company and is better equipped to help the client in the future. The client also should benefit from reduced fees on the engagement since time devoted on the project by the lower-cost employee will help reduce fees paid to the external consultant.
• The practitioner benefits. The overall engagement process and work-product ought to improve since the involved client employee will presumably have valuable knowledge of the client's industry, processes, culture, and its people. This should allow for a more cost-effective engagement. While the overall fee paid to the practitioner may decrease, the profitability ratio should be increased. Multiply this over several projects, and the firm's service capacity and profits will improve. Client relations ought to be enhanced as the accountant/consultant exhibits this client-centered mindset.

Are you taking full advantage of the opportunity to utilize your clients' employees as part of your services? If not, I encourage you to take a close look at each current and future project and try to find at at least one internal staff person to enlist. Talk it over with your client and the selected employee...then move ahead!

Outsourced Accounting is Surging

"You'd better watch out. Companies are looking for you… big companies. And they want to hit you with some money… big money."

"Why you? Because you're an accountant. You know money. Finance. Numbers. Technology. You can be trusted with somebody else's payroll. Their accounts receivable. Their payables. Their purchasing, revenue accounting, general accounting. These are the activities that big companies most often outsource, and lately they've been outsourcing like never before."

Read more of Rick Telberg's blog comments...at CPA Trendlines.

Are You a True Professional?

Periodically, each of us should evaluate our work routines, practices, and attitudes, and ask ourselves, "Am I a true professional?"

To answer correctly...we must not only be honest with ourselves, but also know with certainty what true professionalism really is and how it's practiced in our profession.

To help with the latter of these two requirements, I highly recommend the book, True Professionalism, in which the author, David H. Maister, describes "real professionals" as those who:

• Take pride in their work, and show a personal commitment to quality
• Reach out for responsibility
• Anticipate, and don't wait to be told what to do--they show initiative
• Do whatever it takes to get the job done
• Get involved and don't just stick to their assigned role
• Are always looking for ways to make things easier for those they serve
• Are eager to learn as much as they can about the business of those they serve
• Really listen to the needs of those they serve
• Learn to understand and think like those they serve so they can represent them when they are not there
• Are team players
• Can be trusted with confidences
• Are honest, trustworthy, and loyal
• Are open to constructive critiques on how to improve
• All of the above can be summarized in one phrase: Real professionals care.

True Professionalism is essential reading, as are all of Maister's books, including Managing the Professional Service Firm, The Trusted Advisor, and Practice What You Preach. He's also authored numerous articles and other writings, many which are posted on the David Maister website. For example, he co-authored an article The Laws of Service Businesses. Take a look at it right now, then rush to your local bookstore and pick-up several of his excellent books.