Barring more global calamities or professional scandals, forecasters paint a rosy scenario.
by Rick Telberg
At Large
With the national accounting scandals comfortably in the past and hopes for an economic recovery in the future, 2005 could be a great business year for CPAs and their firms, say executives from across the accounting profession.
Tax, attest and financial planning services stand out as the areas most likely to enjoy the boom. This is one of the key issues raised in the series of reports that began Jan. 3 with the views of AICPA Chair Bob Bunting, in "Bunting Sets Agenda for New Year."
"2005 should shape up as another banner year for the CPA profession as the image is back to pre-Enron highs and demand for CPA services continues to grow;" Maryland Association of CPAs chief executive Thomas Hood said. He expects to see corporations increase their hiring of CPAs for their financial reporting expertise, and lessen their recruitment of MBAs and "finance gurus."
Among the vendors expecting big things in 2005, Mark Schlageter, chief operations officer of Thomson Tax and Accounting in New York, predicted that the time is ripe for accountants to "restate and reinforce the profession's value proposition as trusted advisor."
A boom in tax planning work is being predicted thanks to tax reform legislation and hopes for additional reform.
"People do not like change; this in turn leads to increased opportunity for accountants," said Bruce Clark chief executive of New Clients Inc., a Mullica Hill, N.J.-based provider of marketing services.
The Baby Boom generation's advancement toward retirement age will help fill CPAs' financial planning plates. David Reedy of Richmond, Va.-based financial planning services organization, Genworth Financial predicts that "an ever increasing number of CPAs" will be adding financial planning services in 2005 and those with established services will see an uptick in clients seeking to build cash reserves or to distribute funds already accumulated.
Practitioners themselves are bullish, such as Thomas Marino, managing partner of New York-based regional giant J.H. Cohn, who predicted that 2005 will be "a very good to great year" economically, and Jerry Esselstein, an Ohio CPA and past president of that state's CPA society, who said that demand for services will be high.
However, there's also a good deal of caution as you might expect from our sample of experienced CPAs.
St. Joseph, Mo.-based CPA and practice-management guru Charles Larson is hopeful about a banner 2005, but added that global politics and terrorism threaten to spoil the party.
"Everyone needs to have done some contingency thinking and be prepared for the unexpected," he said.
"While accountants got some bad initial press because of all the audit failures, in the end it was the accountants who were the winners," added Steve Albrecht, associate dean at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management.
Albrecht noted that CPA firms of all sizes will be performing more services related to audits and, because corporations have become more hands-on in attest services, "accountants now deal directly with audit committees and CFOs instead of controllers, and audit fees have been increased."
Russell Flagg, president of New York-based conference organizer Flagg Management thought "cautious optimism" best described the mood of the profession. "We should pray that Iraq, Iran and North Korea will not provide any surprises in 2005."
