Or both? The CPA community struggles with a new surge in demand for services, talent... and bodies.
by Rick Telberg
At Large
At the same time they're boasting about the prospects of a big boom for tax and accounting work in 2005, CPAs and other parties keenly interested in the accounting profession are worrying about whether firms will have enough qualified people to handle all the additional business.
Practitioners, business school professors and vendors who serve the profession told us they are concerned about the lack of resources to meet the pending boom. They're also nervous about the dearth of leaders who appear ready to take over firms in the wake of anticipated massive retirements of partners from the Baby Boom generation. This is one of the key issues raised in the series of reports that began January 3 with the views of AICPA Chair Bob Bunting, in "Bunting Sets Agenda for New Year."
Every CPA we surveyed predicted a business boom in 2005, and Thomas Marino, managing partner of J.H. Cohn in New York, added, "The challenge, because of all the extra work, is managing the limited number of staff that exists today."
Firms with limited staff and expanding workloads are increasingly being forced to rid themselves of clients who "don't match their ideal client profile," said Jean Marie Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing in Marietta, Ga.
The talent shortage spells good news for vendors of technology systems. "There continues to be a high demand for staff accountants, but there has been a decline in accounting graduates," said Richard Walker, director of accountant and advisor relations for QuickBooks developer Intuit Inc.
"Great demand for accountants' services with fewer staff accountants will require better tools for the experienced accountants and their clients," Walker said.
Academics are sounding the biggest alarm about the profession's lack of fresh blood. "The challenge is finding enough qualified people to do all of the audit work now," added Dana R. Hermanson, accounting professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. "We need to attract people to the profession."
Dale L. Flesher, Arthur Andersen Alumni Professor of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi, predicted, "It will be a great year for students to find jobs in accounting. All firms - large and small - are adding more people than usual; every prospective candidate is getting multiple offers."
Redwood, Calif.-based Camico, one of the accounting profession's professional liability insurers, is worried about whether there will be skilled people at the helm of firms as current partners from the Baby Boom generation -- aged 45 to 60 -- start retiring in large numbers.
"As many CPA firm partners in this generation are interested in retiring in the near term, the problem is that there is a demographic trough between [Boomer-age partners] and the next generation," said John Dodsworth, president of. "It is very likely that in just a few years, the CPAs interested in retiring will outnumber the CPAs capable of, or interested in, succeeding them."
Joel Sinkin and Terrence Putney, principals at mergers and acquisitions consulting firm Blacklake Transition Solutions, added, "As the Baby Boomers age and the crunch for talent tightens, the trend toward needing to plan for succession is clearly a rising issue."
