State Meetings May Signal New CPA Muscle
A stroll through the New Jersey state society trade show reveals signs of strength in the profession and new visions for the future.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

With CPAs in public practice buoyed by a busy and profitable tax season and CPAs in industry encouraged by solid signs of an economic upturn, accountants were strolling the floor of a local state society trade show last week with renewed confidence.

Dropping in on the annual New Jersey CPA society expo, we found buyers and sellers galore, signaling a change from recent years when accountants were holding tight to their wallets and vendors were battening down the hatches.

If there are any themes to be gleaned from the brief tour, they are:

1) CPAs are working hard to upgrade their methods and systems with new technologies and new processes.

2) This is a make-or-break year for many professionals, who must decided whether to make the necessary investments to move forward or to look for an exit strategy, like a practice sale and retirement.

3) CPAs know they can't do it all. So they are searching for partners; they may be vendors or other CPAs. But the world is too demanding and fast changing for many CPA Lone Rangers to thrive without friends in the business.

So let's take a quick tour of the show floor:

At Globalforce Inc., vice president Max Krotman says his now-nationwide network of practice brokers has more buyers than sellers. That signals a new kind of confidence in the outlook for the business of firms.

Washington Mutual, the Bank of New York and CommerceBank are just a few of the institutions competing hard for the business of small business. Their come-on: free checking. And they know CPAs are the channel to the small business.

Technology consultants and value-added resellers like Champion Workflow Systems, Solution Strategists, and SWK Inc., are booking new orders from CPAs and small- and medium-sized businesses in reforming work processes by integrating disparate software applications, installing document management systems, updating web sites and assuring data backups.

New vendors are appearing on the scene. Intercept EFT came from Fargo, N.D., to pitch its electronic funds transfer services to small CPA firms. They think they have an edge against entrenched behemoths like ADP and Ceridien and every local bank because their system is geared for a single PC in a small office. And then there's Account Reconciliations, which started out as an end-of-the-month closing aid for small business and is finding interest among much larger companies impacted by Sarbanes-Oxley.

Of course, the heavyweights of the CPA business were there in strength. Both Intuit and Thomson's Creative Solutions, for instance, are moving deeper into document management and the "paperless" office.

Axa Advisers was just one of the several financial services companies at the New Jersey show seeking financial-planning CPAs. Steve Kessler, a tax accountant himself, for example, sees CPAs trying to broaden their service offerings. Meanwhile the CPAs connected with GE Terra Financial Services, one of the larger broker-dealers in the market, are reportedly doubling their business this year, even after doubling it once already last year.

It's heartening, as well, to see some tried-and-true products still going strong. TimeValue Software, for example, was getting strong interest in its PayrollPenalty product. And even old-fashioned calculators were flying off the shelves. Well, they're not so old-fashioned anymore. At the Monroe booth a $145 model was outfitted for net present value and principal-and-interest calculations. There are still some things, after all, that are easier to do without a computer.

It's sort of comforting to know that through all the change of the profession, the basic ten-key isn't going away just yet.