Author: john

How many times have I been asked if I can share a sample business case for partnership?  When you are asked to submit one, it’s understandable if you over do it initially. It’s such an important document – where to start?  . . .  must make sure you include every little piece of evidence . . .  and the stack of pages gets higher and higher while the case itself becomes harder and harder to read.

On the How To Make Partner website, you can download a free guide to creating a business case for partnership, which includes a template and sample business cases that have been successful for others. In this article, I’ll give you some ideas of how to adapt the sample to fit your own situation.

Increasingly, individuals bear more of the responsibility for accumulating the resources needed for consumption in retirement. As employer-sponsored defined benefit plans decline in popularity, a greater emphasis is placed on employees to save at levels that are sufficient enough to maintain an optimal lifestyle in retirement.

To ensure a comfortable retirement, individuals may need to contribute sums over and above the contribution limits stated for their employer-sponsored defined contribution plans. When considering the ideal location for these additional retirement savings, people sensibly choose to take advantage of all the tax-sheltered accounts available before saving and investing assets in taxable accounts. Even though it does not allow a current year income tax deduction, a nondeductible IRA contribution proves valuable because the contributed funds benefit from growth without the friction of an annual tax drag. Over time, the benefit of tax-deferred compounding growth becomes a dominant force for accumulating a respectable retirement nest egg.

In my previous article, “Should You Stay or Should You Go? Opening Your Own Practice,” I focused on how to decide whether you want to leave a firm to start your own accounting or bookkeeping practice – the most difficult part of the process. By the time you’ve made the decision to go out on your own, you have most likely already started thinking about what your practice is going to be like and working out many of the details in your head. That, for me, is where the fun begins!

Here’s what you need to know about creating a plan and related specifics, including the type of computer equipment you’ll need, and the software and applications you’ll use in your practice.

Your first step is to determine how you will be working with your clients and what services you’ll be offering. Will you be meeting face to face somewhere onsite, or do you plan to be a virtual firm and meet online? When I left my old firm to start Satterley Training & Consulting, I made four decisions:

It would just be me for a while.
I wanted to work with my clients virtually, from my home office.
I knew the type of services I wanted to provide.
I knew the type of clients I wanted to serve.
These pieces of the puzzle set the foundation for deciding on the tools and applications I would choose for my practice.

The Tax Pro Center is a free resource for tax professionals who seek knowledge and insights to take their practice to the next level. It features an online collection of articles, infographics, videos, tools and more from Intuit® executives, industry experts and highly regarded third-party sources, including CPA Magazine. Common topics include tax law and news, how to deepen client relationships and how to improve practice management.

Two women, Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Straw, enter a restaurant known for fairly good food and decent entertainment. Mrs. Wilkins, playing hostess, is very particular about the kind of table they receive, but Mrs. Straw does not have any problems with the table given by the headwaiter. The table is towards the back of the restaurant, far from the stage.

They order food, and as the lights dim for the first pair of dancers, Mrs. Straw notices an extravagantly dressed young woman entering the restaurant with a man. The older women disapprove of her dress and also criticize the appearance of her companion.

Their food arrives, and as they eat, the women realize that the companion is a ventriloquist and the next act at the restaurant. His dummy is a hideous wooden replica of himself. As he performs, the women criticize his act, and though the audience laughs perfunctorily, the ventriloquist and the dummy are not particularly compelling.

In all Fairyland there is no more mischievous a person than Tanko-Mankie the Yellow Ryl. He flew through the city one afternoon–quite invisible to moral eyes, but seeing everything himself–and noticed a figure of a wax lady standing behind the big plate glass window of Mr. Floman’s department store.

This impressive announcement had drawn before the window a crowd of women shoppers, who stood looking at the wax lady with critical eyes.

Tanko-Mankie laughed to himself the low, gurgling little laugh that always means mischief. Then he flew close to the wax figure and breathed twice upon its forehead.

From that instant the dummy began to live, but so dazed and astonished was she at the unexpected sensation that she continued to stand stupidly staring at the women outside and holding out the placard as before.

The ryl laughed again and flew away. Anyone but Tanko-Mankie would have remained to help the wax lady out of the troubles that were sure to overtake her; but this naughty elf thought it rare fun to turn the inexperienced lady loose in a cold and heartless world and leave her to shift for herself.