Firm Management
A New Year, A New Look
There have been times in my life when I’ve tried to reinvent myself. There was the winter I decided to be recognized for my hats and started wearing wide-brimmed felt hats to work every day. This was in Chicago and the wind was not my friend.
Feb. 17, 2017
There have been times in my life when I’ve tried to reinvent myself. There was the winter I decided to be recognized for my hats and started wearing wide-brimmed felt hats to work every day. This was in Chicago and the wind was not my friend. Another time I decided to work on mastering racquetball, but I made the mistake of playing a game after eating a meal I was allergic to and ended up in the hospital as my body was fighting itself for adrenalin. A big change was when I decided to go from a journalist to a CPA, and then back again to a journalist (with a little CPA on the side). That one has worked out well. I think we all try changes on for size, some are more significant than others, and then we keep the ones we like.
And that brings me to this magazine, this month, this issue, where we have decided to give change a try at CPA Practice Advisor. When you look at the cover, you’ll probably think this looks pretty much like all the magazines you’ve seen in the past. But you’ll be wrong. In the past, our cover highlighted one of the stories in the magazine. This month our cover shows that the magazine is about a topic, and this month the topic is cash management. We’re giving you a deep dive into our cover topic. Our articles provide best practices for managing cash, our software reviews cover products that provide cash management solutions, we offer outside resources that you can access or download, including tip sheets and webinars, and some of our monthly columns feature exceptional information about managing cash as well.
You’ll also notice that we’ve changed the way we prepare our software reviews. In many cases, we’re no longer reviewing entire programs, but instead we’re focusing on the features those programs have that correlate with our magazine theme. So this month we’re examining the cash management features of a variety of programs. We’ve examined full service accounting programs as well as specific apps that are specialized in this area. And we’ve added a features chart so you can easily compare the features between programs and read about the ones that will best fit your needs.
In short, this issue is your one-stop guide for cash management, and because of our immersion in this subject, we hope you will want to keep this on your shelf as a resource, share it with others, and refer back to it in the future. Each month we’ll cover a different topic and provide you with myriad solutions and ideas to help you improve your practice.
In addition, we are offering a new series called Building Your Niche Practice, where we provide tools and information on how you can build or enhance your tax and/or accounting practice within particular niches. Each month we’ll look at a different niche and provide you with advice from real accountants who work within this niche. For February, our niche is eCommerce, so we’re sharing information on how to work more effectively with your eCommerce clients.
Another change you’ll see in our new magazine format is new pages for our channels. Our website is divided into several channels: Accounting & Audit, Firm Management, Payroll, Small Business, and Tax. We’re devoting one page to each channel in our magazine to provide you with the latest news, best practices tips from our readers, and our favorite social media posts from the past month.
We still have the same outstanding columnists that you already know, and our regular features include Apps We Love, and A Year in the Life of SALT and Payroll accountants. We hope you enjoy our reboot and we welcome your comments.