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Global securities watchdog targets greenwashing in ESG plan
/2021/03/10/global-securities-watchdog-targets-greenwashing-in-esg-plan/
Wed, 10 Mar 2021 01:26:01 +0000
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Global organizations that set corporate reporting standards failed to keep pace with the ESG boom, opening the door to greenwashing, mispricing and bubbles, according to one such group.
Correcting the situation “will take some time,” said Erik Thedeen, chairman of the Sustainable Finance Task Force at the International Organization of Securities Commissions, whose members regulate more than 95 percent of the world’s securities markets.
In the absence of global standards, an “alphabet soup of standards or semi-standards” has emerged that’s not “good enough,” Thedeen said by phone. “If we get reliable, comparable information with one set of standards, rather than different ones with different definitions, that will decrease the risk of greenwashing.”
The comments follow IOSCO’s warning last month of an “urgent need” for reliable sustainability disclosure standards, as well as a decision to work with other organizations including the IFRS Foundation.
The plan now is to present a preliminary proposal that would form the basis of national requirements at the United Nations climate change conference later this year.
“Exactly how detailed we’ll be, that we need to come back to,” Thedeen said. “But I am hopeful that we will have something that is definitely a very, very good starting point.”
The effort will require national authorities to expand, according to Thedeen, who also serves as director general of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority.
“We have much more expertise than we had just two, three years ago, but going down the line, with compulsory disclosure and a range of new legislation coming into force, we need to have more experts and more capacity,” he said.
ESG-linked assets have boomed. Governments, corporations and other groups raised a record $490 billion selling green, social and sustainability bonds last year. Meanwhile, companies eager to demonstrate responsible environmental and social behavior have been able to cherry pick reporting methods and certifications that put them in a better light, according to IOSCO.
The lack of unified disclosure requirements has made it difficult to gauge the extent to which climate risks are accurately priced into securities and has increased the potential for bubbles, Thedeen said.
“In the search for the winner in the change to a fossil fuel-free world, there will be a lot of speculation and that speculation could also turn into bubbles,” he said. “If you have more correct information, and comparable information, the risk of that will diminish.”
Only in recent years have global organizations like IOSCO begun to catch up with the historic shift, Thedeen said.
“Regulators, I would say generally speaking, have been lagging,” he said. “We are in a substantially better situation now, because so many of the different global players are working together.”
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Better client management strategies for accounting firms
/2021/03/09/better-client-management-strategies-for-accounting-firms/
Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:26:00 +0000
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We frequently observe that accounting firm owners care a lot for their clients. Still, many individuals who change firms believe they didn’t receive the appropriate care from their previous accountant. There is a clear disconnect regarding the accounting professional’s intent.
This is a phenomenon that we directly experience with some new clients. They typically tell us that their last firm wasn’t proactive enough and didn’t provide the value they expected. Yet, from interactions with hundreds of accounting professionals, we have seen firsthand that they generally care very much for the people they work with.
So how can the accounting profession provide clients with a high-value service that reflects the firm’s concern? The answer may be in the creation of an efficient client management strategy — an aspect that is often not given the proper attention as firms grow.
Client management is an essential aspect of leading and running a professional accounting firm efficiently and providing ongoing value to clients. Also as your clients are the firm’s source of revenue, they are obviously central to your company’s sustainability and growth.
It is a good idea to manage each clients’ entire journey versus expecting them to decide how, when, and what they purchase from the firm.
The client management ecosystem
A client management strategy has a model that each firm can follow to make sure they are providing the client care needed to keep their firm running and developing. Overlooking this ecosystem can impact resources and result in clients receiving a lower level of service.
There are three stages where client management is particularly important: onboarding, pricing, and more generally in your business model.
Client onboarding
This is the first step when you start working with a new client before they receive any services. Something that has stood out as good practice during this phase is to make sure the clients you take on are a good fit for the way you do business. This is key to building a sustainable firm that you and your staff enjoy.
The process of new client intake can be slowed down to a point where you can create a place for value judgments, where both you and the potential clients can decide to work together or not. When the sales process is slowed down like this, you can give comfort to the client while increasing the perceived value of your work.
Some aspects — or the entire process — can be virtualized, for example by using Zoom conferences and shared documents. It is now possible to operate a virtual firm, and with the current pandemic situation, it is even an encouraged practice.
The ultimate goal in the client-onboarding phase should be to align with the potential client, dive into real discovery of their needs, and prepare them to be priced.
Pricing
Pricing is the second phase and happens before the service begins. Determining value in pricing is generally a skill that takes time and practice to master. Here are some questions we suggest asking potential new clients to help define price:
Why are you looking for a new accountant? Why now?
What do you hope to achieve in working with our firm? What do you see in us that made you interested?
How will we know this is successful?
What has stopped your company from resolving this in the past? What might stop your company from achieving these results in the future?
What will your company look like in two years?
What keeps you up at night?
What gets you up in the morning?
What have you valued about past relationships with financial coaches or advisors?
If working with our firm requires more time from you, can you commit that time? What are you willing to say no to for our collaboration to be a success?
What are all the issues to be addressed?
Did we get it right? What did we not ask that we should have?
Here are some practical observations on different types of pricing:
Hourly billing lends itself to a faster, more commodity-based firm business model. Hourly billing takes no client assessment, no conversations as to what the client may value, and puts the client in control to let the firm know what to do. Hourly billing is the fastest form of running a firm, as it takes little time to bring new clients into the firm. Any client is welcome in a billing firm.
Fixed pricing applies a single price to a service that is offered by the firm. Note that this is different from value pricing, where only the client has a price. Firms that offer monthly packages are doing fixed pricing.
Value billing is another form of hourly billing, yet takes it one step further. When the bill is calculated, a value markup is applied if the client perceives higher value than when the services were started. This is a difficult model to operate within since the influence of value with a client begins at the outset of a relationship, not after the work has been completed.
Value pricing is the slowest form of a firm’s business model. In a value-pricing firm, there are essentially no prices for services. Only the clients have prices since all services can (and are) sold to them for different prices depending on what they value most.
Firms do not have to exclusively adopt one model of pricing or billing but can instead weigh their benefits and apply the different models to different client groups or to different divisions of a firm (in large organizations). For example, firms offering advisory services would lend themselves to value pricing done by the owners of the firm, while the accounting and tax recurring revenue of many firms is suitable for a fixed pricing model.
No matter which model of pricing is chosen in your client management strategy, value is the core component to help the client and firm align on the goals and payment of the service.
Business model
The business model is the final phase where service happens and is the team structure you use to deliver services.
The way you manage your company’s capacity is fundamental to your firm being able to create efficient profit. There are several pillars to capacity management:
Time and location: These are the more controllable aspects of capacity. A firm can request their team work a certain amount of time in locations that afford the greatest productivity and use of that capacity.
Mind and emotions: These elements are generally not controllable. These are simply what the humans working in the firm bring with them each day. They are not strategic at all, and you never know when issues may appear and prevent the professional from focusing on their work. Leaders of the firm should be able to identify any team inefficiencies if they want to create profit for their growth, investment, and distributions. Managing and strategically predicting capacity is the key to turning the right amount of revenue into efficient profit.
Project management: This is the management of the scope of your services, the assignment of work to the team members, and the management of related software products that this management resides in (like Canopy). Project management is the foundation of service and is how a firm owner knows what work is flowing through their firm and what is being managed properly.
This is a high-level overview of the client management journey, and we hope it helps as you navigate this topic. Client management is an important matter in any firm. Without a strong vision about what this means, both firm owners and clients will struggle. Tackling topics like client management sets a firm apart to provide immense value, which in turn justifies higher prices in the marketplace they serve.
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Gaining valuable time through tech
/2021/03/09/gaining-valuable-time-through-tech/
Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:25:58 +0000
/2021/03/09/gaining-valuable-time-through-tech/
I have been talking about accounting firm transformation for so many years now that sometimes it seems like I’m on repeat. What was “radical” five or ten years ago — the cloud, for example — is now a reality for pretty much every firm.
The beauty of the radical movement is that it’s always been based on innovation. It used to be that we were waiting for tech to catch up so we could really go full throttle with transformation. But the tech we need to radically transform our firms and add back valuable time is already here. Here’s how to harness it.
The why
Why should you invest in a best of breed tech stack? Why do you want to upend your current processes and migrate clients to a new model?
The truth is that inefficiency is costing you money and opportunities.
It’s harder to see in a firm that bills by the hour, but inefficiency is still there. Take last year — how many more of your clients came to you and your staff for help with everything from PPP loan forgiveness to cash flow forecasting? What other advisory services did you provide? If a firm wasn’t positioned to offer these services or didn’t have the capacity to offer them, that’s a problem. It’s hard to focus on advisory when you’re busy doing data entry and repetitive tasks.
If you know your people are busy, but you can’t tell if they’re efficient or even effective, there is a better way.
Data is the catalyst for change
What data, you might ask? Data gleaned from team surveys, interviews with key personnel and timesheets.
Information from data gathering can be grouped into four categories:
Pricing: Billing rates, scope mismanagement and allocation of hours;
People: Staff to manager ratio, communication, professional responsibilities and specialization;
Process: Documentation, silos, duplication and standardization; and
Technology: Replacing antiquated tasks with automated tech, in-house tech experts.
Your goal will be to look at each of these areas eventually, but transformation can still be achieved one area at a time. Let’s dive into each of these areas more.
Pricing
One of the many challenges with hourly billing is that hourly rates tend to remain stagnant year after year. As client size and/or scope increases, too often the billing rate stays the same. This in turn lowers the value capture.
That challenge is often made worse with scope creep; an area where teams need training. They need to be aware of what is included in an engagement and what’s not, and have the ability to communicate with the client and say, “I can absolutely help you with this, but it’s outside the scope of our engagement and I will need to charge for it.”
This is where pricing strategy comes in. Look at the services your current client base is buying and organize offerings into packages that align with those services. Make sure everyone knows the parameters of what’s included and encourage (and train) your team to communicate with clients better.
You also want to find out how hours are allocated across the firm. A common issue firms experience is that their highest value resources — partners and managers — are doing lower-value work. This drives up the cost of engagements and erodes profitability. What to do? Train your staff on how to deliver advisory services. Remove some of their workload with automated tech. It’s a win-win.
People
Speaking of staff, managers and partners, do you know what the staff-to-manager ratio is at your firm? You should. The top 25 CPA firms had an average 19:1 ratio as of 2018. If your firm moved closer to that benchmark, you’d likely see a contribution margin increase of around 60 percent. For that to happen, you will need to increase staff capacity by around 16 percent and shift 400 hours or so from partners and managers to staff. It can be done with tech.
You may also consider splitting up managers so they can specialize in a certain area. Specialization boosts value — it saves time, allows new services that can be developed and sold, and lets people thrive according to their skill set and personality. For example, a mid-size firm might have bookkeeping, accounting advisory and tech advisory as their three core areas. Restructuring processes is often the first stage in team specialization.
Process
Your goal here is to create standard processes that every team, office and department will follow. Without standardization, your clients can’t expect consistent results. Once you have your processes documented and standardized, how do you communicate that to the organization?
In this way, you can help guide clients toward best practices, instead of letting them decide how your workflow happens. (Paper receipts, anyone?)
Look for the results from staff surveys and stakeholder interviews. Identity silos, document every process for every service, and look for duplicates of any step in the process.
Tech
Last, but certainly not least, if there is an available tech option that automates an antiquated or repetitive process, run toward it with open arms. This will free up so much time within your firm.
You’ll also need people in your firm who are tech specialists. Not tech-certified CPAs, but more like in-house technicians with accounting backgrounds who understand how AI and tech impact accounting workflow. These people are leaders and will spearhead the firm’s tech-driven initiatives. You need an accounting tech visionary if you will.
Tech alone can’t fix broken processes, but when better tech plus standard processes, the result is like magic. As your firm integrates technology, the pricing model must evolve.
Automation tech lets firms scale up without adding more staff or hours. What does it take for a mid-size firm to sustain 2 percent quarterly growth? If a firm operates “as-is,” it cannot achieve that growth without hiring an additional staff person. However, a firm with substantial tech assistance can gain around 9,000 hours a year to reinvest in training, technology, advisory and growth.
After all, the business we’re in is bigger than accounting. Accounting is one piece of the entire pie.
If your vision for the firm doesn’t include filling hours with additional work, there’s something to be said about going home early. That too can be transformational in other ways.
How will you spend your time in 2021?
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Biden nears big win as $1.9T stimulus goes to final vote
/2021/03/09/biden-nears-big-win-as-1-9t-stimulus-goes-to-final-vote/
Tue, 09 Mar 2021 01:15:56 +0000
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President Joe Biden is on the cusp of his first legislative win with the House ready to give final passage to his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan, the second-biggest economic stimulus in U.S. history.
After the Senate passed the legislation on a party-line 50-49 vote on Saturday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said it will be taken up in his chamber on Tuesday. Although some liberal House members have complained about changes made by the Senate to ensure the support of moderate Democrats, progressives brushed off the concessions as minor.
“Despite the fact that we believe any weakening of the House provisions were bad policy and bad politics, the reality is that the final amendments were relatively minor concessions,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal.
Enactment would set the stage for work this spring on Biden’s plan for a massive infrastructure and manufacturing recovery bill. Democrats also are counting on the injection of stimulus to accelerate the economy long before they face voters in the 2022 midterm elections.
“As tough as this moment is, there are brighter days ahead — there really are,” Biden told reporters at the White House after the Senate vote.
The bill would provide the biggest health-care expansion since the Affordable Care Act, a temporary plan aimed at slashing the child poverty rate, and send $1,400 payments to millions of Americans. In addition, state and local governments are set to get more than $350 billion in aid, and schools will get an infusion of funding, all of which Democrats hope will propel the economy forward.
“Once the plan is signed into law, I am confident that Americans will be met by a strong economy when we make it to the other side of the pandemic,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement on Saturday.
The bill will also deliver $300 a week in extra unemployment assistance through Sept. 6, and make the first $10,200 of unemployment insurance benefits nontaxable for households with incomes of less than $150,000. The legislation includes $160 billion for vaccine and testing programs to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The Senate also adopted a bipartisan amendment from Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia to direct $800 million toward alleviating youth homelessness.
Overall, the legislation is double the size of the Obama-era stimulus from the 2008-09 recession, and exceeded many earlier Wall Street estimates for how big a package Democrats could pass with the thinnest margin of control in the Senate. It’s eclipsed in size only by the $2.2 trillion pandemic aid plan passed a year ago under President Donald Trump, when large swaths of the U.S. economy were first shut down by the pandemic.
The legislation also includes two key provisions that open the door for Democrats to make major long-term progressive changes to the Tax Code. A one-year expansion of the child tax credit could be made permanent by Democrats later this year. The bill would give parents $3,600 for each child under six, and $3,000 for each older child, up from $2,000. The payments will be sent out in monthly installments, rather than being added to the family’s refund at tax-time, effectively setting up an experiment in universal basic income for households with children.
The legislation also makes student loan forgiveness tax free, meaning that individuals who get their debt wiped away won’t have to pay the IRS income taxes on that benefit. While the bill doesn’t include loan forgiveness itself, it paves the way for Biden or lawmakers to forgive student debt with a lower deficit cost.
Economists have boosted their forecasts for growth based on passage of the stimulus bill, along with recent evidence that the economy is already picking up pace. Gross domestic product will clock a 5.5 percent gain this year — the best since President Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America”-era 1984 — according to the latest Bloomberg monthly survey of economists.
“The package is large enough to erase the U.S. GDP gap to the pre-pandemic trend around midyear,” said Andrew Husby, an economist with Bloomberg Economics. “A new high-water mark for GDP will not coincide with full recovery in the labor market. As of February, 9.5 million Americans remained out of work.”
Passage in the Senate came after votes on amendments that stretched for more than 25 hours. The Democratic drive toward a final vote stalled out for nearly 12 hours on Friday after Manchin, a pivotal vote, balked at a deal to extend supplemental unemployment benefits into October.
Once that was resolved, Democrats held together to defeat Republican amendments on limiting state and local aid; restricting funding for abortions; banning aid to schools that have transgender athletes or fail to open five days a week; and ending aid to indebted minority farmers, among others.
Despite the stumble on unemployment insurance, passage of the stimulus was a major victory for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who aimed to show that Democrats could wield power despite the 50-50 Senate split.
“Unity, unity, unity. That’s how we got this done,” Schumer said after the vote. “On every single important vote, every Democrat stuck together.”
The passage of the stimulus was enabled by the upset victories in January runoff elections of two Democratic senators from Georgia, which handed Democrats their razor-thin majority.
“The people of Georgia deserve great credit for what happened here today. If they had not stood up in such a powerful way on that historic election day and sent Jon Ossoff and myself to the Senate, we simply would not be here,” Senator Raphael Warnock told reporters.
Republicans were united as well. They argued that much of the measure is unnecessary given improving economic indicators, like Friday’s stronger-than-expected jobs report, and that it’s a danger to the long-term health of the economy because of the growing U.S. budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the deficit would reach $2.3 trillion this year before the passage of the new bill adds $1.2 trillion more to that total in fiscal 2021.
Democrats rejected an effort by 11 Republicans, led by Senator Susan Collins of Maine, to offer as an amendment a plan about one-third the size of Biden’s bill — showing how critical the Georgia senate wins were to advancing the president’s agenda.
“The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “We passed five bipartisan COVID relief bills; there is no reason we could not do a sixth,” GOP Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said in a statement. “I wanted to support a bill that targeted aid to those impacted by the pandemic. Instead, Democrats rammed through a bill that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on pet projects that have nothing to do with the pandemic, and puts our economy at risk of inflation.”
— With assistance from Laura Litvan
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Art of Accounting: Managing client expectations
/2021/03/08/art-of-accounting-managing-client-expectations/
Mon, 08 Mar 2021 21:15:54 +0000
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Overpromising and missing deadlines is a guaranteed way to disappoint clients. However, this can be a self-inflicted wound if not handled properly. We set the deadlines and make the promises.
Many times we succumb to urges and pleas by clients to set an unrealistic due date based upon the scope of what needs to be done and our available resources. However, it is we who “sign off” on the request or deadline. In effect, we are the ones who frame the expectation.
I can assure you that much success, and much less stress, come from managing client expectations. This includes defining the scope and then planning on meeting, or exceeding, it. This should be done for every client who pays you a fee, irrespective of the size of that fee. Regardless of what you think, every client is important to themselves and believes they should be treated in a royal manner. Tax season is a perfect time to keep this at the forefront of your mind. Furthermore, every client is a potential referrer of business. I once had a $300 tax client refer $250,000 of new business to me.
Once you give your client a deadline, that becomes your promise to deliver at that time. Not a day later, or some mythical extended date. Set the date realistically, considering your preparer and reviewer availability and your schedule to sign off on the return. Staff have many assignments to juggle and a bunch of single tax returns is usually never high on their to-do list. Also, even though many are working from home right now, many are not, and they could be going to clients’ premises. If they work on a tax return on the weekend and will not be back in the office until Thursday, that means they either cannot complete it until then or cannot correct any errors the reviewer found. If the reviewer does not get to it before that Thursday, then the preparer might not be able to pick up that return until the weekend. This then stretches the in and out of that return to as many as 10 days. This either must be considered when you provide a delivery date, or you have to work better on the scheduling.
“Business as usual” doesn’t always work when you have staff who are usually out of the office or who are overloaded with bigger projects for business clients. When we have self-induced time pressure, we also tend to give in to scope creep and do more than we are hired to do since we loathe to confront a client with a request for added services when we are behind with what we are supposed to be doing.
I usually figure out when I could realistically get the work done, then add two days, and try to beat my deadline by a day. When setting the deadline, I try to overcome any client wishes for an earlier date by assuring them this is a firm date and that the time is needed to get the work done right, taking advantage of every benefit the client is entitled to.
There is a simple takeaway from here. Do not make delivery promises that you are not positive you could adhere to, and do not promise results you are not reasonably sure you could meet. You set the expectations. Make them reasonable and attainable.
Do not hesitate to contact me at emendlowitz@withum.com with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.
Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, is partner at WithumSmith+Brown, PC, CPAs. He is on the Accounting Today Top 100 Influential People list. He is the author of 24 books, including “How to Review Tax Returns,” co-written with Andrew D. Mendlowitz, and “Managing Your Tax Season, Third Edition.” He also writes a twice-a-week blog addressing issues that clients have at www.partners-network.com along with the Pay-Less-Tax Man blog for Bottom Line. He is an adjunct professor in the MBA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University teaching end user applications of financial statements. Art of Accounting is a continuing series where he shares autobiographical experiences with tips that he hopes can be adopted by his colleagues. He welcomes practice management questions and can be reached at (732) 743-4582 or emendlowitz@withum.com.
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New ways to be an accountant
/2021/03/08/new-ways-to-be-an-accountant/
Mon, 08 Mar 2021 17:15:53 +0000
/2021/03/08/new-ways-to-be-an-accountant/
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People & firms on the move: Grant Thornton names first chief risk and compliance officer
/2021/03/08/people-firms-on-the-move-grant-thornton-names-first-chief-risk-and-compliance-officer/
Mon, 08 Mar 2021 01:05:14 +0000
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CalCPA adds new membership category; Maxwell Locke Ritter celebrates 30 years; and more CPA news.
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From Panama to Big Four partner: Conquering personal and professional challenges
/2021/03/07/from-panama-to-big-four-partner-conquering-personal-and-professional-challenges/
Sun, 07 Mar 2021 21:05:13 +0000
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Whenever anyone asks me how long I’ve been with Ernst Young LLP, I’m always tempted to answer, “Since I was 14.”
While that response isn’t 100 percent accurate, there’s more than a little truth behind it.
My history with EY dates back to my days as a high school student at Norman Thomas High School for Business and Commercial Education in New York City. When I met a manager during a school-sponsored career field trip to a local EY office, I confidently (and definitely naively) told him, “I’m going to come work for you someday.”
The path from new immigrant to high school student to first-generation college graduate to EY audit partner wasn’t straight or easy, but I learned a lot about myself along the way.
I arrived in the U.S. from Panama at age seven. At 14, I tragically lost my mother and went to live with relatives. My mother’s death robbed us of a lifetime together, but in the short time we had, she taught me so much by her example — working extremely long days in a factory but still having time for her family.
My mother believed in me, and throughout my life, her silent voice has inspired me to reach higher and strive for more than she’d had for herself. So, despite some hardships and setbacks, I was determined to be an excellent student, and I graduated at the top of my high school class.
Like many of my classmates, I went off to college, but before long faced another life-changing challenge — an unplanned pregnancy early in my freshman year
While quitting was an option, I could hear my mother’s voice quietly urging me to stay in school and follow my dream, even though this was becoming more complicated and challenging by the day. I gravitated to accounting right away in college and threw myself into my studies, a full-time job and eventually caring for my infant son.
The value of mentors (and sponsors)
Growing up, I didn’t have many role models or people giving me advice, but my mother’s inspiration was a constant presence. I just couldn’t disappoint her: I didn’t have a choice.
I had a few people who guided me at Norman Thomas, and in college I continued to seek out people who could act not only as mentors but also as sponsors. I saw sponsors as people who would do more than just provide advice — they would be my champions and take concrete actions on my behalf to help me succeed and reach my goals.
Entering my senior year, with graduation within reach, I faced what some might consider another significant potential setback — a second pregnancy with my future husband. But I had come too far to let it hold me back. The encouragement and support I received from teachers, advisors and other students (along with my mother’s inspiration) kept me going.
Starting a career while balancing family life
When I earned my degree and headed out into the workforce, I didn’t initially interview with EY. I instead began my career at a large, minority-controlled accounting firm, which was a great experience for a young professional and taught me so much.
After I joined EY a few years later, I spent several years moving on the partner track toward my dream job. Eventually, though, I had to choose between the increasing demands of my career and my family, which by then included two kids (with another on the way) and a husband.
As I summoned the courage to talk to a partner about leaving, he asked, “What are you going to do?” I boldly responded, “I’m going to be a partner someday!”
It turns out he thought I was just taking maternity leave and was asking about what I’d do when I returned, but to me, the choice was obvious — to find another, less-demanding role outside the firm.
Stepping away from EY for a better work-life balance could have derailed someone else’s partner track, but I refused to let that happen to me.
The winding path to partner gets even longer
Luckily, I had people in my corner at EY and kept in close touch with many of them. When an opportunity to rejoin the firm as a “boomerang” came my way, I gladly took it. I returned as a senior manager in 2005 with the expectation that earning the title “partner” was within reach, and I hadn’t lost any momentum.
But when the financial crisis hit in 2008, everything came to a screeching halt. People I trusted told me to be patient, that for me, making partner wasn’t an “if” but a “when.” Still, putting my No. 1 dream on hold hit me hard, and I even contemplated leaving EY. Instead, after three years of waiting, I took some time off to catch my breath and possibly rethink my career aspirations.
When I returned in January 2011, I had breakfast with a partner who also was one of my sponsors. During our meal, he slid across the table the nomination form that had presented him as a partner candidate years ago and assured me I’d get one soon too. Later, I learned I was at the bottom of the selection list. I hoped for the best but prepared for the worst.
When I got back, I found myself moving through the interview process with Memorial Day weekend fast approaching. The new partner list always came out before the holiday, and I was so nervous I could barely stand it. Even my young daughter kept asking me why EY would keep me waiting like that. And she was 12!
As the Thursday of the holiday weekend came, I wasn’t sure if I’d make the cut. The day dragged on, but in the late afternoon, I was called to an office where I saw, to my relief, a bottle of champagne and a group of partners greeting me. It was finally official: The high school kid who swore she’d work for EY one day was now a partner. I burst into tears of joy and so did nearly everybody in the room. My mother’s dreams for me (and that I had for myself) were a reality.
Sharing my experience with others
A decade later, I’m inspired by the next generation of EY professionals. I’ve mentored many on how to navigate their careers through the EY organization, through the industry, and, sometimes, through life.
Reflecting back on how I kept going despite so many setbacks, I remember a quote attributed to Omar Peele, a Black aerospace engineer: “Flexibility is one of the most powerful concepts to understand. You need to be flexible in anything that you are passionate about.”
Though my journey from cocky teenager to Big Four audit partner is less a roadmap and more a “how-to” (and in many instances “how-not-to”) guidebook, I’m happy to share it with anyone as they set out on their own journey.
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What’s in the $1.9T stimulus bill passed by the Senate
/2021/03/07/whats-in-the-1-9t-stimulus-bill-passed-by-the-senate/
Sun, 07 Mar 2021 17:05:12 +0000
/2021/03/07/whats-in-the-1-9t-stimulus-bill-passed-by-the-senate/
Senate Democrats passed the latest version of the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill after a more than 24-hour voting session that included the longest single vote in the chamber’s history.
The plan includes a wave of new spending, an extension of jobless benefits, another round of direct household payments, money for state and local governments and an expansion of vaccinations and virus-testing programs including a national vaccine distribution program for all residents regardless of immigration status.
The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the Senate’s version and must pass it before it can go to President Joe Biden for his signature. Democrats are seeking to enact the legislation before unemployment benefits expire on March 14.
The legislation would rival the $2 trillion March 2020 CARES Act in size and scope and follow a $900 billion December relief package. After this bill, lawmakers plan to begin work on a longer-term economic recovery plan in coming weeks, aimed at job creation, infrastructure investment and development goals such as climate change.
Here are the key items:
Stimulus checks
The legislation would send a third round of stimulus payments — this time at $1,400 per eligible individual. Singles earning up to $75,000 will get the full amount, with the payments phasing out completely by $80,000 in income. Couples making up to $150,000 will get $2,800 — $1,400 per person — with the payments declining at higher incomes and zeroing out altogether at $160,000. Children and adult dependents in those households are also eligible for $1,400 payments.
The plan would also allow residents who are married to undocumented residents to receive stimulus payments; they were barred in prior rounds.
Vaccinations, testing
The legislation includes $160 billion for vaccine and testing programs to help stop the virus’s spread and ultimately end the pandemic. The plan includes money to create a national vaccine distribution program that would offer free shots to all U.S. residents regardless of immigration status.
The legislation includes funding to create community vaccination centers and deploy mobile units in hard-to-reach areas. Money is also directed toward testing efforts, including purchasing rapid-result tests, expanding lab capacity and helping local jurisdictions implement testing regimens.
State aid
Senate Democrats included more than $360 billion in aid for state, local and territorial governments, including $10 billion that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer added in the final moments before the bill passed. Democrats for months have pushed for more money to help state and local governments that have faced higher costs and lower tax revenue during the pandemic. States and cities warn they’ll be forced to make deep cuts to public health, safety and education programs without more funding, because they can’t borrow money in the way the federal government can. Many Republicans chafed at more money for local governments, saying it amounts to a bailout for mismanaged budgets.
The Senate-passed version of the bill also includes other last-minute additions of $10 billion for critical infrastructure, including broadband internet, and $8.5 billion for rural hospitals.
Unemployment insurance
The legislation would extend supplemental unemployment benefits that are scheduled to run out March 14. The bill extends the weekly federal benefit of $300 a week through Sept. 6. That was a last-minute compromise to appease centrist Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin who was concerned that previous versions of the bill, that called for higher payments or a longer extension, were too costly.
The package also extends benefits for self-employed individuals and gig workers, along with those who have exhausted their regular jobless benefits. It also includes tax relief on the first $10,200 in unemployment payments for workers in households earning up to $150,000 a year. The change will prevent many people from receiving surprise IRS bills this spring.
Health coverage, paid leave
A late addition to the legislation would cover 100 percent of the costs of continuing health insurance through September for laid-off workers. The House version of the bill would subsidize 85 percent of premiums for individuals eligible for so-called COBRA coverage in employer health plans.
The plan would provide paid-leave benefits of as much as $1,400 per week and tax credits for employers with fewer than 500 employees to reimburse them for the cost of the sick time. The bill does not mandate that employers offer paid leave.
Tax credits, childcare
The bill would expand tax credits for low- and middle- income families and make them refundable for 2021. It would also expand the child tax credit to $3,000 from $2,000 for each child aged 6 to 17. Children 5 and younger would be eligible for $3,600. The tax credits would be sent to households monthly starting in July.
The bill also includes $25 billion for a stabilization fund to help open child-care centers and $15 billion in grants to support essential workers in meeting childcare costs.
Schools
The plan is also calling for $170 billion to help schools open — something Democrats have argued would allow many parents, especially women, to rejoin the labor force after they dropped out to care for children learning at home.
About $130 billion of that would go to K-12 schools to help them hire additional staff to reduce class size, modify spaces and purchase resources to help meet students’ academic and mental health needs. The plan would also direct $40 billion to colleges and universities. The plan includes a last-minute amendment that would require schools receiving funds to submit plans within 30 days about how they plan to safely re-open.
The legislation also includes a measure that would make student loan forgiveness tax-free. The bill doesn’t include provisions to forgive student loans, but it would put in place tax benefits if Congress or Biden were to forgive student loans in the future.
Rental assistance
The legislation would extend the eviction and foreclosure moratorium through September. It would also provide $45 billion to help low-income households who have lost jobs pay rent, mortgages and utility bills. The plan would also provide $5 billion to states and localities to offer emergency housing for families facing homelessness.
Airlines, airports
The bill allocates $14 billion for eligible airlines and $1 billion for contractors to the air carriers to extend a payroll support program set to run out on March 31. The legislation also includes $8 billion for airports to make changes to facilities or personnel to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Small businesses
The legislation includes $25 billion to help restaurants struggling from pandemic lockdowns and closures and $1.25 billion for venue operators. The bill also includes $15 billion for targeted Economic Injury Disaster Loans and an additional $7.25 billion for forgivable loans in the Paycheck Protection Program.
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Franklin University, Ohio Society partner on continuing ed
/2021/03/07/franklin-university-ohio-society-partner-on-continuing-ed/
Sun, 07 Mar 2021 01:00:27 +0000
Franklin University, in Columbus, Ohio, is partnering with the Ohio Society of CPAs, on online training for CPAs.
The university’s International Institute for Innovative Instruction will create online training modules for Ohio CPAs throughout the state. The partnership combines OSCPA continuing education topics with Franklin University’s templates, content and exam questions for online courses. Training sessions will consist of 10 separate one- and two-hour online modules focused on continuing education requirements, namely general business and technical accounting skills.
“The opportunity to partner with OSCPA to design and develop self-paced leadership and soft-skill trainings exemplifies our commitment to the community around lifelong learning and workforce development,” said Dr. Patrick Bennett, vice president of academic quality and planning and dean of the Franklin University School of Education, in a statement.
“This effort is one part of the answer to our overall talent management strategy for the profession,” said OSCPA president and CEO Scott Wiley in a statement. “We need to keep our talent level high while ensuring that accounting stays relevant and maintains its reputation as one of the most trustworthy professions. This program provides learning in the areas those in the profession tell us are essential, entry-level competencies for accounting professionals — but yet that are not now covered in accounting program curricula.”
More information is available on Franklin University’s site here.
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