Does Your Firm Know What You Do?

Source: Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders

Following are excerpts from a blog entry by Rita Keller, reproduced with permission.

I work almost exclusively with the people who are responsible for managing and leading a CPA firm. I ask a question that always gets a very similar, emotional answer.

To the Managing Partner: Do your partners know what you do?
Answer: Are you kidding? Of course not. They want me to hire the right people, bring in a significant amount of new business, be very visible in the community, make sure the partners bill and collect, be billable, AND manage the firm.

To the Firm administrator: Does the managing partner know what you do and what about the other partners?
Answer: Ha! The partners are clueless, they think it all happens by magic and often the managing partner does not really understand the volume and the number of hats I wear. There are never enough hours in the day.

The biggest issue in helping others understand is, of course, communication. Dig out your position description (yes, both of you — MP and FA — you should have a current, detailed one). Review them, make the necessary changes to bring them up-to-date, and share them with the other partners. Use that act to open the lines of communication so you are sure you are doing what they value and that they value what you do.

To read the entire blog entry, click here.

From Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders, the blog of Rita Keller, president of Keller Advisors, LLC, [email protected], May 11, 2009, “Do They Know What You Do?” Visit http://cpamanagement.blogspot.com.