Survey Says...

Source: The Marc Rosenberg Blog

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from a blog entry by Marc Rosenberg.

This was the 17th year of The Rosenberg Survey. Nearly 400 CPA firms participated from coast to coast, from both large and small population markets.

Here are the top 10 findings from the 2015 survey (reporting on 2014 data):

Revenue growth rate at 6.7 percent. Surprisingly, the same as last year. Organic growth is actually down a tad.

Profits are up a modest 2.6 percent on the strength of billing rate increases and the 6.7 percent revenue growth.

The merger market. The long-term trend continues. Every year merger activity increases over the previous year, with no letup in sight. Mergers accounted for 30 percent of the industry's 6.7 percent overall growth.

An amazing 51 percent of firms failed to average 1,500 billable hours from their staff.

The number of female partners continues to rise. This year, it was 17 percent, up from 16.4 percent last year. In 2006, it was 13.6 percent.

Professional staff turnover, at 17.1 percent and up from 15.4 percent last year, has reached the highest level since we began tracking this, in 2004.

The increasing age of CPA firm partners. This year, the number of partners over the age of 50 rose to 64.1 percent, up from 63.5 percent last year. It was 52 percent in 2005.

Ratio of highest to lowest compensated partners. For the first time ever, we noticed a slight narrowing of this ratio. We attribute this to the retirement of highly paid, rainmaking partners.

The average buy-in for new partners rose seven percent, to $144,000, from $135,000 last year.

Firms' goodwill valuation for their internal partner buyout plans remained steady, at 80 percent of revenue.

For the complete entry, read “The 2015 Rosenberg Survey: Top Ten Findings.”

From The Marc Rosenberg Blog, November 16, 2015, blog.rosenbergassoc.com.