Fire Your CPA

What's the difference between a CPA and a prostitute?  People willingly pay the prostitute.  CPA's are like hockey coaches.  We are hired to be fired.  Experienced CPA's understand this.  Just as a hockey team quits listening to its coach, a client will quit listening and responding to a CPA.  Sometimes this happens in ten years.  Sometimes it happens in two.  Good CPA's won't stand in the way of your switch.  We're on the other side a lot as well.

There are two good reasons to fire your CPA.  First, if you're not getting what you're paying for.  Second, if you're not getting services you're willing to pay for.  Note that both of these reasons are about payment.

If you want good service from your CPA, expect to pay...and pay without incessant griping.  Complete this sentence.  If great clients get great service and good clients get good service, bad clients get...

Here's the definition of a great client for a CPA: someone who pays on time without griping and meets client obligations on a timely basis.  That means, if I have to hunt you down and beat your ass to get a question answered for a tax return, you aren't a great client.  You're creating your own bad outcome.

My most successful client gets great service from me by paying on time and in full.  He also pushed me to increase my rate to near what he pays his attorney.  He didn't do this out of the goodness in his heart.  He expects my full attention when he wants it.  He gets it.

Imagine this scenario.  He calls and you call at 6 PM on a Friday night.  Both of you need something by 7 PM.  He pays top rate and on time.  You gripe about my rate and pay when you damn well feel like it.  Guess whose job gets done.  Go ahead, guess...

However, if you pay on time, have reasonable expectations and you aren't getting what you pay for, fire your CPA.  If you bring in your personal tax information in late February, answer your CPA's questions timely, and still your tax returns aren't done in mid-July, fire the bum.  If he doesn't return your phone calls and e-mail messages, you're not a valued client to him, despite his protestations when you tell him to kiss your ass.

Here's what doesn't count as your CPA's fault.  A few years ago, my first personal tax client came in January.  Her return was the last to be completed before April 15th.  Why?  When she came in, she had about ten percent of her tax documents.  I sent her a questions list on early February.

In April she complained that her returns weren't done yet despite coming in early.  She wanted to know why they weren't done.  The answer was that she's a dumb ass.  She wasn't functioning on a normal adult level.

"Oh Frank," you say, "Why didn't you follow up with her?"

We have a wonderful project management system that sent her e-mail reminders every five days.  Maybe sometime between early February and early April, she could have been bothered to play her part in the great tax return drama that closes every April 15th.  This wasn't my fault in any way shape or form.  This isn't an isolated case either.  Some variation of this occurs thirty times every tax season.  Repeat after me, "Bad clients get bad..."

FInally, if your CPA doesn't offer the services you need, move on to someone else.  A 21st century CPA offers services besides income tax preparation.  If he closes down on midnight April 15th never to be heard from again until next tax season, he's headed towards retirement.

At the very least, most affluent clients need tax and retirement planning.  We are busy all year with tax and retirement planning.  I have trouble scheduling vacation.  We meet (or meet virtually) with almost all of our business clients between September and December.  We prepare detailed tax projections that frequently include multiple scenarios and multiple years.  The tax biz is a year 'round biz.  If your CPA isn't a year 'round dude, time to find one who is.  Operators are standing by.

Thanks for reading.  As always, for real tax and accounting advice, please visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Also, please like the "How to Screw UpYour Small Business" Facebook page.  I post snarky tidbits there daily.

Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.