I’ve long wanted to track down VeraSage’s Ron Baker and pick his brilliant brain; at last, JDA had the opportunity to steal a few minutes with the man credited for killing the billable hour. In his 15-some years crusading against the ridiculous measurement of “time” as a performance gauge, Ron has made quite a few steps in the right direction. Seven to ten percent of 90,000 firms have moved away from time sheets and toward “value pricing”, with 1,000 or so firms eliminating the billable hour completely. While he admits it’ll be a cold day in hell when the Big 4 follow suit, he’s encouraged by the momentum. “There is a change and it is coming from customers,” he says, “[unfortunately] the billable hour has survived many recessions.” The rigid “that’s how it’s always been” structure of public accounting, specifically, doesn’t seem to be taking the idea well. “They’d rather be precisely wrong than approximately right,” he says of major accounting firms trapped in the billable hour vice. Encouraging value pricing in pay structures is a slow process, he says, equating the movement to that of Germ Theory in the 1800s. It was hundreds of years from the time “contact contagion” was theorized to the time it was generally accepted in medicine and eliminating the antiquated pricing structure of employee incentive won’t go down without a fight either. Billed as “a think tank dedicated to promulgating and teaching Value Pricing, Customer Economics, and Human Capital Development to professionals and businesses around the world,” VeriSage seeks not to revolutionize business but improve it. “You don’t let your surgeons pierce ears,” says Baker, meaning value pricing implies a company’s best soldiers will be dispatched to serve their respective battalions. In simpler terms, employees are paid results, not for how long they’re sitting in a chair. And in an uncertain economic environment, aren’t results what matter above all else? I’m not sure it could be much simpler. Baker knows he’s got his work cut out for him but yours truly is 100% behind the idea. As a person who can tear up in one hour what five people can’t even accomplish in two, I get it. Boy do I get it. Lucky for those who choose to accept what Ron is selling, he’s also a brilliant business mind. Knowing that Michelle Golden may have potentially criticized his website, he chose instead to hire her as a consultant. Genius! (Disclaimer: JDA loves Michelle Golden and isn’t just saying that because she doesn’t want to get torn up on her website – her “Accounting Blog list” is the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen.) She sits on their Board so she gets it. Excellent! Want more JDA? Check out all of her posts for Going Concern here.
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So Your Firm Is Going to Pay For You to Take the CPA Exam: Four Things To Remember
- Adrienne Gonzalez
- June 15, 2010
Have a question on the CPA Exam? What section is easiest? How should I study for Regulation? Are pants mandatory at the testing site? Shoot us an email with your query.
Not only do you have a job (congrats!) but you have a job that is willing to pay for you to take the CPA exam. Awesome! But before you load up on review materials, be sure you know what your employer expects and understand that there are situations where you can be held liable for materials if you don’t live up to your employer’s expectations.
This is Business – First of all, though you can’t claim a deduction, reimbursement of your CPA exam expenses (education, exam fees, etc) is treated as a business expense, just like any other training. If you’re desperate to get someone to help out with review course or exam fees, try selling this point to your employer.
Make the Most of Time You Have Now – If you’re in the Big 4 or anywhere down to the middle, chances are your review course fees are covered and your performance on the exam might be rewarded with a bonus. Don’t blow this! It’s easier for you to study and pass exams before you are loaded down with responsibilities and managers are much more lenient with first years looking for time off than they are if you’re in your 4th consecutive year of failing FAR. Take this seriously and realize that your firm will probably only pay once; blow it and you’re going to have to come up with retake fees on your own.
This Isn’t 2006 – Several years ago, firms would happily pay $3,000 and up for overpriced review courses with all the bells and whistles but since belts have been tightened, some are reluctant to cough up a chunk of cash without a guaranteed return on their investment. Look at this subsidy not as a gift but as additional income. Would you blow $3,000 of your own income on something and then never use it?
Ask Your Firms Lots of Questions – If your firm does not already have an agreement with a review course but is willing to pay your fees, ask lots of questions upfront and find out if you can invoice for repeats or supplemental products if you need them. One of the larger firms has a “we’ll pay for anything once” rule meaning they will only cut one check, regardless of whether it’s for $2 or $2,000. Other firms have strict rules about what you can order and when you can start (think government agencies). Regardless of how your firm works, ask about what is covered and what is expected in return.
In this economy, you can’t afford to blow a free review course and discounted or all-expense-paid trips to Prometric.
Adrienne Gonzalez is the founder of Jr. Deputy Accountant, a former CPA wrangler and a Going Concern contributor . You can see more of her posts here and all posts on the CPA Exam here.
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Failing the CPA Exam the Easy Way…or: How to Use Your Scores to Determine Your Next Move
- Adrienne Gonzalez
- June 30, 2010
Nationally, only 43% of CPA exam candidates who sit for any exam part pass on their first try and that number shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone who has gone into an exam completely unprepared or totally intimidated. Failure may be inevitable but it doesn’t have to be the end, nor does it mean you should give up on trying to become a CPA.
So what do you do if you’ve failed?
There are two paths to take and your option from here depends a lot on how you did. Not all less-than-74s are created equal.
If you scored < 70: If you got anything less than a 70, give or take, you can put this exam off until later and move on to the next section if you are having difficulty grasping the information, especially if you scored in the bottom 60s or lower. UNLESS you are on a time crunch (like you have to get this one passed or you’ll lose credit on another section), blow this one off and move on to another. If you want to continue and try this one again you can but you should start from scratch, use your score report to gain insight into where you need more work, and review EVERYTHING as if you have not studied at all.
If you scored > 70: Pay your re-application fee and get a new NTS for this exam ASAP! A score above 70, while disappointing if less than 75, shows that you have an excellent command of the information and you’ll want to retake this one while the information is still fresh in your mind. DO NOT move on to another section. Use your score report to gain insight into your weaker areas but don’t obsess too much over what it tells you, keep in mind the report compares you to other candidates and you don’t care how other people did on the exam, you need to know where YOU need to do more work. DO NOT waste your time watching all of your CPA review lectures again, focus on doing MCQ/simulation practice questions and brush up on the areas you are weak in. Then, just before your exam, give everything a very quick overview one last time to make sure you have not forgotten the things you already know.
The point is that most CPA exam candidates experience failure at one point in the process, and some will experience failure repeatedly along the way. Be smart about your mistakes, learn from them and move on. You CAN pass, it’s just a matter of understanding how to overcome the many stumbling blocks you may encounter along the way.
Also see:
What Happens When You Get a 74?
Adrienne Gonzalez is the founder of Jr. Deputy Accountant, a former CPA wrangler and a Going Concern contributor. You can see more of her posts here and all posts on the CPA Exam here.
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A Thanksgiving Reminder from >75
- Adrienne Gonzalez
- November 26, 2009
Editor’s note: Welcome to latest edition of >75, our weekly post on questions that you have related to the CPA Exam. Send your questions to tips@goingconcern.com and we’ll do our best to answer as many of them as possible. You can see all of the JDA’s posts for GC here and all our posts related to the CPA Exam here.
For CPA exam candidates, the final few weeks of the year can be a time of extreme pressure and/or procrastination. I won’t name names and bust any of our CPA Review students out (you know who you are) but I can tick off at least 25 people taking the exam today and next Monday, trying to squeeze in one last part before the New Year.
So how exactly is one supposed to show up for an exam the Monday after Turkey Day before the tryptophan coma has worn off?
• Plan better next time: This is a terrible time of year to be sitting for the exam but unfortunately it’s also the busiest. More candidates cram into the final testing window of the year than any other window so if you’re testing in the 4th quarter next year, keep that in mind when you’re scheduling your exams. Schedule early and don’t get stuck testing the week after Thanksgiving.
• Prioritize: Do you really need to hit your parents house, your in-laws’ house and your best friend’s grandma’s house for Thanksgiving? If you’re really serious about preparing through the weekend (which you should have already been doing weeks before this), cut dinner short, stick to one holiday meal and spend your Black Friday studying instead of getting trampled in the Wal-mart parking lot. It’s better for your brain and better for your wallet.
• You might have to have a chat with friends and family: If you’re trying to get a section in right when 2010’s first window opens up, you will be doing some studying through the December holidays and your absence might cause just a little bit of resentment. If you’re serious about getting the exam over with, sit down with loved ones and let them know that you need their support, not their shit. They have no idea what you are going through unless you tell them to back off and give you the time you need to study. And if that doesn’t work, coal for everyone in their stockings.
• My final point is this: it goes without saying that the holidays can be a stressful time for everyone and we all know what sort of stress taking the CPA exam causes. Mixing these two can be a dangerous cocktail of end-of-the-year misery if you don’t stay focused and plan your time accordingly. And look at it this way, you might get out of having to wear an ugly sweater or two.