09 2018 CPAmerica Advantage newsletter

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News from Your Accounting Association

CPAmerica Advantage 2018 marks Baum, Smith & Clemens, LLP's 45th

September 2018 Part 2 of 2: Tech Corner article P. 2

Member firm , is making their move – literally – to mark their 45th anniversary. After 36 years of practice at their location in Lansdale, Pa. (BSC has had two previous locations), the firm is relocating to a new space seven miles away in nearby Harleysville, Pa. We spoke to Gary Schultz,

leading partner of BSC, about the firm’s birthday, the move, and how they are celebrating. Schultz said, “It has been low-key so far, I would say – this might have something to do with our recent move. This fall, once we are settled in the new building, we are going to host an open house that will be a joint celebration of both our anniversary and the opening of our new location. Many of our clients and friends of the firm will be on hand; the local chamber of commerce will also be here for an official ribbon cutting ceremony – that is going to add to the fun. You know, this is also our firm’s 15th year with CPAmerica, so it is a double anniversary for us!”

Schultz has been with the firm for Member News P. 3 the past 32 years, getting his start as a staff accountant. He said this about President's Corner - Alan Deichler P. 4 BSC, “Our firm was started in 1973 when two local CPAs, Dick Baum and Jerry Lawrence, joined their practices. They started the firm with only two other people on staff in a small office located in Lansdale, Pa. In 1982, two moves later, they were back to Lansdale, this time on North Broad Street. In 1985, the firm bought out Mr. Lawrence and that was when the firm first became known as Baum, Smith & Clemens, LLP." The last 45 years have been a time of growth for BSC. Schultz elaborated, “We have great clients, many who have been with us a long time. We have more than a handful of clients that have been with us since day one of the firm. We perform many more services now than we did 45 years ago; you have to grow professionally if you want to grow with your clients. We have a great client base and great employees. Really that is why our firm is successful and why our

August 2012 - CPAmerica moved to its present location in Gainesville, Fla., after a complete office makeover. Here, the renovation process is in full swing.

firm has

See 45 years of BSC, continued on page 2

Tech Corner with Randy Johnston: Look to the Future - Protect Your Firm by Being Proactive on AI and Automation This is part 2 of 2 of the Look to the Future article by Randy Johnston of NMGI from the August 2018 Advantage issue. To read part 1, go to: https://tinyurl.com/y7q86y9z Extract is a document gathering tool that interfaces with various products, including QuickBooks. 1Tap is the first machine learning tool for accounting that has enough sophistication, simplicity, and accuracy to be useful to computer novices. The 1Tap application can be customized with your firm’s branding and delivered to clients for use on mobile devices to capture business documentation and classify it automatically for Schedule C clients. The vendor claims complete accuracy after classifying a transaction one time. Practically speaking, if you use Extract and 1Tap for one to two months with client data, you can expect high accuracy on automatically classifying and matching transactions based on supporting documentation. And We Are Not Done Yet … What can you do now? Recognize that if you keep your

technology current, vendors will make new offerings available to plug into your technology infrastructure. Consider services offered by your firm today or ones you would like to offer in the future. Create an innovation lab, or sandbox, that can be used for testing of new applications and techniques. Listen to your clients’ needs carefully while you are trying to assemble an offering. Test the offering with a few trusted clients and expand the offering into more of your base. Remember that you don’t want to give away the efficiencies gained by reducing fees. Over time, poor competitors are likely to compete on price, but initially you should compete on value. Use the extra time made available by the efficiencies of the application(s) to provide a higher level of service, perform more business development, reduce the workload of your team, or allocate the time to other worthwhile projects in your firm.

Tech Corner, continued on page 2


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09 2018 CPAmerica Advantage newsletter by CPAmerica, Inc. - Issuu