03.30.19 - March BUZZ

THE BUZZ

MESSAGE FROM OUR MANAGING PARTNER

Team We’ve almost made it to the end of busy season, and my gratitude for your hard work and commitment is due. The long hours you’ve invested for our clients and the dedication you have demonstrated to your role here at Sax never goes unnoticed.

As we work to close out the season, please remember that Sax has an open-door policy, and if there are ever any issues and/or challenges you face, please reach out to me or the appropriate manager to see that it is addressed. We value your time and your exceptional talents, and we wish to see to it that we are all working efficiently and effectively toward our goals.

As an update, I am proud to announce that Accounting Today has recognized us as a Regional Leader and a “firm to watch” as we land at #101 on their list of top firms in the country. There is a tremendous amount of movement in the industry with firms increasing in size through mergers and acquisitions, and our firm footing on the list of top firms is something we should all be very proud of.

Thank you again for making Busy Season 2019 yet another successful chapter in the books, and for your allegiance to Sax and those we serve.

Joseph A. Damiano

LEADERSHIP ASPIRATIONAL STATEMENT

We will cultivate a collaborative culture by fostering knowledge transfer, defining roles and building a skillset to drive client engagement, enhance the client experience and become our client’s #1 advisor.

JASON BOROFSKY, CPA, MBA

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MARCH WINS TOTAL WINS YTD

$1,521,671 NEW CLIENT WINS Shave Matrimonial Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey Network of Jewish Human Services Agency Dr. Joung Lee Medical Practice Assadi Plastic Surgery

TOTAL RECURRING WINS YTD

$1,177,975 ENGAGEMENT TEAM Megan Sartor George Livanos & Stephen Ehrenberg Todd Polyniak & April Kushner Kevin J. Hansen & Debbie Nappi Michael Mongelli & Sue Reed

Uncle Giuseppes Marketplace

Joe Shannon

SPM Assets

Chris Gaffney

Fellowship Deaconry

April Kushner

Ledbury Matrimonial

Megan Sartor

1st RND Restaurant Group Patient Care Solutions Dr. Katherine Kim Medical Practice Alpine Grove Partners

Josh Chananie Elliott Koplitz Tod Christianson Agata Majdanska

Reminder! Staff members from Associate to Director level receive 10% of collected billings for two years on any new client engagement brought in.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Please join us in giving a warm welcome to the newest members of our Sax family.

Jonathan Cabrejos

Natalie Alvarez

Anthony S. Montanari

Stuart B. Herrmann

SaxWA Associate Wealth Advisor | Clifton Effective 4.02.19 SaxWA Client Service Administrator | Clifton Effective 4.02.19 Tax Associate | Clifton | Effective 4.22.19 SaxWA Wealth Advisor | Clifton Effective 4.01.19

The following employees are no longer with the firm.

We wish them the best in their future endeavors.

Maria Ambrogio

SaxWA Client Service Administrator Effective 3.8.19

Great Cards Freddy Delacruz has hit the ground running and has stepped up a great deal in his new role as IT Manager. At 8pm a ticket was put in due to printer issues throughout the office and he came back to the office and fixed the issue even though he was already home. Printers were up and running within 45 minutes even though it was late at night and no one from the IT department was here at the time.

Nimra Ahmend gave great effort on Advance Housing. This job presented a lot of difficulties this year because the CFO who handled the majority of the audit/accounting matters left the organization right before the audit, and there was no one in the entity who was able to answer our questions. The entity has multiple financial statements that are subject to HUD and HMFA regulatory requirements, which Nimra did not have any experience with before being put on this job. These types of financials require specialized knowledge. Her work ethic and commitment to meet her obligations on this job, despite the difficulties she faced was exceptional.

Great Cards Mayank Shah deserves a Great Card because of his difference-making effort he has put forth on Complete Document Solutions. Mayank was preparing one of the CDS returns when he noted the detrimental impact that the increase in inventory had on the Company’s UNICAP calculation. He realized we could change the method due to the provisions of the TCJA. This is the exact kind of forward thinking we should be looking for and it is evident to me that Mayank has taken the TCJA to heart.

Victoria Hochman is extremely hardworking. She is willing to take on additional work, stay late and never complains. We had a tight deadline for one of our clients and Victoria stayed until 11pm to get it done.

Anthony Joseph has gone above and beyond on the Crestron account. He has worked a tremendous amount of hours to get the work done to meet client expectations. Great job!

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

SAX WEALTH ADVISORS ADDS THE PRACTICE OF STUART B. HERRMANN, CFP®, CPA TO EXPANDING TEAM OF WEALTH ADVISORS

Sax Wealth Advisors has announced the addition of Stuart B. Herrmann, CFP®, CPA as Wealth Advisor effective April 1, 2019. Stuart will add approximately $16 million in AUM to Sax Wealth Advisors' collective assets and he will continue to serve his clients under the SaxWA banner.

Previously, Stuart served as an Investment Advisor Representative and Chief Compliance Officer at Chadwick Wealth Management, LLC, based in Fair Lawn, NJ and has over 35 years of experience in the finance, accounting and insurance industries.

Please read the full press release here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

SUCCESS STORY Sax Technology Advisors installed needed Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) solutions for a new client. Immediately after, the client was hit with a Ransomware attack which encrypted their prior backups and rendered them unusable.

Sax Technology Advisors helped their business tremendously by restoring their application server which manages their business and 100,000 sq ft of warehouse. SaxTA also restored their data server which houses all of their client and business data.

The implementation of BCDR and SaxTA’s expertise in leveraging the solution made the disaster manageable, and has put the company in a much better position moving forward.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

Congratulations to Joe DeBarr and his wife on their new baby boy!

WHERE

Maverick Joseph was born on March 13th, weighing 8 lbs. and 20.5 inches long. The family is doing well and we them the best!

DOES wish IT BELONG?

We are proud to share our 2018-2019 Year in Review which highlights the evolution of our firm, our expanding management team, our added service lines, and more. There was much to celebrate this banner year, and even more to look forward to as we focus on our future ahead.

Review our 2018-2019 year here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

WHERE DOES IT BELONG?

Our M&D Practice partnered with Advantage Technology Solutions to bring supply chain professionals an educational 4-part webinar series packed with essential, need-to-know insights from industry experts on technology and the supply chain revolution.

Topics included:

E-Commerce Selecting the Right Software Cybersecurity Technology in the Supply Chain Industry

Check the series out here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

File Storage & Email Retention

Emails, Emails, Emails….

Our aim is to give you plenty of notice with this next pending policy. We’ve been lax with our email retention and need to tighten this up.

On January 1, 2020, we will adopt an automatic email retention policy of 36 months. Therefore, on January 1, 2020, emails older than January 1, 2017 will automatically be deleted. With the automated policy, each day, emails older than 24 months will be deleted.

While this may sound terrible, when we sit back and think about it, how often are we going back to 2016 emails? Not often, if at all. Emails providing support to an engagement are to be stored in either Caseware (business) or GFR (individuals, trusts and estates).

Remember, we’ll be decommissioning the K: drive over the summer and now is a good time to develop good document retention habitats. More to come on this.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

Workflows & Deliverables

If your workflow does not have a year, please email and notify GFR@saxllp.com IMMEDIATELY so it can be fixed before trying to save any other documents to it.

Please check the deliverables listed on your workflow.

o If there are deliverables missing, please add them. o If there are non-necessary deliverables showing, please delete them. o If the due dates are wrong, please correct them.

When you notice that GFR and Axcess have different client numbers, please email and notify GFR@saxllp.com.

Please be sure to view procedures on Sharepoint >> Business Services Site >> Business Services Memo Library.

Every bit of cleanup we do makes the program and procedures more efficient. Thank you for your cooperation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

Congratulations to Joe DeBarr and his wife on their new baby boy!

Maverick Joseph was born on March 13th, weighing 8 lbs. and 20.5 inches long. The family is doing well and we wish them the best!

Michael Benguigui gave an in-depth presentation on the background, basics and benefits of investing in Qualified Opportunity Funds at William Paterson University hosted by the Passaic County Division of Economic Development.

Michael Benguigui and George Livanos gave an informational webinar on behalf of the Real Estate Practice which focused on post-tax reform and provided updates on QBI, the Business Interest Expense Limitation, Qualified Opportunity Zones, and the Centralized Partnership Audit Regime.

Watch the webinar here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | REMINDERS

The VFL Team, Megan Sartor, Joe Shannon and Jack Tawil recently did a meet and greet with the family law department at Cohn Lifland Pearlman Herrmann & Knopf, LLP in Saddle Brook.

This busy season, Health & Wellness featured a Mindful Yoga session to help us take time for ourselves to rejuvenate the mind and body.

Instructor Angela Hahn focused on stretching and strengthening our bodies and calming our minds.

Megan Sartor presented to the Morris County Bar Association Family Law Section on “The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017: How it Impacts Family Law Practice, Alimony, and Other Support Issues in 2019 and Beyond�.

FIRM NEWS

MARCH

Bob Hopper has been with the firm for almost 30 years and was the Partner-inCharge of the firm’s M&D niche for 25 years.

As a member of Sax’s Executive Committee, Bob is responsible for the upwards direction of the firm and enforcing our high standards for client service.

BOB HOPPER

Through his time at the firm, Bob has set the bar for what a #1 client advisor should be.

Louis Calamunci is a Senior Tax Associate who joined our team in October 2018. After graduating high school, Louis went to culinary school but quickly had a change of heart and decided to recieve his BA in Accounting.

LOUIS CALAMUNCI

Since his start, Louis has impressed his coworkers and the firm with his strong work ethic and commitment to a job well done.

Read on to learn more about Bob and Louis in our Q&As

Post-Busy Season HAPPY HOUR

You worked hard this busy season!

Join us in celebrating a job well done at our Post-Busy Season Happy Hour on April 18.

Food & Drinks Open Bar Game Cards Good Company

Thursday, April 18 || 5:00 PM Dave & Buster's 310 Willowbrook Blvd, Wayne, NJ To RSVP, please accept the calendar invite or email Jessica Peralta at jperalta@saxllp.com.

Click here for the firm fundraising page.

PRESS ROOM

Al Traverso was featured in NJCPA Magazine with his article, “What is a Distributed Ledger in the World of Blockchain?”.

Read more here.

Sue Reed was highlighted in COMMERCE MAGAZINE with her blurb on how our Healthcare practice has assisted clients to build value by helping them to create a Management Services Organization (MSO).

Read more here.

Sax LLP was named a “Company that Cares” by Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey and recognized as a New Jersey company that is committed to giving back to the communities we serve.

Read more here.

CIANJ's Business Beat highlighted Sax LLP's new Transaction Advisory Practice.

Read more here.

Sax was named the “Best Accounting Firm", a "Best Place to Work", a "Fastest Growing Firm", "Best at Giving Back" and "Best Technology Firm" in the Best of the Best of 2018 issue by Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Journal.

Read more here.

UPCOMING EVENT CALENDAR

HEALTH & WELLNESS EVENT

FRI. APRIL 5 | 10:00 am - 3:00 pm Chair Massages We will have two massage therapists in the office so we take some time to reduce stress. Sign-up sheets are in the kitchen.

FIRM EVENT

WED. APRIL 17 | CLIFTON BOARDROOM | 8:00 - 10:30 AM CFO Focus: The Office and Warehouse of the Future Mancini Duffy, a full-service design firm specializing in architecture, planning and interior design, will dive into their unique process of discovery that translate the goals of a business into the design of their office/warehouse space.

FIRM EVENT

THURS. APRIL 18 | DAVE & BUSTER'S | 5:00 PM Post-Busy Season Happy Hour You worked hard this busy season! Join us in celebrating a job well done at our PostBusy Season Happy Hour. Food & Drinks, Open Bar, Game Cards & Good Company.

FIRM EVENT

THURS. APRIL 25 | CLIFTON BOARDROOM | 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM Bring Your Child to Work Day Breakfast; Magic Show; Balloon Artist; Scavenger Hunt; Lunch RSVP to jperalta@saxllp.com with your child/children's age.

UPCOMING EVENT CALENDAR

P.O.W.E.R. EVENT

THURS. MAY 2 | CLIFTON BOARDROOM | 5:00 PM Summer Wardrobe Presentation Certified Personal Stylist and Wardrobe Consultant, Lisa Emelo, will discuss the 10 closet staples for summer, 2019 trends, and personalized wardrobe tips.

NOT FOR PROFIT EVENT

TUES. MAY 7 | VANDERBILT SUITES | 8:00 - 10:30 AM Fist to Five NY: A New Effectiveness Movement for Nonprofits Today, there is a movement to obtain feedback directly from the beneficiaries of a nonprofit’s services and products to get a full, 360-degree view of an organization’s impact. We will discuss one method for sharing this data through a new framework on feedback practice that will be published on donor facing platforms.

FIRM EVENT

THURS. May 16 | CLIFTON BOARDROOM | 8:00 - 10 AM The Right Accounting Software for Your Organization NOT FOR PROFIT EVENT

THURS. MAY 16 | PARK AVENUE CLUB | 8:00 - 10:30 AM Breakfast Workshop: Nonprofit Board & Executive Leadership This Breakfast Workshop is aimed at providing meaningful takeaways designed to empower professionals who serve on nonprofit boards, nonprofit executive leaders, foundation executives, and others interested in the nonprofit community.

THE END