Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/123770
G. Alan Long, CPA.CITP, also a Harley enthusiast, has made the trek to Sturgis nine times. Another result of the frm's success is that they've started consulting to other frms, as well, helping practices be more efcient and resourceful like Baldwin has. Tat activity, and doing specialty work for other frms, has been one of the ways Long and the partners have found frms that are prospects for acquisition. Te latest resulted in the opening of their Louisville ofce on January 1 of this year. With virtually all of the frm's professional programs being cloud-based, staf are much more able to be mobile, and also use various apps on their devices. Te frm is also in the process of creating a custom app that will allow frm clients to explore the services that the practice ofers. As Baldwin CPAs moves toward a Value Billing system and away from hourly billing, clients will also be able to see how much certain services and bundles will cost. Transparency in pricing has been one of the factors that many clients have most appreciated at frms that use value billing. Despite moving away from billing by the hour, Long still keeps diligent track of his hours and believes that is one of the keys to identifying beter productivity and proftability. In 2012, he logged 2,950. Assuming he took a vacation or two (which he did), that averages about 60 hours per week. Of course, it's closer to 70 during tax season. As for this year, he says, "It's been a rough season because of the delays, and for once it's not IRS that was at fault, Congress created this one. And that's causing clients to be slower bringing stuf in. Even though we may not have been able to complete their flings earlier in the season, they seemed to think they couldn't even get started. So everything was delayed." While it caused some overloading of the staf, even more so perhaps than a traditional tax season, he says that the numbers eventually caught up. "Sometimes we're at our most efcient when the workload is at its heaviest." Long has certainly come a long way from 1984 when, afer having worked at another frm, he opened his frst practice in the third bedroom of a condo. When not in the ofce, he's been especially busy over the years with professional organizations, serving as a former president of the Kentucky Society of CPAs, a member of the tech task force and peer review board for the AICPA, and is currently on the State Board of Accountancy. He is also a member of the compliance assurance commitee for NASBA. In 2005, he was selected as a distinguished alumni of the Eastern Kentucky University's College of Business and Technology. He isn't all work, though. When away from the ofce, he and his wife Teresa enjoy riding their Harleys, and have ridden to the Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle event nine times. Teresa owns a local bookkeeping ofce. He's also a fairly new Papaw to his stepdaughter Lee Dale's 3 year-old daughter, while son Justin is starting his own new business. Alan and Teresa atend Tate's Creek Baptist church, and he is the prior director of God's Outreach food pantry. Considering all of the changes that Long has seen in the profession over the years and the successful practice he's helped build with his partners, his favorite quotation is quite fting. "It is not necessary to change survival is not mandatory." ~ William Edwards Deming. May 2013 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 53