Practice Management

The AICPA Work/Life and Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee released “Staff Retention: The New Face of the CPA Profession,” a DVD in which professional staffing experts, leading CPAs and young members of the profession discuss recruitment and retention strategies. The committee also issued a report, “What Women in the Profession Are Thinking,” that is based on focus groups it conducted among female CPAs to better understand the unique circumstances that encourage or prevent women’s advancement. Request free copies of the report ( www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/wofi/advancement.htm ) and the DVD by sending an e-mail message to educat@aicpa.org . Additional information on work schedule flexibility, women’s career advancement and professional staffing is available at www.aicpa.org/worklife .

The Institute began offering FlexWise, a Web-based toolkit that was designed to help professional services firms and companies implement nontraditional work arrangements that respond to their employees’ need for more flexible schedules. The kit provides policy and procedure guidelines, orientation training and best practices in telecommuting, job-sharing and compressed work schedules. The program is available in two versions—one for public accounting firms and another for small businesses or corporations—at a cost of $15 per employee for members and $18 for nonmembers ( www.cpa2biz.com/flexwise ).

The Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS)—the AICPA alliance for CPA firms—and the Texas Society of CPAs launched their 2006 National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey, which asks firms to provide information on their performance, profitability, size and areas of specialization. Participating firms can search the results and benchmark their performance against that of their peers. Forty-one state societies and the Association for Accounting Administration are supporting the survey in order to ensure widespread participation. Nearly 2,400 firms took part in the most recent biennial MAP survey, conducted in 2004. Firms have until September 1 to complete the survey, which is accessible online at www.aicpa.org/pcps .