New York City accounting firms aren`t what they used to be. Like

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The New Accounting Firm
N
ew York City accounting firms aren’t what they used to be. Like many
industries, accounting has been transformed by sweeping economic aftereffects of the Great Recession as well as new digital ways of working. These
changes are indeed visible at the many local accounting firms that contribute
to New York City’s role as world financial capital.
In the pages that follow, Crain’s looks at some key trends shaking up the New York
City accounting industry—and the field as a whole—ranging from globalization and
more mobile ways of working, to increased demands from aging Baby Boomers for
help in selling their businesses. We also look at how accounting firms are pioneering
new approaches to workplace flexibility—and how a freelance revolution is enabling
independent accountants to tailor this for themselves. As trends expert Daniel Levine,
director of The Avant-Guide Institute in Manhattan, put it, “Technology is facilitating this
change in the way people work.” Read on to find out all about the trends and innovations
that are reshaping the accounting field in New York.
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O
n the hunt for promising new clients,
EisnerAmper’s accountants spend a lot
of time visiting technology incubators
and university campuses. While some
accounting firms prefer working mainly with
corporate clients, EisnerAmper, a CPA and consulting
firm with an office in Manhattan, likes to get in on the
ground floor with startups. “Our standpoint is we are
building something at the early stage to help these
companies grow and become our next large client,”
said Mike Lopez, a partner in the firm.
with their accountants through another tool called
PwC Connect, which is also accessible via mobile
devices, Brennan noted.
big companies. Freyman asks his team to upload
sensitive documents to Box, instead of sending it by
email.
Another hot trend for accounting firms is using
“Big Data” techniques to help clients sift through
information that was previously hard to analyze.
PwC is mining clients’ financial records to uncover
patterns they may not have noticed. “It allows us to
see the totality of the business and get some useful
insights that maybe our clients aren’t seeing,” said
“Box is not a cheap solution, but it’s incredibly
secure,” said Freyman.
EisnerAmper is one of many New York City
accounting firms that find technology is transforming
their practices. While chasing down the next Google
as clients, many are using fast-evolving technologies
for both internal work and communicating with
customers. They are also staffing up with young,
tech-savvy talent.
Brennan. For instance, if PwC notices that a firm is
making 70% of its shipments on the last day of each
month, every year, it might mention that to the client
so they could use that information for future planning.
Accounting Goes Digital
Today’s accountants need to be savvy about
anything from firewalls to general IT issues,
according to CPA Yigal Rechtman, principal in the
litigation and forensics practice at accounting and
business consulting firm Grassi & Co.’s office in New
York City. “You need to be able to do sophisticated
things with databases, and extract large amounts of
data from various and complex sources,” he said.
Certainly, the new technology is not without its
challenges. Many firms have seen an increasing
need to invest in Cybersecurity measures that
protect sensitive information for clients. “It is a
concern for just about every accounting firm we
network with,” said Thomas DeMayo, director,
IT Risk Advisory, at CPA firm O’Connor Davies LLP
in Manhattan, in an email.
But that is a cost most are willing to bear to
stay competitive. Nationally, many accounting
firms are embracing new technologies, and
the bar is especially high in New York City, a
financial technology capital. Seventy percent
of U.S. accounting firms now offer employees
remote access to their network; 50% use remote,
cloud-based backup; 48% now use cloud-based
software and 25% use Skype, according to the 2014
Management of an Accounting Practice Survey from
the American Institute of CPAs’ Private Companies
Practice Section and the Texas Society of CPAs.
Some accounting firms find that with more and
more clients going digital, it’s become increasingly
more necessary to hire accountants with the digital
expertise to advise them. Accounting, tax and
consulting firm Citrin Cooperman, headquartered
in Manhattan, has doubled the size of its state and
local tax practice to meet the demand brought on
by new technology, said New York City-based CPA
David Seiden, the partner in charge of that practice.
“We do a lot of work with companies that are
both investing in technology and are building out
technology to offer their own services through a
digital platform,” said Seiden. “What we do here at
Citrin Cooperman is help them find a digital platform
to help them perform their services.”
As accounting firms migrate to digital technology,
they increasingly seek out talent that is already
accustomed to it. When PwC recruits on college
campuses, it looks for a combination of accounting
and tech skills. Said Brennan, “We’re seeing
students get their four-year accounting degree
and enhancing that with a master’s in information
security.”
At Grassi & Co., employees with entrepreneurial
ideas in areas such as technology and healthcare
can request to focus on developing them. So far,
a small handful of employees are doing so, said
Rechtman. “If someone has an entrepreneurial idea,
the firm will consider giving them a certain amount
of time to do it,” he said.
Working in the field with clients is one key area where
technology has transformed the way accounting
firms operate. More firms are turning to cloud-based
software and storage programs that let their personnel
work from anywhere. “If you really can’t do things
on Android devices, an iPad or other mobile devices,
you’re going to get left behind,” said Bill Brennan,
audit partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers office in
Manhattan.
It isn’t just large and midsize firms that are
embracing new technology. New York City CPA Greg
Freyman, whose firm, Freyman CPA, has a handful of
accountants in Manhattan and Westwood, N.J., has
been an early adopter of using electronic signatures
through DocuSign digital transaction management
software. “Using a software like DocuSign lets
clients sign from anywhere on the go,” said
Freyman.
To avoid that hazard, PwC has made its audit
software Aura accessible from their smartphones
and mobile devices. Meanwhile, clients can work
Freyman also sets up all of its clients with Box, a
secure cloud-computing solution used for contentmanagement, file-sharing and collaborating by many
CRAIN'S Corporate profiles in Accounting_MECH.indd 2
It may be pricey for a small firm, but with many of
the big guys going after the same clients, Freyman
considers it a good investment. “It’s one of the ways
we’ve really been able to distinguish ourselvs from
other accounting firms,” he said.
Cybersecurity 101
As accounting firms embrace digital
technology, cybersecurity has become a top
priority. In September 2015, ACCA USA, the
U.S. branch of the Association of Chartered
Certified Accountants, and Pace University
issued a report called “Cyber Warriors with
Calculators” that found 58% of auditors and
48% of accountants are more concerned with
cyber crime than a year ago.
It should be top of mind, according to
Thomas DeMayo, director, IT Risk Advisory,
at CPA firm O’Connor Davies LLP in
Manhattan. “Organizations assume that just
because IT `works,’ it works securely; or they
operate with the misconception that they are
too small or insignificant to be a target,” he
said in an email. As many organizations are
unhappy to discover during cybersecurity
audits, that lax attitude leaves them exposed
to hackers, say experts.
DeMayo says there are several safeguards
every accounting firm should embrace:
• Establish an information security framework.
This is a documented set of procedures for
putting information security controls in place
and managing them.
• Have independent cybersecurity
assessments conducted.
• Provide security awareness training for
all employees so they don’t get tricked by
“phishing” emails from hackers and the like.
• Encrypt sensitive data, both in transit and at
rest.
• Do due diligence on all third parties that
have contact with their data.
It’s not just accounting firms that are at risk,
DeMayo notes. “Our number-one request
these days is helping clients protect their data
and/or helping them respond in the event of
breach,” he said.
10/21/15 11:55 AM
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New York Accounting Firms Go Global
W
ith many clients in the financialservices industry looking to attract
investors in China, EisnerAmper is
wasting no time in making inroads
in that market. To make connections
that will help its customers, the CPA firm and
consultancy sent three of the firm’s partners to speak
before several hundred fund managers at an investment
conference in Beijing earlier this month. The trip was
the latest step in a four-year effort to establish a strong
presence for EisnerAmper’s brand in China.
“We believe China will be the next big market for the
financial-services industry,” said Charles Weinstein,
CEO of EisnerAmper, which has an office in Manhattan.
“Our next step will be to actually open an office in
China. We’re right there on the ground floor.”
In an era where technology makes it easier than
ever to communicate across borders, many U.S.
firms of all sizes are diving into international markets
or are working with overseas businesses that want
to expand in U.S. markets. This has created new
opportunity for the accounting firms that serve these
businesses, which often must comply with treaties
and laws that govern international transactions.
“Clients are driving this need for our firm to be
global,” said Weinstein.
Many firms have joined EisnerAmper in embracing the
global economy. At WeiserMazars, long active on the
international scene, 15% to 20% of the firm’s revenue is
tied to international business, with about 10% coming
from clients who want to do business in the U.S. and
5% to 10% from U.S. firms that are expanding overseas,
according to CPA Kathryn Byrne, partner-in-charge of
manufacturing and distribution at WeiserMazars LLP
“We see the international focus across all disciplines in
our firm,” said Byrne.
The globalization driving such business shows no signs
of slowing down. The value of goods exported globally
should pick up to 8% a year by 2017-2020, according to
projections by British bank HSBC.
While many firms in the U.S. want to break into
markets in China, China is not the only foreign market
that is attracting attention from New York accounting
firms. In response to a demand from clients,
EisnerAmper has recently opened offices in several
new overseas locations, including the Cayman Islands,
from which Weinstein spoke, as well as Dublin and
London. The firm has also started EisnerAmper Global,
an international network of independent accounting
firms, in which EisnerAmper has an ownership interest,
to address the specialized needs of the financialservices industry around the world.
One such area of need for which accounting firms find
themselves in demand is in the matter of compliance
with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, better
known at FATCA. Meeting the requirements of this law
(passed to prevent money laundering) can be onerous.
“We see great opportunities for growth in addressing
that need,” Weinstein said.
Assisting clients in managing their global-tax burden
is another growth area. Ryan, an international taxservices firm based in Dallas, has developed proprietary
technology to help clients recover overpayments of
withheld taxes according to Ian Boccaccio, practice
leader, international tax at Ryan’s New York office. Many
companies’ accounts receivable departments make
mistakes, such as failing to update the amount they
are withholding from year to year to reflect changes in
treaties that govern withholding, Boccaccio said. “We
are able to recover payments and fix the process going
forward,” said Boccaccio.
As firms become more international, more are staffing
up with talent from overseas. “We have many, many
Chinese-born people in the firm in our financial-services
industry practice,” said Weinstein. “That’s what really
has driven the presence we have in China.”
However, immigration restrictions are slowing
this type of staffing. The number of applicants for
the H-1B professional visa dwarfs the number of
visas allowed by a huge margin and has resulted
in a lottery system, noted Robert Fligel, CPA, at RF
Resources, a staffing firm in Manhattan. “Suffice
to say, firms cannot plan to help fulfill their staffing
requirements around such a system,” he said.
For decades,
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The Anchin Tax Credits and Incentives Group is committed to helping companies take advantage of the many incentive programs offered by federal, state
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To Business Owners Who Want to Cash Out,
Accountants Deliver Tough Love and TLC
A
s a partner at Anchin, Block & Anchin in
New York City, Greg Wank often speaks
with seasoned entrepreneurs who are
ready to hand over the reins to firms
they’ve spent years building, so they can
retire. Some find the conversion is a jolting splash of
cold water. “It’s painfully apparent they are not ready
to go to market and sell their businesses,” he said.
Often, the problem is their accounting. Some have
relied on software or an internal team that has not
kept records in the meticulous way that a buyer—
especially a sophisticated one like a private equity
firm—expects, according to Wank. And that’s a
possible deterrent to a sale. In such cases, that’s
when Wank and his team set to work, switching
firms to better accounting procedures and making
sure financial records are accurate and complete.
Now, more than ever, accountants across New
York City are hearing their phones ringing, as many
business owners find themselves eager to sell,
after waiting out the recession for just the right
moment. Nationally, the number of small-business
transactions reached a record high in 2014 and has
since stabilized, according to BizBuySell, an online
marketplace for businesses for sale. BizBuySell
found 1,814 businesses changed hands during the
third quarter of 2015, down from the 1,987 in the
same quarter in 2014 and from the 1,913 recorded in
the second quarter of 2015.
market. “Often these documents are stored all over
the place,” said White.
As with homeowners, business owners can be
their own worst enemies when selling. They are
often unrealistic about what their businesses are
really worth, say accountants, because they are
emotionally invested in their firms. “They talk
to their friend at the golf club who says `I sold
my business for 10 times earnings,’ and believe
what they heard,” said CPA Steven Nicokiris, lead
managing director at CBIZ MHM, who is based in
New York City.
Gathering that data can enable business owners to
perform needed due diligence on their own firms,
said White’s colleague Adam Goodman, director,
New York office at Ansarada. Sometimes, owners
of complex businesses need to bone up on their
financial situation before approaching potential
buyers, he has found.
Working with accountants often provides a reality
check for business owners. For a complex business
that’s been around for 30 years, says Wank, “It may
be a six-month intensive cleanup period followed
by let’s have a year or two under our belts of doing
things correctly and then going to market.”
To speed up the sale of a business, Joel White,
managing director of Ansarada, a creator of virtual
data rooms for mergers and acquisitions deals,
recommends that owners work with their team of
advisors to come up with a checklist of documents
they will need—including their financials and other
important paperwork—and begin assembling this
paperwork long before putting a business on the
“New York City,
long the financial
capital of the world,
has also become
home to leading
fintech companies
and a rapidly growing
technology community,
both centers of
excellence for
EisnerAmper”
says Charly Weinstein, CEO of EisnerAmper LLP. “One of our firm’s greatest
strengths is the ability to connect our clients with the capital markets. Our
positioning in both the capital markets and the technology community enables
us to connect the two most important drivers of economic activity in New York
today: technology and capital.”
EisnerAmper is one of the largest full-service accounting and advisory firms
in the U.S. The firm provides audit, accounting, and tax services, as well as
corporate finance, internal audit and risk management, litigation consulting,
forensic accounting and other professional services to clients across all the
major industries; working with high net worth individuals, family offices, closelyheld businesses, and start-up, middle-market, and Fortune 500 companies.
Through EisnerAmper Global, the firm is recognized internationally as one of
the premier CPA firms providing services to the financial services industry.
This expertise in turn fuels our knowledge of the capital markets, helping
clients with mergers and acquisitions, debt financing, due diligence, valuation,
international expansion, restructuring and more.
CRAIN'S Corporate profiles in Accounting_MECH.indd 5
“I’ve seen situations where the CEO has people
running different departments, and revenue is
coming in from 10 different revenue streams,” said
Goodman. “You need to be able to have complete
transparency on how the money is coming in, where
you’re losing money and where you’re spending
money, such as marketing.”
Just as home buyers most likely won’t see a
property’s potential unless it already looks great,
business buyers tend to pass over businesses that
are not healthy, say industry professionals.
“For a business owner, the most important thing is
for them to have a clear story and to articulate to
the buyer why their company is a good investment,”
Goodman said. And for many firms, say experts,
precise financial records tell the story best.
EisnerAmper is one of the nation’s leading auditors of SEC registrants and
maintains one of the largest public company practices of any independent
firm, providing services to more than 200 public companies. EisnerAmper is
the fifth largest CPA firm in the New York area and represents the alternative
to the Big Four.
“What has made us successful is the drive to seek out entrepreneurial leaders.
This keeps us active in emerging markets and in turn drives our own growth,”
says Weinstein. “Our clients’ success contributes to our own, and vice versa.
Our expertise is in helping companies grow, from start-up through IPO.”
We recognize that the fastest-growing, most dynamic companies are imbued
with their leader’s sense of mission and determination to succeed. Our
experience has taught us that while all business owners and CEOs have their
own management style, effective leaders share a number of attributes:
A
clear vision of what the organization should be as it grows and evolves.
An ability to find, recognize, and pursue opportunities.
n A
strong drive to meet goals and immediately establish new ones.
n A
willingness to make tough decisions about people, finance and strategy.
n A
n ability to serve as the organization’s motivator and conscience.
n A
n understanding that business is personal; that the relationships we build
are critical to growth and success.
n
n
In tune with our focus on finding the next generation of leaders, EisnerAmper
has been a proud sponsor of the NYU Stern Business School’s Entrepreneurs
Challenge, one of the nation’s largest and most rigorous business plan
competitions.
CONTACT
Charles Weinstein, CEO
212.891.4030
www.eisneramper.com
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In a Job Market That Favors Recent Grads,
Many Seasoned Accounting Pros Go Freelance
M
arc Palker’s work as an accountant
brings him everywhere from
New York City to Paris. Palker runs
MPP Associates, a one-man firm
in Hauppauge, Long Island, where
he serves as interim CEO for public and private
corporations and not-for-profit organizations.
Palker, a former managing director at advisory and
consulting firm Madison Davis Professional Services
in Babylon, loves the varied work that his life as a
solo entrepreneur brings.
“That’s the whole excitement of being a freelance
accountant,” he said. “You get to see different
companies, different regions. You get involved in
some interesting transactions.”
Palker isn’t alone among accountants in embracing
independent employment. The accounting world
has long been home to part-time bookkeepers and
seasonal tax preparers. “Some of the bookkeepers
I meet are also real estate brokers,” said Anil
Melwani, CPA, who owns 212 Tax & Accounting
Services in Manhattan.
But today, there is a new and growing crop of
former staff accountants who are diving into life as
freelancers, say industry experts. A sign of this trend
is that accountants are one of the fastest growing
positions on Upwork, the freelance
platform formerly known as ElanceoDesk. Accountants saw 43% growth in
freelance earnings from 2013 to 2014, on
a global basis, according to Upwork. In
the U.S., there was 29% growth during
that period in freelancers’ earnings in
the finance and legal category, which
includes accountants.
The trend might seem counterintuitive,
given that many accounting firms
complain of an ever-increasing talent
shortage. Typically, however, these
employers, facing industrywide pressures on the
bottom line, are looking to hire recent graduates,
who cost less to hire.
“The difficulty we are all having is there are more
positions than graduates at this point in time,” said
John Repetti, a partner at audit, advisory and tax
services firm Citrin Cooperman in Manhattan.
That leaves many seasoned accounting pros who
still want to work looking for other opportunities to
make a living. And for many, freelancing beckons.
“They are deciding, `I can pick and choose what I
want to do, where I want to do it.” said Palker, who
is also chair-elect of the Institute of Management
Accountants’ Global Board of Directors.
It isn’t only the most seasoned accountants who
are going freelance, though. Accountants of all
ages who want flexibility are finding that digital
technology has made freelancing better and more
convenient than in the past, say experts.
“Technology has empowered people to do this work
much more efficiently and at quality higher than
ever before,” said Jonathan Gass, founder and CEO
of Nomad Financial, which provides accounting
and financial services, including help from parttime, interim CFOs, to startups and has an office in
Manhattan.
750 Third Avenue, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10017
212.485.5500
marcumllp.com/crains
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Work-Life Balance Takes a Leap Forward
W
hen Harriet Greenberg at
New York City accounting
firm Friedman arranged to
work from home on Fridays
to be with her two children,
who were little at the time, she recalled, “I was
the only one with a flexible schedule.”
Now her children are grown, and Greenberg, who
has risen to co-managing partner at Friedman, has
seen those work-life balance initiatives become
part of everyday life for many more at the firm. Some
employees work the majority of their time from home
or from local offices in their area. Everyone can
access their work remotely using digital technology,
and, in summer, employees have the option to take
Fridays off, as long as they agree to stay reachable.
The company is now looking into arranging
emergency childcare for its team.
Work-life balance initiatives have become increasingly
important in corporate America, with a new study by
consultancy GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com showing a
6.5% increase, in 2014, in the number of employees who
worked from home during at least half the surveyed
workweek—the largest increase since 2008.
Accounting firms, in particular, have made flexible work
arrangements a priority, as a way to gain a competitive
edge during an industrywide talent shortage. While
initially, most work-life balance initiatives were
designed to attract and retain mothers, many firms
now seem them as a valuable way to hold onto other
employees, too. In recent research, accounting firm
Ernst & Young (EY) found that men place a high priority
on flexibility, too. “Our study found that men are more
likely than women to make career and life sacrifices
to better manage [work-life], including giving up a
promotion, relocating and taking a pay cut,” said Mark
Besca, office managing partner at E&Y’s Manhattan
location, in an email.
Many accounting firms also view flexibility as a selling
point to lure tech-savvy millennials accustomed to
working when and where they want. Grassi & Co.,
which has an office in New York City and has many
workers who telecommute at least part of the time,
seeks out management talent capable of leading
remote workers.
“We’ve recognized that in order to retain and hire
new staff we need to, as an industry and as a firm,
change the way we operate,” said Steve Mannhaupt,
audit partner at Grassi. “We need to operate in a
more flexible environment, in terms of where they
work, when they work and how they work.”
Many firms are turning to their employees to help
refine and update their programs. WeiserMazars, an
accounting firm based in New York City, conducts
open forums to exchange “personal stories”
and promote best practices, said partner Wendy
Stevens. “These sessions are driven by our desire
for sustainable growth as well as our focus on the
attraction, retention and advancement of all of our
talented professionals,” she said in an email.
One hazard of flexible work arrangements, many
firms have found, is that employees who use them are
sometimes sidelined or passed over for promotions. To
prevent this from happening, professional tax services
firm Ryan has set up a results-oriented environment.
Employees’ progress on key projects is recorded on a
personal dashboard, so that managers can observe how
much work their remote employees are accomplishing—
something that can otherwise be obscured in off-site work
situations. Each individual’s metrics for success are tied to
his or her type of job. “It allows us to have really intelligent
conversations with employees and with each other about
how we’re doing,” said Delta Emerson, president, Global
Shared Services at Ryan.
One of the greatest challenges of flexible work
arrangements is helping managers used to having
on-site teams adapt to a flexible-work paradigm—some
managers, for example, are accustomed to evaluating
talent by the number of hours worked, rather than the
amount of work they accomplished, noted Emerson. But
at Ryan and many other firms, that is gradually changing.
“Having someone deliver on time and under budget
and do high-quality work is more important than seeing
them all day,” said Ian Boccaccio, practice leader,
international tax at Ryan, who is based in New York
City. “Technology plays a huge role in that. We’re all so
connected with technology there’s no need any more to
work side by side.”
INDUSTRY PRACTICES & SERVICE OFFERINGS
Grassi & Co. is a premier professional service organization specializing in accounting, auditing, tax,
technology and business consulting services. Grassi & Co. provides professional services to companies
within the Financial Services, Manufacturing & Distribution, Architecture & Engineering, Construction, Life
Sciences, Retail, Technology, Media & Telecommunication, Transportation, Not-for-Profit and Healthcare
industries, among others.
ABOUT THE FIRM
Louis C. Grassi
— our Managing Partner
Grassi & Co. has offices in Manhattan, Long Island and Rockland County as well as internationally through
Moore Stephens International, one of the largest associations of independent accounting firms in the
world. Grassi & Co. has been ranked among the Top 100 largest firms in the U.S. by both INSIDE Public
Accounting and Accounting Today, the Top 20 largest firms in the New York Metropolitan area by Crain’s
New York Business and the Top 10 largest firms on Long Island by Long Island Business News.
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Grassi & Co. is constantly keeping its finger on the pulse of the industries it serves. To make sure the firm is on the cutting edge of trends,
best practices and needs in these industries, the firm polls top industry executives on issues such as financial and operational management,
compliance, technology, human resources and general organizational structure. Each year, Grassi & Co. issues reports on the results of these
surveys, which provide critical comparative information and benchmarks for companies operating in the NY Metro area.
OUR CONTINUED GROWTH
We understand the needs of companies and organizations in the NY region and continue to shape our service offerings to meet those
needs. As such, we offer comprehensive succession, estate and trust planning services. Ensuring the proper succession of a company’s
management team in order to solidify its future is important, and our team is positioned to assist in this transition. Because companies grow
and expand into wider national and international geographic regions, multi-state tax filing’s and international tax requirements become
an issue. Our Tax Services Group has enhanced its State and Local Tax (SALT) service offering in order to help companies handle such
tax matters. Finally, with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) filing requirements becoming active in 2016, our team has the capabilities to assist
companies in meeting these requirements and avoid penalties.
CONTACT
488 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212-661-6166
www.grassicpas.com
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