accounting paper ten pages

Executive Summary

Dixon Lawrence & Touche is committed to meet the expectations of its client by maintaining international standards and by fully exploiting the advantages of technology. The firm will also work together with international professional firms in servicing their client needs in our region. The firm will be accessible to its clients, and work with them as a team and understand their corporate cultures. The firm will work in all major business centers in New York, and in other states and countries where that are appropriate.

The goal of the firm is to recruit, train, develop and retain committed professionals with high integrity, intelligence, education, knowledge and experience. The trainees and employees will be required to conduct themselves in a diligent and professional manner, and communicate their knowledge to the clients of the firm clearly and proactively. The employees and trainees will be provided with challenging and rewarding careers with opportunities for development in a professional environment.

The first and foremost key to success will be the provision of expected level of services. Due to the intangible nature of the services provided by the firm, the only thing that will bring business and success to the firm will be its reputation which can solely be built by fulfilling its client needs as per global best practices and their own requirements.

Building up a team will also be one of the most important keys to success. The services are to be provided through a team that has to be highly professional and skilled. This must be achieved by providing them with enough training and environment to excel in their respective areas of expertise. The adaptation of best standards for the firms provided services along with their quality customization as per the client requirements in the operative states or regions will be another key to success that will not only complement above two keys but also help in efficient and effective of firm’s resources. Rational client will always compare between what they have and what they could have in return to their spending and will not settle for anything less than the best out there.

The accounting service industry is as old as the profession of accountant. The need to assess business health, cash management, reporting to business owners, check for frauds and thefts, compliance with regulations are the services from where this business started. With intent to protect public interest the mandatory audits and certification from a certified public accountant especially for public owned companies implemented by the Governments has played a catalyst role in the development of this industry.

These mandatory certifications range from compliance requirements at the time of inception, operations and continue till the winding up of the business. The necessities of small and medium sized businesses for book keeping and other similar services, which cannot afford full time accountants, also played an integral role in building the modern accounting services industry.

These businesses have provided a material percentage of revenue to the accounting service industry. The services industry has taken new dimension in recent few decades as their natures became more complicated.

The specialized nature of the skill sets that have become mandatory for performing those services along with globalization, legal requirements and regional environments have dramatically enhance the opportunities for a business like accounting services. This can be explained by the fact that it has not been long ago when people actually differentiated between accounting and finance fields or people actually believed in having expert opinion for understanding the tax laws and complicated laws or the need for a tailor made accounting and reporting systems to record companies transactions and presentation of the same.

Specialization and collaboration is increasing opportunities for accounting and tax professionals who are working across global borders to satisfy their respective client. Demographic shifts and rising US-Based minority population are having broad implications for firms and their clients influencing the direction, form and operations of their business. As the technology is expanding and the automation of data collection raises the focus of accounting is shifting from computation to consulting as clients are looking forward to rely their accounting professionals to analyze business information, support their decisions and provide them with strategic advice.

As the firm is a partnership firm its management will comprise of following partners

1. Principle Partner (Head of the Firm)

2. Partner Audit and Business Advisory Services

3. Partner Taxation and Legal Advisory Services

4. Partner Consulting (System consultants)

5. Partner HR and Administration

Each partner, except the principle partner of the company which will be heading the firm, will be in charge of these distinct departments as mentioned with their names. The partners will then be followed by Senior Managers, Managers, Assistant Managers, Associates and trainees. After initial hiring assistant mangers and above the firm will encourage and develop its trainees with necessary qualification to excel in the profession and reach the higher management of the firm. Alternatively the structure of the firm can be in accordance to the firm with which it opts to affiliate with.

Assurance and Regulatory Reporting Services:

Innovative high quality and cost effective services will be provided relating to organization financial controls, regulatory reporting, share holder value and technology needs.

· Financial Statement Audits

· US GAAP Reporting

· IFRS Reporting

· Regulatory Compliance and reporting

· Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

· Corporate Reporting Improvements

· Financial Accounting

· Independent Controls and System process assurance

Internal Audit:

The clients will be assisted in

· Keeping up its internal control function with changing risks facing their business

· Recruitment and retention of internal audit professionals in all key skill areas.

· Provision of specialist skills to in house internal audit function.

· Provision of services if the internal audit staff is insufficient to cover its geographic scope.

· Assessment of effectiveness of risk management, internal audit and corporate governance procedures.

Advisory Services:

Business Advisory that includes

· Mergers and acquisition

· Privatization advice

· Financial due diligence

· Bid support and bid defense services

· Structuring Services

· Valuations

· Independent opinions

· Global Capital Markets Groups

· Corporate Advisory Services and Strategic Solutions

Development advisory services

The development advisory services will include

· Fund Management

· Financial Monitoring

· Pre-award Assessment

· Monitoring and Evaluation

· Grant Advisory Services

· Organizational Capacity Assessment

· Value for Money Analysis.

Taxation and Other Services

Market Analysis

As the firm is located in a metropolitan like New York City the majority of the customers will be corporation that will generate high revenues or white collar or artsy professionals. At the inception with nothing to cheer about performance of the firm the contacts of the practicing partners of the firm and their individual reputation will determine the target market majorly. The CPAs that are selected contains a good portfolio of clients along with the contacts of the potential clients in New York City.

Further the firm is planning to acquire the affiliation of a well know accounting services firm that is established in UK and is facing problems to satisfy the needs of their clients which have operations in New York and other major states of America. Currently in the short run the firm looks forward to target small and medium sized entities for the services of taxation and legal advisory services as this area has been relatively less emphasized by currently operating accounting firms and is far more revenue generating than other accounting services in the region.

The firm’s long term potential services will create their own market as these services do not have well developed markets. These services include managerial and strategic consultancy. It involves the identification and treatment of flaws in existing business procedures of the company and then presenting a model that will be as per best standards and has been customized as per the resources and environment of the company.

After decline in revenues during the recession period the accounting services started returning to growth during 2011 and continued it growth till 2013. In the five years to 2013 industry revenue has been increased at an annualized rate of to 2.0% to $99.1 Billion (Colvin, 2014) . “In the five years to 2013, the total number of US businesses increased, expanding the potential pool of clientele for small and large accounting firms and ultimately increasing demand for accounting services,” says IBISWorld industry analyst Stephen Morea. In the five years to 2018, industry revenue is expected to grow at an average rate of 5.0%, the industry profits are expected to reach as high as 14% in 2014 and years to come (Colvin, 2014). The majority of the registered accounting services firms are small, local partnerships with a few employees, or sole proprietors without a payroll.

Due to established big names like Big4 firms the firm does not desire to compete in Audit Services and accounting system advisory services with the market competitors. However the firm desires to milk its revenue from taxation and management advisory services for which the gap between demand and supply is a bit on the favorable size for the company.

The market contains a very small amount of medium sized firm as most of the practicing competitors other than big4 are single or two CPAs joined together as firm. The firm has two CPAs with a wide experience to tax matters of medium and large sized entities along with two other with Business consulting in decision making. These two specific services market can be narrowed down and the firm has good chance to excel in them due to availability of skilled labor and relatively less saturated market.

References

Colvin, R. (2014). Latest Worry for Owners: Overtime Pay for Managers. Retrieved April 7,

2014 from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304157204579475>

IBISWorld’s Global Accounting Services (2014). Accounting Services survey report. Retrieved

April 7, 2014 from http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/global/global-accounting-services.htm

Rininger, D. (2013). NSA Release - Succession Planning for Your Accounting Firm. Retrieved

April 7, 2014 from http://www.virginia-accountants.org/nsanews?mode=PostView&bmi

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. (2014). Structure of an accounting firm and its services. Retrieved