All posts tagged: the Brain

One thing we believe that sets us apart as a firm is our commitment to learning with our team. You can always know this about our firm: we are talking about new things, learning new things, being challenged by what we already (think we) know, and making presentations of new concepts to each other. It means we are in a constant state of maturing as a team. Of course, we have to do this on the technical side of our profession (it’s required!). And we let the team lead this learning too, from their own perspective. Our leadership team is [...]

Principles of a Strong Team Team work makes the dream work, right? At least that’s what they say. But it takes effort and intentionality to get to that point.Yet a strong team is essential to good client service and a growing company.   Let’s look at four principles of a successful team, shall we?  Technical Capacity  Technical capacity is when team members have the understanding of how to perform their role with some autonomy.  When leadership is taking their time to micromanage or “stay in the weeds” doing the day-to-day tasks, this is robbing the agency of its technical capacity. Yes, [...]

Hiring Tips & Red Flags Team management…it’s constantly on every leader’s mind.  It seems like every agency we know is either hiring, firing, or is having a team member leave.  It’s like there is this big “Fruit Basket Turnover” happening in the corporate world right now, and it doesn’t look like there is an end in sight anytime soon.  We’ve put together a list of “Hiring Tips & Red Flags” that can help you find the right person for the right seat in your company, and hopefully sooner rather than later.  You need to add science, experience, conversations and anything [...]

Blumer’s Characteristics are our goals.  They’re what we strive for.  They’re what we want our clients and those we come in contact with to say about our service and our team.   Our characteristics are few, but they pack a lot of punch in each one.  Check out how our team describes these traits.  High autonomy, high accountability High Autonomy and High Accountability are 2 sides of the same coin. We are all adults on the team, and we are treated that way. That’s the High Accountability piece. We are accountable to each other, to do our work in a timely [...]

The Blumer Team’s Core Values are what we believe in.  They’re what drive our work.  Today we, as a team, want to take a few minutes to break down each of the 5 core values that we have adopted.  Commitment leads to Loyalty People who are committed to the success of the team/company/goal, will do what needs to be done to find that success and are respectful, honest & loyal to those team members and company who are working towards the same success/goals. - Jenny Andrejack, Customer Ally Jason and Julie define commitment as “really embracing your job description and [...]

By now you probably know a little bit about Blumer CPAs.  You know we are intentional in every aspect of the firm, from onboarding clients to internal operations and firm values.  We wanted to take some time to shed some light on our internal Core Values and Characteristics that we appreciate as a firm.   Each week we set aside time in our team meeting to do “Core Values and Characteristics” call outs.  I’ll be honest.  When I first started at Blumer CPAs, this was hard for me, but over the last couple of years, I am learning to embrace the [...]

The IRS issued an announcement on December 23, 2022 that caused a massive sigh of relief from third-party settlement organizations everywhere (as well as from tax preparers and small businesses): A planned increase in reporting requirements for Form 1099-K was delayed from 2022 to 2023. For a little background, the IRS defines a third-party settlement organization (TSPO) as an organization that facilitates payments, usually to merchants, through a third party network. These include auction-payment facilitators (think PayPal) or other merchant services providers (think American Express, Visa or other organizations that process credit card payments to businesses). Prior to the American [...]

The Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law on August 16, 2022. In this time of rampant inflation and the drastic moves by the Federal Reserve in hiking interest rates, which is hitting us all painfully in the wallet, something called “The Inflation Reduction Act” sounds fantastic, right?  A law that will help bring down inflation? Bring it on! Except…wait a minute, what is in this law, exactly? And how is this law going to reduce inflation? Good questions. Let me take a few minutes to try and answer them for you as we take a brief tour of The [...]

Protect Your Business (and Your Contractors) with Forms W-9 and W-8 BEN We are fast approaching the end of the year. Which, among other things, means we are fast approaching the time when accountants everywhere start gearing up to prepare client Forms 1099 for the 2022 tax year. So if your accountant starts asking you if you have W-9’s and W-8BEN’s for all of your independent contractors, know that they are thinking ahead to the year-end tasks that keep you, as a business owner, in compliance. Compliance isn’t the most thrilling concept. And remembering to collect all of those Forms [...]

We’ve just hit a pretty amazing milestone in our firm. My Dad started our firm in November 1997, 25 years ago now. And 6 years later, he let me join the firm to lead the firm into the future. It was so special to celebrate this anniversary with my Dad recently, with Julie, my wonderful partner and friend, and our whole team at our team retreat. I know it’s common to write the obligatory “25 Things I Learned from Leading our 25 Year-Old Firm” but I’m not going to. I’m just going to share two key areas where I’ve learned […]