Social media does not have to be time-consuming.  Increase the effectiveness of your firm's social media outreach by connecting with the right people, posting different content on different social networks, and using an appropriate profile image. To read the full article in InvestmentNews, click: How to Achieve Social Media Success in 15 Minutes or Less. ...

A new survey reveals fake financial news is affecting Americans' ability to make retirement, investment and health care decisions.  Even worse, Americans feel that fake news will be more prevalent in the future.  The AICPA National CPA Financial Literacy Commission has tips to help keep Americans from falling into the fake news trap. To read the full article in AICPA Insights, click: 5 Tips to Help Identify ...

Focus on Value Management In this article, the author discusses the importance of using business value as the baseline driver of business performance and how we use it as a measurement of success. ...

About the Use of Monte Carlo Simulation A number of our colleagues have released updated valuation and damages guidebooks. Despite these newer versions, none of these guidebooks discuss the use of statistics, modeling of time series, ARIMA, or Monte Carlo simulation. In this article, the author describes how the use of Monte Carlo simulation is gaining acceptance. ...

In our most recent issue of Portfolio Valuation: Private Equity and Venture Capital Marks and Trends, we provide a brief digest and commentary of some of the most relevant market trends influencing the fair value of private equity and venture capital portfolio investments.  In this blog, there are key highlights covered in our Second Quarter 2017 newsletter. To read the full article in Mercer Capital's Fina ...

Estate Planning Missteps Create a Burden for Beneficiaries Mistakes such as failing to create an inventory of assets, having too many accounts or not including a see-through provision in a trust can complicate matters for beneficiaries who are left behind after a client dies.  Proactive planning can help simplify the situation for a client's loved ones. To read the full article in Kiplinger, click: Some of ...

Try this Tactic to Minimize Generation-Skipping Taxes Generation-skipping taxes and other issues can complicate the process of transferring wealth from one generation to another.  William Kriesel, CPA, PFS, explains how giving relatives a partnership interest in a family business can overcome some of these challenges. To read the full article in The CPA Journal, click: Accomplishing Estate Planning Goals th ...

Defining Rights and Establishing Control to Protect Your Firm and Clients In this article, the authors propose best practices used to establish acceptable use policies (AUP). These AUPs define rights and establish controls that protect the firm and client information. ...

and How Can You Make it Work for You? In this article, Dr. Frederiksen discusses branding and the value and importance of maintaining and creating a brand. ...

How to Retire in Your 30s or 40s The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement encourages people to save as much as half of their income in their early years so they can retire sooner and focus on other pursuits as they live off their investment portfolio.  Tom Anderson provides several retirement calculators and tools geared to the FIRE movement. To read the full article in CNBC, click: Use Thes ...

Small Business Borrowing Falls to Lowest Point Since October Small business borrowing fell in April to its lowest point since October and was down five percent from April 2016, according to the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index.  The drop is seen as an indicator of potentially slowing economic growth. To read the full article in Reuters, click: U.S. Small Business Borrowing Drops to Six Mo ...

How Personal Financial Planning Complements CPA Practices Adding personal financial planning services can help CPA firms build stronger bonds with clients and open up opportunities for referrals, writes Stuart Kessler, CPA, PFS.  He shares several techniques that can help your PFP practice, beginning with helping clients feel relaxed and comfortable during initial meetings.  CPAs who are interested in addin ...

How to Tell the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth The often-unspoken truth is that many deposition or cross-examination questions that expert witnesses in the field of forensic accounting, business valuation, or matrimonial litigation will be asked are written to make the truth sound like a lie and a lie sound like the gospel. This second article of the Unimpeachable Neutrality series offers proactive t ...

Executive Services (Part II of IV) In the May/June 2017 issue of The Value Examiner, the authors gave a detailed description of how clinical services for physicians can be calculated. QuickRead is pleased to present an overview of this series, which will be presented in four parts. Please look for the more detailed analysis in The Value Examiner. This article is a follow up to the April 23, 2017 QuickRead a ...

In earlier blog posts we discussed the potentially pernicious effect of a decline in the value of pre-public companies on equity compensation granted to employees.  Sujan Rajbhandary, senior member of Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation Group, explains that unlike preferred investors, employees also depend on their employers for current income. To read the full article in Mercer Capital's Financi ...

If you are feeling stressed and overworked, it is time to re-evaluate your choices.  This article offers three tips for adding more balance to your day. To read the full article in Inc., click: 3 Tips to Stop Feeling So Overworked and Overwhelmed. ...

When helping clients claim Social Security benefits, past planning strategies may act as the best guides.  Over the last several months, we published dozens of stories including insight from advisers and analysts on Social Security planning tips and strategies.  Some of these include insight related to long-term funding issues, clients working abroad, evaluating the impact of taxes as well as tips for deali ...

What Your Expertise is Worth When pursuing new engagements, financial consultants often face competition from others who are willing to accept below-market rates. This fee-based competition can be demoralizing and frustrating, but the tips shared in this article may help. ...

Does the IRS or Anyone Care? (Part II of II) Part one of this article presented the “current method” and “option pricing method” (OPM) for allocating value to common stock for 409a valuations, and how these two methods differ in pricing of common stock. Part two examines the implied changes made by OPM and how it affects stakeholders. The article begins with a brief review of the key impacts on the valuatio ...

When and how do externally-driven events affect company value?  What certain events constitute meaningful data points from a valuation perspective?  And are they benchmarks or outliers?  Lucas Parris, senior member of Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation Group, explains. To read the full article in Mercer Capital's Financial Reporting Blog, click: Amazon, Whole Foods, and Value Implications. This ...