The Small Business-CPA Interface

(Tables and illustrations not included) The alarming rate of small business failures each year can ultimately be traced to ineffective management. Various, specific causes contribute to this problem, but one root cause is a lack of good management informationespecially financial information. DeThomas and Fredenberger show that this concern extends even to very small businesses. Larson and Clute present a similar perspective as they describe the "failure syndrome" that is fueled, at least in part, by a critical, unmet need for usable accounting information. Where do small businesses turn for help to improve management information and avoid the failure syndrome? Arnold et al. found that the CPA is considered the primary external adviser. Unfortunately, only 25 percent of 500 small businesses studied viewed this particular external adviser as "very important" in meeting management needs. Small businesses need help, but there appears to be a gap between what is needed and what is available from CPA firms. Of course, CPA firms may not be the appropriate source for all external adviser services. But, according to Donna Sammons, when they are queried as to whether they are interested in better serving the small business, the answer is a resounding "yes! " Several CPAs we interviewed as part of this study also confirm a strong interest in better serving small businesses and even going beyond their traditional tax planning and preparation roles. This article discusses the current state of CPA services to small businesses-the small business-CPA interface and explores the possibilities for improving and expanding the interface for the mutual benefit of small businesses and CPA firms. It is based on a study of 148 small businesses. Because CPAs assisted in selecting questions and industries widely represented in their client bases, the results are biased toward industries that already have a high level of CPA usage. We begin with a description of the approach used, then review the real needs of small businesses and how well CPAs fill those needs. Next we explore what CPAs could do to improve current services and how CPAs might expand their services to directly address small business needs. The conclusion summarizes suggestions for how both small business owner-managers and CPAs could improve this important management information interface. THE APPROACH This study was initiated because of our experiences with over 150 small businesses participating in the Small Business Institute (SBI) program. A frequent complaint of clients was the ponderous activity associated with tax data collection which had little or no payoff in useful managerial information. The SBI program director began to wonder how widespread this problem was, and what could be done about it. After enlisting the aid of an accounting professor (who is also a CPA) to obtain a balanced perspective, a preliminary questionnaire was developed. Two MBA students conducted 40 telephone interviews with randomly selected businesses in Corvallis, Oregon, a typical university town. The interviews provided many insights and raised other questions, with the result that the questionnaire was further refined and used in personal interviews with 148 businesses in five industries: hardware stores, optometrists, restaurants, general contractors, and grass seed farmers. Thirty businesses were interviewed in each industry, except for general contractors, which provided only 28 interviews. The interviews were performed by ten accounting students who had been carefully coached to be as objective as possible. Although the personal interviews provided more in-depth information, many general results from the earlier telephone inverviews were replicated. Only the results from the personal interviews will be presented here. The personal interviews covered representative small businesses throughout northwest Oregon. …