My memoirs have just been published. The book tells the story of how I became a CPA and then built my practice and shares many successes and some disappointments.
As far as I know, there are no recent autobiographies of CPAs working as CPAs. I have some in my bookcases that are close to 100 years old, but none that tell it as it is today. It took me decades to acquire the experiences that made me successful. Looking back, I realize many of my good experiences grew out of something that failed and did not work. Success came by not repeating those mistakes and by being able to apply what I learned to help current clients.
I tell a lot of stories in this book. To be frank, I truly enjoyed reliving each (well, almost each) story. I also include takeaways as much as possible so what I did that worked can be duplicated by readers.
This book contains memories, stories, situations, client interactions, staff training and development, pricing my services, the tremendous value I added to clients, and real-world lessons from a 60-plus year career. Everything in here could be copied and duplicated today as they are all still fresh and relevant. What isn't usable ain't in here! A lot of what I wrote originally appeared in my weekly columns in Accounting Today or my Withum Partners' Network blogs, my postings in CPA Trendlines, my over 350 different CPE programs, speeches or webinars, and responses to my many students who inquired about what CPAs actually do.
This book takes you behind the scenes of how a CPA business is run. Really! There is nothing else like this. All the situations have actually occurred and have been woven into a coherent order in this book. One of the things I believe differentiates me from other authors is that I actually did, myself, what I write about. I interacted with clients daily, and in some cases more than five or six clients in the same day. I still interact with clients, and I still come up with new stories. Nothing stays the same. To be successful you need to adapt. The adaptation comes quickly when you need to help a client make an immediate decision that could affect the future of their business or their financial security. New things always arise, usually unexpectedly. In many situations I have been able to anticipate changes and prepare for them. In some cases, I prepared and then waited months until the right time to use them arose.
A favorite story of mine, which I just realized is not in the book, is the time a client's secretary called me and said, "Gary wants to see you!" I said I could be there in a half hour. He had been a client for only a few months, and I had no idea what was on his mind. I prepared a listing of a half dozen projects we were working on in case he asked me to start the meeting (which I doubted).
Well, when I got there, he asked me what was going on. I went over the things on my list and when I finished a half hour later, he thanked me and I left. From that point on, I resolved that I would initiate all meetings with him, unless he had something completely new to ask me about. I adopted this posture with all my clients, and I was very successful with it. How do I know I was successful with it? Well, this was only one thing out of many, but my measure of success, as explained in my book, was that our invoices were paid timely, we got annual increases, we rarely lost a client we shouldn't have, and we were the first people our clients called when they wanted to do something new.
I speak to a lot of high school and occasionally younger students about the advantages of a career in public accounting. While I have primarily taught on the MBA level, the last few years I've taught undergraduate and MS accounting courses where my students were accounting majors who want to be accountants. They are usually not sure about what they would be doing or what type of positions they would have, and there is really very little guidance out there. That is what the catalyst was for me to write this book. I hope it reaches younger staff (but it is probably more valuable for experienced practitioners).
The Kindle version is priced at an affordable $5.99. It is a big book — over 300 pages, with a lot of short chapters that can be read in bits and pieces. I certainly did not do this to make money, although I will not turn anything down. I view this as a way to give back to my great profession.
The book, "Memoirs of a CPA: The Growth, Development and Rise of One of America's Most Successful CPAs," is available in print and Kindle versions at
This is a book that every CPA, accountant and accounting student should read, and the book I wish I could have read early on in my career, and later on as I stepped into my next stages until even today! Buy it, enjoy it and take away some money making and time saving and staff growth and exceptional client service ideas. They are all there for you. Just take it!
Do not hesitate to contact me at
