Accounting Profession Getting Into Blogging

The June 2005 issue of the august AICPA Journal of Accountancy carries an article "Would You, Could You, Should You Blog?" promoting the use of blogs as "a formidable business tool" for accountants to get new clients.  This article is a significant milestone, because there are 10.8 million blogs as of today, a paltry 900 attorney blogs, but about a dozen accounting firm blogs.

"Marketing. Blogs provide a low-cost way to reach a desirable market segment—the affluent and well-educated—and woo them as CPA clients. One way to approach this is to integrate a blog into your marketing plan, so it works with your existing Web site and newsletter. (Roth & Co.’s Kristan refers to his Tax Updates blog as the “first draft” of his newsletter. All stories in his weekly newsletter going to more than 2,000 recipients first appear in the blog.) Besides helping to publicize your firm and showcase its niche specialties, blogs can allow everyone in your firm to share information quickly on current developments and to track information on sales leads," says the Journal.

According to the magazine, "So far there are few accounting blogs, and a fair number of the existing ones cover taxes. In addition to Tax Updates (www.taxupdateblog.com), there is the Tax Guru (www.taxguru.net) blog, where Arkansas CPA Kerry M. Kerstetter answers tax questions and posts links to tax-related stories (and the occasional cartoon) in the news. Russ Fox, CPA, of Clayton Financial and Tax, California, comments on tax news in his Taxable Talk blog (www.taxabletalk.com). Stuart Levine, a Maryland tax attorney, analyzes cases on the Tax & Business Law Commentary blog at http://taxbiz.blogspot.com. Trish McIntire, an enrolled agent (EA), incorporates her own experiences with links to tax news on the Our Taxing Times blog at http://trishmc.typepad.com.

"Perhaps the most visible nontax accounting blog is the Financial Accounting Blog at http://accounting.blogspot.com, which posts current items relevant to financial accounting and finance. Other nontax accounting blogs include

• Confessions of an Accounting Bum (http://accountingbum.blogspot.com).
  
• CPA Firm Technology Blog (www.briantankersley.com/cpatech).
  
• CPA Sense (http://cpasense.blogspot.com).
  
• Internal Auditing Blog (http://iia.blogspot.com).
  
• The Analyst’s Accounting Observer Weblog (www.accountingobserver.com/blog).
  
• The Tech Gap (www.thetechgap.com).
  
• Vanilla Accounting (www.vanilla-accounting.com/blog/index.php)."

Blogs are just catching on in the accounting profession, and that means the door is wide open for CPA firms to create new and innovative uses of this technology. There is a huge opportunity for accountants to enter this area.

Comments

[Online Bookkeeping]

Hi,
its really superb blog, so informative content. I bookmarked this blog.

[Scott Sanok]

Hi Larry -
It is my plan to fill this void. We just launched our new blog-design company powered by Wordpress geared specifically to the accounting / tax profession.

[Will Keller]

Hi Larry,
You're 100% right- the blog space for accounting is empty. The real challenge is to create interesting content that people will want to read (i.e. business owners, not CPAs). Anyway, we're trying to offer practical advice for small and medium-sized businesses, plus interesting stories that have a little flair. We've only been blogging for a few months, but we're doing our best.
Will Keller
www.theaccountingblog.com

[Mike Doan]

I believe, as a group, accountants are late adopters of technology. After reading the JofA article on blogging, I was quite surprised that they covered the topic so "early". As a CPA, I myself have kept a personal blog on and off since 2001; however, out of hundres of entries, only two relate to accounting. I came across your site while researching the idea of starting a weblog dedicated to helping smal business owners understand the fundamentals of accounting. Fortunately, even in the late stage of blogging, I'll be a relative "early" adopter as far as accountants are concerned.