CPA Practice Advisor - 21

BUILDING YOUR NICHE PRACTICE

cupcake graphic and fun headline
to grab attention. A short form was
used to capture information where
the visitor could "grab a deal," as in
a 30-day free trial.
View the campaign creative at:
https://bit.ly/2Km9CnF.
At this phase,
■ Conduct research to discover the
best ways to reach your target market (based on age, gender, industry,
geography, device, and more).
■ Identify a combination of at least
two vehicles to reach your target
market, such as mobile and desktop,
pr int and desktop, mobile and
email, print and email, desktop
and phone, social media and paid
ads, etc.
■ Create a landing page on your
website ded icated to t h i s ad
campaign, including a short form
to capture leads, and two to three
benefits of the product or service
you're selling.
■ Craf t a mu lt i-par t stor y l i ne

featuring several ads to reduce
ad fat ig ue ( people seeing t he
same ad multiple times). Creative
headlines and a consistent tag
line will be important here. For
example, this headline, "Get rid
of payroll headaches once and for
all." With this tagline, "[Fim's name]
relieving payroll headaches through
software solutions." Plus, a graphic
of a person holding his/her head, a
pinched paycheck, or bottle with
migraine solution written on it.
■ Design and test the campaign in
your chosen advertising vehicles.
Remember to keep your branding
colors, images, and logo in the ad
design.
■ For social media and online ad
campa ig ns, t arget look-al i ke
audiences you already have or
create a new audience based on
interests, such as software names
like QuickBooks, Xero, Intuit Payroll,
etc., combined with demographic
information, including job titles,

firm's operating account and others. The deposit and the payments
going out would be marked as Trust
Liability: Client XYZ. By using this
method to keep track of the trust
balances per client, you will easily
be able to look at the balance sheet
and know exactly how much each
client has in the trust account and
ensure that the balances per client
total the balance in the IOLTA bank
account.

account. This will ensure that your
client's records will accurately
reflect what those funds are for in
the IOLTA account.
Sometimes, banks will deposit
the interest in one month, but withdraw the money in the next month.
If you run the balance sheet for the
first month, it should show your
client currently owes the interest
to the state. Then, when the money
is paid to the state, the money is
no longer owed and the interest
payable account will be zero.

TRUST INTEREST PAYABLE
Another unique aspect of having
an IOLTA bank account is how the
interest is handled. Because the
interest on the IOLTA bank account
doesn't belong to the attorney,
it should neither be entered as
interest income when the funds
are received nor interest expense
when the money is paid to the state.
Instead, the credit and debit should
be marked as an interest payable

REIMBURSABLE CLIENT
EXPENSES
A majority of law firms have
expenses that are reimbursed from
their clients. If you do not keep
track of these, expenses can fall
through the cracks and never get
collected. The easiest way to keep
track of these is to make one or
several billable expense accounts,

such as payroll manager, payroll
administrator, etc.

CASE STUDIES AND
TESTIMONIALS
Providing case studies on billing
software and technology that helps
to make law firms more productive
is a great place to start. Research
studies to help you identify the right
case studies that will resonate with
your target audience. If you have
clients like your target market, ask
them for testimonials as well. Then,
develop your own case study based
on research for website posting,
social media sharing, and email
marketing. Remember to add a leadgeneration form to the web page to
capture prospect's information.
Finally, follow-up within days to
close a 30-minute consultation.

SEMINARS, WEBINARS,
AND EVENTS
Creating

informative

lawyers can view online or attend
in person that offers CLE credits is
very valuable. It helps you to begin
the relationship-building process
needed to gain and keep new
clients. To most effectively market
this, know when CLE's are renewed
and know the optimal time commitment, e.g., are 50-minute sessions
better than two-hour sessions for
registration purposes.
Now that you have these tips,
maintaining continuity and attacking the market through effective
actions will increase leads from
professional services companies.
Where will you begin?
Becky Livingston has over twentyfive years' experience in marketing
and technology in financial services
and engineering firms. She is the
President and CEO of Penheel
Marketing, a boutique marketing
firm specializing in social media
and digital marketing for CPAs.

content

depending if your client wants to
separately keep track of filing fees,
postage, medical records, travel and
other expenses.
First, you will need to set up
an income account. Then, you can
make an expense that is billable
and feeds into the appropriate
income account. View an example
of how to set up a billable expense
using QuickBooks Online at
https://bit.ly/2QF89tR.
Once you have a billable
expense set up, expense can be
assigned to clients and put on
invoices to get reimbursed. The
difference between the billable
expenses and the income will show
how much your client's law practice
has in outstanding reimbursable
expenses.

REFERRAL INCOME
If your clients refer clients to other
professionals, they may receive

JUNE 2019 ■

referral income. Since this income
doesn't actually come from practicing the law, it should be listed on the
chart of accounts as "other income."
On the profit and loss statement, it
will appear at the bottom, and not at
the top with all the income earned
from the main business.

HELP YOUR CLIENTS STAY
CURRENT
By adding in these accounts, law
firms will be able to easily enter
transactions properly in their
accounting system. Most data
needed for state reporting requirements, including three-way reconciliation reports, should be easily
found within the balance sheet and
profit and loss statement.
Brandy Derrick is an author for the
Firm of the Future blog: https://
www.firmofthefuture.com, where
this article first appeared.

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

https://www.bit.ly/2Km9CnF https://www.bit.ly/2QF89tR https://www.firmofthefuture.com https://www.firmofthefuture.com http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

CPA Practice Advisor

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CPA Practice Advisor