Benchmark Your Firm.

• Author: Roy, J. Russell
• Position: MAPSurvey - California Society of Certified Public Accountants' Management of an Accounting Practice survey

CalCPA has a 20-plus year history with Management of an Accounting Practice surveys, most recently with the new Web-based 2002 National MAP Survey. The process, member response and results are even better than we had anticipated.

The survey included 2,521 firms from 42 states. California had the highest participation with 404 firms completing the 2002 survey. This high response from CalCPA members helped to ensure the survey's statistical validity and reliability.

The goal of the MAP Survey is to measure key factors that firms need to rely on to measure their performance and effectiveness against other firms in the Western United States, as well as by their geographic region, size of firm, compensation levels and level of profitability.

"We downloaded our firm report right away, reviewed it and made adjustments to some of our firm practices," said Paul Regan, president of Hemming Morse Inc., CPAs in San Francisco.

NATIONAL VERSUS CALIFORNIA

The results are broken down by six geographic regions for California: North Coast/Sacramento; Bay Area/Silicon Valley; Central Coast/Central Valley; Los Angeles; Orange County/Long Beach; and San Diego/Inland Empire.

Many MAP Survey statistics offer a valuable comparison of California results to national results. For example:

Average Firm Size: National--12 people, eight of whom are CPAs; California--7.5 people, 5.25 of whom are CPAs.

Average Income Per Firm (gross): National--$1.5 million; California--$1.2 million.

Largest Sources of Income: National--tax services (45 percent), write-up/data processing (13 percent) and audit/attest (11.2 percent); California--tax services (52.5 percent), write-up/data processing (10.2 percent) and audit/attest (8.2 percent).

Largest Firm Expense: Total non-owner professional salaries. National-$386,580 or 25.5 percent of total income; California--$368,014, or 31 percent of total income.

Interestingly, 52 percent of California firms are charging interest on accounts receivables; electronic tax return filings have grown to 52 percent; a new hire with less than one year of experience had a starting salary of $35,404 as compared with $28,524 in 1998; and the average annual salary increase for professionals last year was 5.8 percent.

There was little mystery in the number of hours partners work per week. From April 15 to Dec. 31, 69 percent of partners/owners worked 40-48 hours and 30 percent worked...