Join the MAP network meetings and share valuable information with other firms.

• Position: PCPS Update

A successful accounting practice rests on three pillars. Two--business development and highest quality, profitable client service--demand so much of our attention that the third--management of accounting practice or MAP--sometimes recedes into the background. But MAP, however, is indispensable to the other two. Without sound management, a firm has little hope of delivering quality service or of profitability, and still less of establishing a good reputation and drawing new clients. Even more important is the image aspect: how can CPAs presume to tell others how to run their business if they can't put their own house in order?

A firm can refine its understanding of MAP in a variety of ways, including formal training in new management tools, philosophies, and processes. However, MAP is practical, not just theory. Its essence is conveyed not in seminars but in the living give-and-take of exchanges of information, the collective body of knowledge accumulated by practitioners. As Nancy Myers put it in the June 2001 Practicing CPA, the "sharing of ideas is at the heart of the MAP experience." That's why PCPS institutionally...