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Marcum Purchasing UHY New England Locations, Tax Quizzes to Be Given?

Web CPA is reporting that Marcum, the firm best known for quizzing potential employees, is purchasing three offices of UHY Advisors (Boston, Hartford and New Haven) effective April 16th.

The addition of the three locations would make fourteenfifteen total for Marcum, who currently only has a Greenwich office in New England. After the deal is closed, UHY Advisors will have fourteen locations well.


No financial details were reported but it is reported that all the UHY employees will be retained by Marcum, pending the successful passing of a rigorous quiz given in a room with no windows, air conditioning and a one hour time limit.

A Marcum spokeswoman declined to comment and a message with UHY was not immediately returned.

Marcum to Buy UHY Offices in New England [Web CPA]

Cash-strapped Clients Could Force Accounting Firms to Come Up with Creative Cost Savings

Because times weren’t already cheerful enough around GT, they recently released a study which found that businesses are generally pessimistic about raises and bonuses this year.


From the press release:

The firm surveyed 496 U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers from March 22 through April 5, and found that 53% plan no salary changes in the next 6 months, while 32% plan to decrease and 15% plan to increase. On the bonus front, there is also equal pessimism, 47% plan no change, 44% plan to reduce, and only 8% plan to increase.

Well – that certainly sucks.

We know raises are the last thing on the minds of higher-ups at GT, but come on, really? Imagine being a no-name staffer at GT grinding away on a report about how your clients are a collective group of Negative Nancy’s. With headcount discussions ongoing in several GT offices, one would be – and should be – concerned.

The freezes in salary and bonuses don’t really apply to the accounting firms because – as it has already been discussed here in great length – money should be flowing your way this summer. The underlying concern with this report is this – if your client isn’t giving its own employees a bump in pay, there’s no bloody chance your firm is getting a bump in fees, either.

Any and all resources will be applied to minimizing any talent exoduses from occurring.

So how will the firms find enough cookies in the jar to “support the current pipeline?” I checked in with a Big 4 auditor in New York who had this to share:

During casual conversation with my mentors, word is the firm will be pushing for leaves of absence again this summer for everyone who has not completely passed the CPA. The hope is for a decent percentage of staff members to do this to save on salaries.

Makes sense-ish. Temporarily cut staff salaries during a relatively quiet audit period. Will this be enough to cover raises and bonuses while client fees remain stagnant? Heavens no but it’s a start. As always, let us know if you learn of ways your firm plans to pinch pennies.