The Financial Accounting Standards Board released an accounting standards update Monday to clarify the interim effective date of its recently issued standard on disaggregation of income statement expenses for public companies whose fiscal year-end doesn’t coincide with the end of the calendar year.

FASB said public business entities are required to adopt the guidance in Update 2024-03 in annual reporting periods starting after Dec. 15, 2026, and interim periods within annual reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2027. But early adoption of the new standard is permitted.

FASB released the standard on disaggregation of income statement expenses in November, requiring public companies to disclose, in their interim and annual reporting periods, more information about certain expenses in the notes to financial statements in response to  demand from investors for more detailed information. 

The update originally said that the amendments are effective for public business entities for annual reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2026, and interim reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2027. But after the update was issued, FASB was asked to clarify the initial effective date for entities that don’t have an annual reporting period ending on Dec. 31 (known as non-calendar year-end entities).

Because of how the effective date guidance was written, those companies could have concluded they would be required to initially adopt the disclosure requirements in an interim reporting period, as opposed to an annual reporting period. FASB’s intention was for all public business entities to initially adopt the disclosure requirements in the first annual reporting period starting after Dec. 15, 2026, and interim reporting periods within annual reporting periods starting after Dec. 15, 2027. It acknowledged there was some ambiguity about that intention in the original guidance, so it has issued the new update to clarify the effective date for non-calendar year-end businesses.

UHY, a Top 50 Firm based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, is expanding its presence in Michigan and Missouri by combining with two firms: Tama, Budaj & Raab, P.C., also headquartered in Farmington Hills, and Botz Deal & Co. P.C., a firm with three St. Louis-based locations in St. Charles, St. Peters and Wentzville, effective Jan. 1, 2025.

Tama, Budaj & Raab dates back over 50 years. All of TBR’s professional and administrative team members will become part of UHY and continue in their current roles, relocating to UHY’s office in Farmington Hills.

Botz Deal was founded in 1969 and provides services to privately owned businesses and their owners, not-for-profit organizations, and governmental entities, as well as individual tax planning and preparation. All professional and administrative team members will become part of UHY and continue in their current roles.

“UHY is proud to welcome TBR and Botz Deal to our growing, forward-thinking firm,” said UHY U.S. CEO Steve McCarty, in a statement Monday. “These combinations exemplify our commitment to strategic growth—expanding within our established markets as well as breaking new ground in targeted regions across the nation.” 

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. UHY ranked No. 29 on Accounting Today‘s 2024 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $349.7 million in annual revenue. The firm now has over 40 offices and more than 1,800 team members and 150 partners.

Last  month,  UHY received private equity funding from Summit Partners, a Boston-based investment firm, helping fuel the mergers. Last January, UHY added Paresky Flitt & Company LLP, headquartered in Wayland, Massachusetts. In 2023, merged in Baird, Cotter & Bishop PC in Cadillac, and Traverse City, Michigan; and Ross, Langan & McKendree in McLean, Virginia, In 2022, it added Jansen Valk Thompson Reahm in Kalamazoo and Dowagiac, Michigan; LWBJ in Des Moines and Ames, Iowa; and TGM Group LLC in Salisbury, Maryland, and Stoy Malone in Towson, Maryland.

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Public accounting offers many opportunities for growth, and the proof of this is the rising revenues at most of the firms that submit their numbers in the many surveys. One thing common among those firms is their expanding array of services.

Managing an accounting practice is complicated and involves many functions that need to be carefully calibrated and integrated to achieve success. However, there is one immutable fact, and that is a desire of our clients to engage us for those services. Without that, nothing else matters. Excellence in every other facet of operating the accounting business will not matter. So, how can you grow so that 2025 is your best year ever? You need to offer more services to your current clients and then to new clients. 

Growth from existing clients is called organic growth. Growth from new clients is external and arises from marketing activities and client acquisition by purchase or merger. If you want to grow, you need growth from both organic and external sources. How much you want to grow and whether you want to grow has to be strategically determined, but a minimum decision has to be that some growth is needed.

Added sales of new services are more easily obtained from existing clients. There is no selling who you are, your reliability, or your willingness and ability to provide value in everything you do for your clients. Each of these need to be conveyed to new clients before you even get to the pitch of the services you will perform for them. 

So go after the easier sales first, i.e., to your existing clients. Here’s a way to get started:

1. Identify potential needs of your top 20 business clients.
2. Arrange those needs into services you presently offer, and
3. Services you do not perform.
4. Match the potential needs with this group of 20 clients with services you presently offer. 
5. Contact five of those clients to obtain an engagement for at least one such service.
6. Set a goal of initiating a new service for each of those five clients in the new year.
7. If you are unsuccessful with your first five targeted clients, then expand the list until you succeed with five added engagements.
8. You can try to introduce each of these 20 and even more clients with added services, but I think setting a goal of five added engagements is a good way to start.
9. Expand your service offerings by resolving to learn and gain proficiency in at least one new service during the next year. 
10. Get started by picking a needed service that you do not perform and use that for your personal growth along with your practice’s growth.

Overly active practitioners might judge my suggestions to be too placid, while many owners and partners who are content with leaving things as they are will judge me to be excessively aggressive. Either way, I do not see how anyone could lose by selling five large clients the services they need and learning a new one for themselves. I view this as a no-lose growth method.

Check out some ideas of added services described in a recent posting.

Make 2025 your best year ever by doing something new to make it your best year ever.

Contact me at [email protected] with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.