I Hate Time Sheets
I hate time sheets. I did them for years and hated every bit of it. I hated having to account for every speck of my time. I hated that my bosses looked at my hours first and my work second. I hated hearing that I did a great job, but "how are we going to bill for the all the hours you put in on this project?" I hated listening to coworkers talk about double-billing their time to multiple clients, and then goofing off because they had figured out how to fudge extra hours into their time sheets.
I have a small tax practice, and I value-bill for everything that I do. I believe it's the only fair way to treat my clients. However, I understand the reluctance of employers to release their employees from the constraints of reporting their time. Value billing makes perfect sense, but many employers are wary of taking this leap. Is there an easy way to transition from traditional hourly billing to value billing, or should it be an all-or-nothing proposition?
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Perry is a CPA and a former senior tax accountant with Big Four firm Deloitte. She maintains a small tax practice, she is a personal finance instructor, and the author of thirty books, including Surviving Financial Downsizing: A Practical Guide to Living Well on Less Income (Adams Media); QuickBooks on Demand (Que); Excel 2007 Macros Made Easy (McGraw Hill); The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes (Alpha/MacMillan); and, most recently, Mint.com for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons). In addition, she is a former columnist for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News daily newspapers.
Perry is a nationally recognized speaker who advises public accountants on using Internet tools to improve their accounting practices. She also taught a college-level introductory accounting class and was on staff at the Indiana CPA Society as a computer applications instructor. For five years, she was a contributing editor for Accounting Today magazine before taking over the helm at AccountingWEB.
Perry is a graduate of Indiana University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She returned to school to study accounting at Illinois State University, passed the CPA exam (in one sitting!), and worked for Deloitte in the Chicago tax department.
Gail has been named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor magazine and the American Society of Women Accountants.
