By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | SkillAbility for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 12-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer The 70-20-10 rule says people learn roughly 70% from experience, 20% from coaching and relationships, and 10% from formal training. It’s directionally right — courses alone never built
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By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | SkillAbility for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 12-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer A new accountant’s first 90 days decide whether they become an independent contributor or a dependent one who needs constant manager rescue — and most firms waste the
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | SkillAbility for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 13-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer A tax preparer training program for CPA firms develops new staff to execution-ready — able to organize source documents, complete a clean 1040 workflow in the firm’s software,
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) Most “skill development” spending at accounting firms doesn’t develop skills — it accumulates certificates. The platform market sorts into three tiers that firm owners routinely confuse: credential platforms (CPE
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 11-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer The best onboarding practices for accounting firms are: (1) start before day one with pre-boarding and pre-employment skills testing; (2) replace shadowing with structured, software-specific training inside your
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer A CPA enablement platform is the people layer of an accounting firm’s tech stack — the system that makes your staff actually able to operate everything else. Firms
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer The shadowing method — sitting a new hire next to a senior CPA to “learn by watching” — costs accounting firms approximately $9,500 per hire in lost billable
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Most onboarding checklists for bookkeeping employees are built around the wrong question. Firm owners ask: “What does my new hire need to know?” The right question is: “What does my new hire need to be able to do —
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 13-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) General HR research says a new employee takes 6 to 12 months to reach full productivity — Gallup puts it at around 12 months, other studies at 8 months
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 12-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) An LMS — a learning management system — is a delivery container, not a training program. When an accounting firm buys a generic LMS (TalentLMS, LearnUpon, Moodle, or similar),
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