Add Health Care Planning to Your Firm’s Services

portrait of Christine Simone
Simone
Christine Simone is the CEO & co-founder of Caribou, a software solution for the finance industry to include health care costs and plan optimization in financial plans.

Reduce client stress and build stronger financial futures.

By Christine Simone
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Financial advisors are well suited to help clients with all the important decisions in their lives. But that doesn’t mean advisors always recognize the areas in which clients need the most help.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

Take health insurance, a big concern for people across all income groups. According to a 2021 report from Spectrem Group (now part of CEG Insights), two-thirds of affluent investors (65%) say they want their advisors to help them with health insurance, but only 4 percent said their financial advisors are providing it to them (see bar chart). Further, among people who don’t have financial advisors, the top areas for which they would want guidance are retirement income planning, Social Security planning and Medicare advice.
READ MORE →

Carrie Steffen: The Staffing Problem Nobody Talks About | MOVE Like This

The profession talks too much about deadlines and not enough about impact. Students are listening.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines Research podcasts anywhere: AppleGoogle/YouTubeSpotifyiHeartDeezer, Amazon Music, AudiblePlayer FMAudacy, RSS.
 Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA profession has only itself to blame for a talent shortage.

Firms have spent years talking about the grind of deadlines and busy season, instead of selling the career’s impact, stability, and range of opportunities, according to Carrie Steffen, CEO of the Iowa Society of CPAs.

MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

In the new episode of MOVE Like This, Steffen tells Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk the profession must rethink its narrative, strengthen cultures of belonging, and bring younger professionals into leadership conversations if it hopes to rebuild the CPA pipeline.

READ MORE →

Rebecca Driscoll: A Millennial and a Boomer Walk into a Bar… | The Disruptors

The Collaboration Room turns online peer networks into practical tools for pricing strategy, tax planning, succession, and psychological safety.

Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: AppleGoogle/YouTubeSpotifyiHeartDeezer, Amazon Music, AudiblePlayer FMAudacy, RSS.

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Before they co-founded The Collaboration Room, Rebecca Driscoll and Mike Sylvester, CEO of SBS CPA Group, had both been helping accountants with challenges on an informal basis.

“It felt kind of like disorganized, and we just needed one place,” Driscoll explains.

IN THIS EPISODE: The Collaboration Room | Brenda Cannon | Mike Sylvester | SchedulEase | Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community | Tax Retreat

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors |Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-InflictedCarroll: When One Person Can Break the FirmRampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not ThereChang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

After Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon & Associates and founder of SchedulEase and the Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community, connected them, they spent months testing ideas, questioning assumptions, and allowing the concept to grow organically before launching in the fall of 2024. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, and we’ll let it evolve and see what it becomes,” Driscoll says.   READ MORE →

What a Wealth Advisor Is Worth

Two happy businessmen looking at digital tablet at desk in office

PLUS: Behavioral finance vs. behavioral coaching.

By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Malcolm Forbes liked to say, “Advice is more fun to give than to receive.” But the right advice in the right framework can be invaluable. And sometimes, the best advice you’ll ever receive is what prevents you from engaging in harmful behaviors.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Michael DiJoseph, CFA, a senior strategist at Vanguard Investment Advisory Research Center, has spent a large portion of his career studying how financial advisors advise clients, how they can get better at providing advice and how we can measure the value of advice because these days, everyone from salesclerks at the mall to NASA rocket consultants seem to have the word “advisor” attached to their job title. More on that in a minute.
READ MORE →

Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency

Why equity is the new standard for talent retention.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: AppleGoogle/YouTubeSpotifyiHeartDeezer, Amazon Music, AudiblePlayer FMAudacy, RSS.
Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!
.

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based, private-equity-backed Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.

MORE Dominic PiscopoMORE Private EquityMORE Pay & Compensation

Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on Big 4 Transparency to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.

Quotables
“The demand for accounting services is greater than it ever has been. The challenge is providing the service at a high level in a labor-constrained environment.”
“AI in and of itself is not right now the solution to solve all our problems. Using automation and offshoring gives us the operational leverage to create that capacity.”
“I recognize that my people are being attempted to be poached every single day of the year.”
“Why have a stock price if you don’t disclose what it is?”
“‘’If I worked that 80-hour week, you should too.’ Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore.”

Dubow argues the profession has shifted from a demand constraint to a capacity constraint. Client needs continue to expand, but firms increasingly struggle to staff and deliver services proactively at scale.

READ MORE →