Consider delegation vs. automation.
By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide
Client Advisory Services (CAS) are much more than just a passing trend or buzzword. They represent a fundamental shift in how accounting firms define their value and interact with clients. Offering CAS means your firm is adopting a new approach to practicing accounting, one that changes how services are provided, how clients view your role, and how your firm builds long-term revenue. It’s not just adding another service line; it’s a strategic change shaping the future of the profession.
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According to survey insights, 59 percent of accounting firms currently offer CAS. Among these, 73 percent have been providing these services for over five years. However, for many, offering CAS and growing it are two different challenges.
The key question is no longer, “Should we offer CAS?” but:
“How can we expand CAS without adding complexity, chaos or costs?”
This article is your step-by-step guide to that very transformation. It goes beyond checklists and software suggestions, helping you understand the more profound strategic shifts that enable scalable CAS practices, like
- when and how to grow your team,
- how to think differently about delegation versus automation,
- how to create processes that grow with you,
- the role of your tech stack in driving leverage and
- how to forecast and safeguard advisory capacity, the crown jewel of CAS.
Let’s dive in.
When and how to expand your CAS team
The why comes before the when.
Before making your next hire or signing an outsourcing agreement, ask yourself:
“Are we expanding our CAS team because we have clear, data-backed growth indicators, or are we rushing to add capacity because our current team is overworked, missing deadlines or showing early signs of burnout?”
The survey insights paint a clear picture:
- 8 percent of firms cite staffing and retention as their biggest CAS-related challenge.
- 42 percent are turning away work because of a lack of capacity and inability to add relevant capacity quickly.
Turning away CAS work does more than just reduce revenue. It slows your firm’s growth. More importantly, it deprives current and potential clients of the financial insights they increasingly expect. Even more critically, it harms your ability to retain and attract top talent.
What is the real trigger for expansion?
Don’t let burnout be your trigger. Build capacity proactively. Develop your expansion plan based on capacity indicators.
- Are your CAS team members consistently operating at over 80 percent capacity?
- Is your advisory backlog increasing by over two weeks?
- Are onboarding timelines falling behind or disrupting other client work?
These signals are more than operational pain points. They are flashing red lights warning you that your client experience (and your staff retention) is about to suffer.
How to Forecast Capacity Like a Pro
To develop a capacity-focused growth model, monitor these indicators:
- Client onboarding velocity: Number of new clients onboarded in the last 30, 60 or 90 days.
- Proposal acceptance rate: A surge in “yes” responses signals the need to proactively expand.
- Advisory meeting count: Track the number of advisory meetings per client. More meetings indicate a higher need for attention.
How Innovative Firms Grow Their Teams
Based on the survey insights:
- 7 percent of firms with CAS success have dedicated CAS staff
- 6 percent have designated CAS practice leaders
- 8 percent already outsource some of their CAS work; another 13.6 percent plan to start soon
Scalable Staffing Framework
- Role specialization: Transition from a generalist approach to a matrixed team structure. Include roles such as:
- CAS Analyst: Performs data validation, reconciliations and preparatory work
- CAS Manager: Handles client communication, process delivery and internal QA
- Client Success Lead: Bridges business and service, emphasizing achieving meaningful results over just completing tasks
- Leadership layer: Appoint a CAS practice leader to promote consistency, align processes, foster innovation and ensure team accountability.
- Smart outsourcing: Delegate non-client-facing or rules-based tasks, such as bank feeds, AP entry and reconciliations, to offshore or third-party managed services.
Think of your CAS team not as a department but as a production line, with each role optimized for efficiency, accuracy and client impact.
Delegating versus Automating: Striking the Right Balance
The Delegation Dilemma
Delegation is important, but it isn’t the cure-all.
According to the survey, 27 percent of firms identify burnout as a major challenge. Much of this relates to inefficient delegation. When team members are overwhelmed, the instinct is to delegate tasks. But what if the work itself is better suited for automation?
Delegation, when used correctly, is powerful.
- Use it for roles that require extensive relationship-building, such as client managers or onboarding specialists.
- Use it for judgment-heavy tasks like forecast reviews, KPI interpretation and advisory prep.
- Use it when work or deliverables vary too much for reliable automation.
Delegation becomes truly effective when it is used intentionally, not just to pass tasks along, but to improve strategic focus and role clarity.
The Advantage of Automation
36 percent of firms view automation as a major opportunity for CAS growth. However, automation isn’t effective when implemented in bits and pieces. You should redesign workflows to integrate automation seamlessly.
Automate when:
- A task is high-volume, repetitive, predictable, highly “rules-based” and less “judgment-based”
- A process is triggered by time (e.g., monthly closes, weekly bill pay) or action (e.g., a client uploading a document)
- The return on investment of automation can be demonstrated in a short period
Examples of what to automate:
- Invoice and bill capture (via OCR)
- Document request reminders (client portals and automated emails)
- Monthly P&L preparation and delivery
- KPI tracking dashboards
Automation tech stack suggestions:
- OCR: Dext, AutoEntry, Hubdoc
- Workflow: Jetpack Workflow, Karbon, Canopy
- Client Communication: Liscio, Ignition
- AI Assistants: Help-Desk chat, email sorting bots or generative AI FAQs
Key action to take: Avoid the “automation paradox.” Automation is designed to free us from repetitive tasks that fill our days, so we can concentrate on thinking more deeply and strategically. It’s about creating space for the kind of work that truly makes a difference.
Processes and Workflows That Scale
The Problem with Growth without Process
As your CAS practice grows, each new client, every new service layer and every new team member adds a layer of complexity. Without standardized processes, that complexity compounds.
The survey revealed one of the top challenges as “creating multiple service capabilities and processes.” The translation? Many firms are customizing each client’s experience without a consistent delivery engine to support it behind the scenes.
From Task-Driven Workflows to Service-Level Engines
Firms prepared for growth see operations as interconnected systems designed to deliver consistent value, rather than as isolated tasks. Every reconciliation adds to a broader monthly close process. Each report sent is part of a stable, scalable reporting framework. Engines can scale. Tasks cannot.
Build your CAS delivery engine based on these pillars:
- Standardization
- Use templates for everything: onboarding checklists, advisory agendas, client QBRs
- Document standard operating processes (SOPs) (actually “playbooks”) for all client-facing and back-office processes
- Visibility
- Use dashboards to see what’s completed, what’s stuck and who’s overloaded
- Use color coding, service level agreements and audit trails to monitor accountability
- Segmentation
- Group clients based on complexity, service level or industry
- Use different processes for each segment, but keep them consistent within the segment
Minimum viable CAS workflow should include:
- Digital intake with specified timelines and responsibilities
- Automated document collection and follow-up triggers
- Three- or five-day close SOPs with roles and timing defined
- Periodic advisory review sessions
- Escalation pathways for clients who need to outgrow their current package
Every client is unique, but your process shouldn’t be and doesn’t need to be. Client individuality should show in the insights you provide, not in inconsistent procedures that could hurt efficiency and accuracy.
Tech Stack for Efficiency: Tools That Multiply Impact
The Real Tech Gap
It’s not that firms lack technology. It’s that their technology doesn’t communicate or doesn’t communicate frequently enough. Survey shows:
- Only 17.4 percent utilize workflow tools
- Only 22.1 percent utilize dashboards to manage CAS
Translation?
Most firms are flying blind.
Design your CAS tech stack as if it were a software product.
Imagine your CAS offering as a digital product. It includes:
- A user interface: what clients experience
- A back end where your team works
- Integrations that enable automation and data flow.
Core functions your tech stack needs to support:
- Cloud-first collaboration
- Bank feed and payroll integrations
- Workflow and communication automation
- Real-time reporting
- Advisory forecasting and scenario modeling
Tech Stack Example (mix and match based on client profile)
| Function | Tools to Explore |
| General Ledger | QBO, Xero, Sage Intacct |
| Reporting & Analytics | Fathom, Reach Reporting, Jirav |
| Workflow Management | Karbon, Jetpack, Canopy |
| Client Experience | Liscio, Ignition, Suralink |
| AP/AR Automation | Bill.com, Melio, Relay |
| Payroll | Gusto, ADP, OnPay |
| Insights/KPIs | Custom dashboards, PowerBI |
| Workflow Management | Karbon, Jetpack, Canopy |
Key action to take: The role of technology is to streamline and simplify operations, ensuring it supports your team rather than adding complexity. Check if your team spends more time managing technology than working with clients. If yes, it’s time to reassess.
Capacity Planning and Forecasting for Advisory Services
Why Advisory Requires Its Own Capacity Model
Advisory isn’t just a service; it’s a relationship. This means it’s time-consuming, insight-rich and expectation-heavy.
Survey data shows us:
- 6 percent of firms report that clients expect proactive advice
- 4 percent say clients prefer more frequent interactions
However, when it comes to advisory, firms often fail to plan with precision. Most firms are disciplined about estimating compliance workloads in hours, such as how long a tax return takes or how many hours a bookkeeper can handle for monthly closes. Yet, they rarely apply the same rigor to advisory. They don’t specify how many strategic client interactions they can deliver at a high level of quality. The result? Firms don’t hit ceilings because they lack clients. They hit ceilings because they haven’t protected the mental, emotional and strategic capacity needed to consistently provide high-value insights. Ultimately, the limiting factor isn’t time. It’s the cognitive and strategic bandwidth needed to sustain high-level advisory relationships.
What makes CAS capacity unique:
- Clients in advisory engagements appreciate insightful interpretation and strategic importance in addition to financial figures.
- Advisory needs preparation before the meeting and follow-up afterward.
- Advisory scope varies more than compliance
How to Build an Advisory Capacity Plan
Use this simple formula:
Advisory Capacity (CAS-lots) = (Number of qualified advisors × Maximum CAS-lots per advisor per month) × percentage of their capacity reserved for advisory
Where:
Qualified advisors in CAS roles provide more than just compliance expertise; they offer real-time, strategic insights that influence decision-making. These individuals are trained and empowered to deliver strategic insights, offering value that extends beyond traditional compliance work.
CAS-lots per advisor/month = the number of strategic conversations, decisions, reviews or deliverables they can prepare for and deliver without sacrificing quality.
Percentage reserved for advisory = because many advisors wear multiple hats, especially in smaller firms, not all of their time is dedicated solely to advisory work.
Example
Let’s say:
- You have three advisors.
- Each can handle 10 meaningful advisory interactions per month.
- You allocate 50 percent of their work capacity to advisory.
Then:
Advisory Capacity = 3 × 10 × 0.5 = 15 CAS-lots/month
That’s 15 meaningful, relationship-driven, outcome-focused client interactions per month across your firm. It’s not 15 hours, but 15 advisory deliverables, reviews, planning sessions, strategic meetings, dashboards and more.
Example of How to Define a CAS-Lot
You might define a “CAS-lot” as:
- A monthly financial narrative review
- A quarterly forecasting + budgeting session
- A pricing strategy meeting
- A dashboard review with decision framing
Such a definition becomes part of your advisory package, enabling accurate forecasting, informed pricing, effective staffing and ultimately, scalability.
Include the following in your capacity planning exercise:
- Meeting time (virtual or in-person)
- Prep (KPI pull, agenda building)
- Debrief (internal notes, action items)
- Admin (scheduling, communication)
Capacity planning tools:
- Time tracking in Jetpack, Karbon
- Scheduling analytics from Calendly or Outlook
- Scenario modeling in Jirav, Fathom
How to protect advisory bandwidth:
- Productize it: Define scope, cadence and deliverables
- Price it: Advisory services should be clearly defined and included in CAS packages, ensuring they are valued as core offerings rather than optional extras.
- Track it: Use dashboards to monitor advisory time usage.
Advisory capacity represents your firm’s intellectual capital. Guard it as a valuable asset.
The Scalable CAS Practice is a Mindset
Scalability is a discipline. It’s the shift from being the doer of tasks to being the architect of outcomes. It’s a mindset.
Here’s your checklist for creating a truly scalable CAS practice:
- Develop your CAS strategy centered on sustainable capacity before pursuing aggressive revenue growth.
- Expand intentionally, with the right roles at the right time.
- Organize your CAS practice using integrated systems that grow together, rather than fragmented teams or disconnected workflows.
- Use automation to free up focus for high-impact work, not only to improve speed but also to enhance strategic engagement.
- Treat your tech stack as a cohesive, well-designed solution focused on user experience, rather than just a collection of loosely connected tools.
- Forecast advisory bandwidth, and defend it with pricing and process.
Remember, scaling your CAS offering requires more than just increasing volume. It involves shifting how you deliver value and operate more efficiently. It’s a more innovative, streamlined and effective engine. The most successful CAS firms won’t be those with the largest client lists. Instead, they will be those that enhance their impact while keeping service quality and team well-being high. That is the future. And you have everything it takes to build it.