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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Make Clients Feel Seen, Heard and Helped

three magnifying glasses leaning on sidesUse a three-lens model for CAS conversations.

By Hitendra Patil

Many client accounting services professionals are eager to offer “advisory,” but they sometimes struggle to make their conversations truly feel like advice. The tools are available, and the data is clean, yet something still feels a bit off.

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Why? Because most client interactions rely on reactive reporting, when they should be guided by proactive exploration, and that’s the problem. CAS is far more than just about what you say. It’s about how your insights meet your client’s world.
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Independent Firms Have a Regulatory Advantage

three men seated at table in office and talking

Use it to set yourself apart.

By Hitendra Patil

This article covers something I do not hear discussed nearly enough in conversations about how independent firms differentiate themselves. Most of the differentiation conversation focuses on relationship depth, niche expertise and responsiveness. All of that is real, but there is a structural advantage available to independent CPA firms right now that almost none of them are naming to clients, and it is growing in legal and regulatory significance.

Structural independence in the attest function.

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How Private Equity Structures Actually Work

When PE enters an accounting firm, the transaction does not simply add capital to the existing firm. Generally, the acquired firm splits into two separate legal entities:
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Focus on the Impact of CAS/CAAS

two men talking across a table, one holding a sheet of paper, window and brick wall in background

Stop describing what you do.

By Hitendra Patil

You know the story.

  • You painstakingly created your client accounting services (CAS) offering. You may have also created your client accounting and advisory services (CAAS) offering.
  • You and your team worked intently and intensely to get there. Your early adopter CAS clients seemed enthusiastic about the promise of your CAS/CAAS offering.
  • However, you soon found that it was becoming increasingly challenging to acquire more CAS/CAAS clients.
  • All the pieces are in place to create a thriving CAS practice, but the results are worrying.

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What’s missing?

Selling advisory can feel awkward, but that’s because it’s not meant to be sold like a product. This article repositions how you present Advisory-CAS, not as a service line but as a shift in how clients grow. We will also cover how to stop “selling” and start aligning with the outcomes clients already care about most.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

How to Keep Your Best Clients

Make a PE displacement window calendar work for you.

By Hitendra Patil

An East Coast firm owner reached out to me about a year after a private equity-backed competitor had acquired a smaller firm in her market. She had expected to lose clients to the newly expanded firm. What she had not expected was to gain three of theirs.

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Those three clients had been with the acquired firm for years. They left within six months of the acquisition, and the reason had nothing to do with the quality of the work. The relationship had changed after the PE deal, not just new systems, new staff and new processes. The partner who had been their main contact for a decade was focused on transition and integration work and harder to reach. The clients had not been unhappy exactly, but they were back in the market. That is the part of the PE consolidation story that gets told less often. Acquisitions create client movement, and not all of it flows toward the acquiring firm.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Your Advisory Offering Needs a Focus Statement

Young businessman standing on edge of rock mountain and looking across

The CAAS-Chasm is the distance between what you are doing and how it impacts your clients.

By Hitendra Patil

One in two accountants stated that advisory services is the top new growth opportunity for their firm. According to the CPA Trendlines Accountants Outlook 2024 research, many accountants also expressed that advisory is the most attractive (profitable) opportunity.

But there is a catch.

It requires accountants to cross the CAAS-Chasm.
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