ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Erin Pohan: How to Help Your Clients Understand Accounting | The Disruptors

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Connect with your clients: “You’re an entrepreneur, I’m an entrepreneur.”

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil


The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

True Advisor: Buy now | Learn more

Erin Pohan’s firm, Upkeeping, is on a mission “to make accounting relevant and understandable” to all its clients. Pohan describes Upkeeping as “a tax-ready firm” that does everything but tax prep, which they hand off to the clients’ tax professionals. But their hand-off doesn’t stop with providing the tax pro with the information needed for the tax return.

MORE Liz Farr | CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

“We don’t believe in just handing pieces of paper over to our clients and letting them run with it,” she explains. “We do work with them throughout the year. We do our client calls where we’re explaining the numbers and the stories behind the numbers, especially, and making sure that they feel equipped and empowered to understand their business finances.”

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Understand Clients’ Relationship with Money

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Businessman tightly holding briefcase with dollar sign on it

Start with which of four “money scripts” they follow.

By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Joy Lere Psy.D., licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder of Shaping Wealth, a learning platform transforming the human experience of money, told me on my podcast that she was amazed by how often money was the cause of her clients’ anxiety and unhappiness. Research confirms this phenomenon.

MORE: From Services to Experiences to Transformations | How Behavioral Finance Works | Manage Change through A PACT | Priority No. 1: Your Mental and Physical Health | Build Stronger Financial Futures with Health Care Planning | Marketing Strategies for Wealth Management Services | Trust Is the Primary Ingredient | Use Goodwill to Maximize Exit Readiness | An Accountant’s Role in Exit Planning | How to Prepare Your Clients’ Kids for Their Inheritance | A Question of Trust: Not Just for the Wealthy | Trust and Estate Planning Is for Clients of All Ages | Annuities and Insurance Growing More Attractive | Bridge the Advice Gap for Better Financial Futures
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According to the American Psychological Association (APA), money has consistently topped Americans’ list of stressors ever since the first Stress in America survey was conducted in 2007. According to the APA:

  • 72 percent of adults report feeling stressed about money at least some of the time
  • 22 percent reported feeling “extreme stress” about money at some point during the past month
  • 26 percent of adults report feeling stressed about money most or all of the time

It shouldn’t be this way and this is where financial advisors can be a huge help.
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How Behavioral Finance Works

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woman and man smiling and talking in business setting

What does money mean to the client?

By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

I decided to call my book “The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management” because leveraging a suite of financial services offerings that work in harmony with each other is a powerful business model that can transform your firm. The transformative power of this model, however, is based on the human side of the advice we provide clients and how we can improve their lives. It’s about shifting the conversation from integrating and delivering services to clients to gaining a deep understanding of a client’s values and what gives them a sense of well-being.

MORE: Manage Change through A PACT | Priority No. 1: Your Mental and Physical Health | Trust Is the Primary Ingredient | How to Prepare Your Clients’ Kids for Their Inheritance | Annuities and Insurance Growing More Attractive | Quantifying the Value of an Advisor | Raise Your Rates to Change Your Clientele | How WealthTech Is Reshaping the Future of Holistic Advice | Profile of a Modern Firm: Putting the Vision into Practice | Tsunami of M&A, PE Is Disrupting the Accounting Profession | Introducing You to a Fulfilling Return on Relationships
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What is behavioral finance?

The Corporate Finance Institute defines behavioral finance as “the study of the influence of psychology on the behavior of investors, as well as on financial analysts.” Dr. Daniel Crosby, chief behavioral officer at Orion, and author of best sellers “The Behavioral Investor” and “The Laws of Wealth: Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success,” takes it a step further.
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What AI CEO’s Warning Means (and Doesn’t) for Accountants

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Five reasons your work is safe … if you’re doing the right work.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued a fresh warning: Some jobs are just going to go away. “Totally, totally gone,” as reported by Techspot. Altman was discussing the effect of artificial intelligence on customer support roles and indicated that entire categories of work could be under threat.

FOR MORE A.I.: Ask the CPA Trendlines AI Chatbot

MORE by Hitendra Patil: The DNA of Advisory-CAS | Advisory Is Not Consulting | What Exactly Is Client Advisory Services? | Review Your CAS Offerings | CAS Prospects Want Proof? You’ve Got That | What AI CEO’s Warning Means (and Doesn’t) for Accountants | Ditch the Sales Pitch | How to Get CAS Clients to Blow Your Horn | Four Questions for Choosing CAS Clients | What Is Your Firm’s Marketable Value? | Seven Tips for CAS Marketing | Twelve Things That Kill Your CAS Profits
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AI eliminating middle-class jobs immediately raises severe concerns. But what does it mean for accountants? While AI automation clearly targets customer support, accounting professionals should naturally wonder if their work is next.

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David Cristello: Growth Breaks Things – and That’s Normal | The Disruptors

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Build the firm you want by hiring only the best.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

True Advisor: Buy now | Learn more

When David Cristello launched Jetpack Workflow in 2016, the market already had plenty of solutions. “Are we too late?” he wondered. But he launched anyway, “and the only reason we launched is because we interviewed so many firms.” These firms told him about the problems with other solutions, and with his founders’ group, he was able to co-create a product that worked.

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-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

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Back then, firms were tracking work on spreadsheets, as many firms today still do, and things were falling through the cracks. However, today’s users have more sophisticated demands. “What used to be just checklists and task lists is now about, what’s the operating system for the firm?” says Cristello.

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