CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

Is It Time for Your Firm to Outsource?

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Businessman holding up magnifying glass

Twelve clues to help you decide, plus the three categories of risk.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

When you are the key person to make things happen at your firm, you want to invest as much time in “business development” (not just marketing and sales) as humanly possible. Your firm’s growth will make you feel that producing and delivering your services is an essential core business function for you, but some of it is not. Freeing up yourself to spend more time focusing on the things that add value to your practice, and help set it apart from the competition is an essential differentiating growth strategy you will ever deploy. The same principle applies to your experienced, talented staff.

MORE: CAS Tech Stack Depends on Cloud Use | Five Ways to Overcome CAS Staffing Challenges | Think CAS Isn’t for Your Firm? | Convince Your Firm of CAS Value | Ten Ways to Tell a Client Is Ready for CAS | Launch CAS in Just Eight Steps | Who Is the Professional?
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You will build your CAS practice on newer, cloud, collaborative technologies. It will help you automate many routine functions and optimize your operating costs. But you still need competent people to manage, nurture and strengthen your client services and advisory functions.
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Be the Flywheel to Increase Revenue

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“This will be the largest transfer of wealth the nation has ever seen in such a short period of time.”

By Rory Henry, CFP®, BFA

Henry

Rory Henry is a Director at Arrowroot Family Office and host of the Wealth Management Forward podcast. He can be reached to discuss ways to integrate financial planning into your practice through the CPA Partnership program at (310) 566-5865 or at rory@arrowrootfamilyoffice.com.

The financial advice business is undergoing significant change, particularly in the accounting and wealth management sectors. The arrival of private equity firms, combined with the rise of M&A and rapid advancements in technology, has shifted the landscape considerably. While these changes are unsettling to some practitioners, I view them as opportunities.

MORE: Four Core Principles for Elite Wealth Management | Why You Need a Team of Experts | Why a Virtual Family Office? Why Now? | Is Your Client’s Umbrella Big Enough? | Your Client’s Instincts Are Wrong | Preserving Wealth Is a Different Mindset | Three Approaches to Investment Consulting
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In many ways, a CPA is a flywheel at the center of the financial advisory engine. All the other providers and advisors rotate around the CPA, and together they build momentum as the firm expands its offerings and as the advice engine gains speed and confidence.

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Four Simple Game-Changers to Modernize Your Practice

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Focus on the client experience.

By Blake Oliver
with David Leary

My mom is in her 70s and still gets the taxes organized for her household. She’s been using the same 10-partner firm for the past 30 years. Like many small firms, hers had no succession plan, so it recently merged with a big firm – top 25. As you may imagine, her recent tax season experience was disappointing. She submitted all her documents on time and then didn’t hear anything from her new accountant for weeks. Finally, she received a return to review and was shocked to see herself marked down as blind. My mom is NOT blind. There were other errors in her return, including a missing real estate transaction. Clearly, it had not gone through a proper review process.

MORE: Nine Ways to Measure Client Experience | How the Pandemic Changed Firm Mindsets | Twelve Clues It’s Time to Outsource or Offshore | Yes, You Have the Staffing for CAS | Why Firms Shy Away from CAS | Hook Your Firm on CAS | Can You Identify Real CAS Prospects? | 8 Ways to Create Your CAS Practice | Do You Value Your CAS Value?
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My mind exploded, wondering how such a large, well-known firm didn’t have a better quality control process in place. I’m guessing they didn’t even have a workflow management solution. After sharing this story with several CPAs at other large firms, I learned that my mom’s situation was not all that unusual.

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How to Match CAS Clients to Technology

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The key: Once data is created, don’t re-create it.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

Client accounting services essentially requires an ability for your firm to be able to best serve the needs of all your clients. In other words, your firm’s technology stack, services, processes and pricing packages need to cater to businesses of different sizes, turnovers, as well as various levels of tech-savvyness of the business owners and their employees. In yet other words, your firm should have the ability to do part of the accounting work or all the work your clients offload to your firm.

MORE: CAS Tech Stack Depends on Cloud Use | Five Ways to Overcome CAS Staffing Challenges | Think CAS Isn’t for Your Firm? | Convince Your Firm of CAS Value | Ten Ways to Tell a Client Is Ready for CAS | Launch CAS in Just Eight Steps
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In such cases, you want the technology stack to be as standardized as possible to avoid costly, error-prone and time-consuming need to deal with a variety of software. At the same time, when clients do part of the work, you must seek to implement collaborative technology on the cloud to eliminate duplication of data entry and mailing/emailing information back and forth between your firm and clients. This will, most likely, require you to convince your clients of the benefits of common, collaborative, cloud technology platform, and more likely than not, train the clients onto newer technologies. But the experience of hundreds of firms shows that the payoff far outweighs the cost of such efforts.
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CAS Tech Stack Depends on Cloud Use

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Five keys for planning.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

Your firm’s current processes/procedures adapted to your current technology stack, or vice versa. Trying to “fit in” client accounting services into your existing technology stack may become a challenge for you – not just from a procedural point of view but also from a profitability point of view. If your current technology stack is still more of desktop software, it could be nearly impossible for you to offer CAS as profitably as potentially possible with non-desktop solutions.

MORE: Five Ways to Overcome CAS Staffing Challenges | Raise CAS Awareness Among Your Clients | Which Clients Are Best for CAS | How Much Can Automating Bank Feeds Save You? | Wants vs. Needs: Why Not Fill Both? | Get Sticky with CAS
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Before you start thinking, “oh gosh, this is going to be a hugely expensive technological overhaul of my firm,” stop. CAS does need you to adapt to an optimal technology mix, but it does not mean you just throw away your current technology and bring in entirely new technology. CAS does not need a technological transformation of your firm. Depending upon your existing technology stack, it may only require some reorganization, integration and adjustment.
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Unleashing the Power of Technology: Transforming Accountants into Trusted Advisors

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The smartest route to advisory:
Join the survey. Get the roadmap

Imagine the possibilities.

By Donny Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
The Center for Accounting Transformation

In today’s rapidly evolving world, technology is revolutionizing the way we work and live. Accountants and CPAs are no exception.

MORE DONNY SHIMAMOTO:  How Trusted Advisors Transform Businesses | The Future of Accounting: A Vision of Trust, Clarity, and Hope | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | AI, OCR, NLP & CPAs: Oh My!   |  Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in Audit | Dustin Wheeler: For Serious CAS Success, Hire Tech Teams | CSR for CPAs: The Missing Ingredient | Donny Shimamoto Explains How ‘Agile’ Applies to CPA Firms |  Staff Retention for Remote Workers | Why the Future is in Risk Advisory |  Ready for Non-CPA “CPA” Firms?
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We need to embrace the power of technology to enhance our services and better serve our clients as advisors. By leveraging technology and focusing on the complicated work that bots can’t do, accountants become trusted advisors, building deeper relationships and unlocking their full potential.

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Why Compliance Still Matters. But It’s Not Enough.

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Resistance is futile… and silly because it’s necessary for the profession.

The smartest route to advisory:
Join the survey. Get the roadmap

By Donny Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
The Center for Accounting Transformation

In the world of accounting, compliance work is often seen as the unglamorous side of the profession. But what if I told you that compliance is the heart and soul of accounting, the unsung hero that makes advisory work possible?

MORE DONNY SHIMAMOTO:  How Trusted Advisors Transform Businesses | The Future of Accounting: A Vision of Trust, Clarity, and Hope | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | AI, OCR, NLP & CPAs: Oh My!   |  Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in Audit | Dustin Wheeler: For Serious CAS Success, Hire Tech Teams | CSR for CPAs: The Missing Ingredient | Donny Shimamoto Explains How ‘Agile’ Applies to CPA Firms |  Staff Retention for Remote Workers | Why the Future is in Risk Advisory |  Ready for Non-CPA “CPA” Firms?
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Let’s explore the importance of compliance work in the accounting profession and why it’s time for us to stop minimizing its significance. READ MORE →

Five Ways to Overcome CAS Staffing Challenges

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number 5 drawn in sandQuestion your processes at every step.

By Hitendra Patil
Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide

When we asked firms what is stopping you from offering client accounting services, their top response was that they don’t have the staffing.

MORE: Raise CAS Awareness Among Your Clients | Five Ways to Profit from CAS | CAS Is a Value Pitch | Accountants Are Perfect for Virtual CFO Roles | Raise Client Expectations with CAS
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The #1 CAS killer that emerged from the CAS survey results is, unfortunately, also the most misconceived perception. It is a myth.
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