CPA Trendlines

Today's Features

Five Ways to Grow New Service Lines

You may have to manage them differently.

By Sarah Johnson Dobek
Inovautus Consulting

As more and more CPA firms venture into consulting services, they will be faced with the question of how they should expand their non-traditional services. Some of the more common service areas include technology, wealth management and specialized consulting services for a niche or industry.

MORE: How Crisis Illuminates Your Biz Dev Skills | Take the Pressure of ‘Selling’ Out of ‘Cross-selling’ | Don’t Confuse Marketing with Biz Dev | Business Development and Sales Aren’t Scary
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As firms look to these affiliated service lines and entities to be part of their growth, the move often presents some major challenges. Here are a few tips to help avoid or address some of the most common challenges.
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CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

How To CAS: First, Break Bad Habits

You’re providing more than reports.

By Hitendra Patil
The Definitive Success Guide to Client Accounting Services

A successful client accounting services practice requires increased interactions with clients. Your usual non-CAS methods of client communications are not sufficient to meet the demands and expectations of your CAS clients. You must leverage new tech tools to reach out, communicate and collaborate with clients more frequently.

MORE: How Much CAS Profit Per Person? | Five Reasons the Top 100 Loves CAS | Look Backward for Your CAS Processes | Make Sure Your Differentiation Is Truly Different | Is It Time to Outsource? | Your Firm’s CAS Team: Who and How Many | Two Tech Approaches to CAS | When to Start Building Your CAS Tech Stack | Stop Derailing CAS | Show Your Priciest CAS Package First
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Some accounting software can help you automate client notifications (by email/text) based on customized triggers set up in the software. Similarly, automated payroll software can keep clients informed automatically. Mobile apps of core accounting software are becoming a necessity to deliver client service and communications.

Why?
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NEWS

Hurling Satellites into Space without Rockets

Yes, NASA has a plan for that.

Watch how SpinLaunch flings payloads into space.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

Every satellite put into orbit in the history of spaceflight has relied on rockets. Now a company called SpinLaunch is celebrating the first successful test launch for its kinetic launch system, a method that instead uses a massive accelerator, larger than the Statue of Liberty and powered by an electric centrifuge, that flings a payload into space like a discus.

MORE in TECH: The Big Issues in Audit: Frustration, Inconsistency, and Technology | Why Doing Nothing Is Not an Option | The Key that Unlocks Client Advisory Services | New Insights on Emerging Technologies and People Issues

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NASA has noticed, and is climbing on board with a testing program,

Rob Brown: Doing Nothing Is Not an Option | The Disruptors

The Disruptors: If we don’t change, we’ll be irrelevant, says Rob Brown.

Follow CPA Trendlines Podcasts on Apple Podcasts here or grab the RSS feed here.

With Liz Farr
for CPA Trendlines

It’s a changing world, and if we don’t change with it, we will cease to be relevant, U.K.-based accounting podcaster Rob Brown tells CPA Trendlines’ Liz Farr.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free | Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Private Equity vs. the CPA Firm Partnership The FinTech Flood: Accounting Will Never Be the Same | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | Your Sales Tax Headaches Are Only Just Beginning | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson | Turning Client Service into New Revenue

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A host of the Accounting Influencers podcast, Brown says what got us here won’t get us there in the fight to be relevant in our practices, with our clients and in our careers. Brown’s podcasting partner is Martin Bissett, a CPA Trendlines contributor and world-renowned growth advisor to accounting firms.

CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

When Good Things Happen

Be open to unexpected opportunities.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

My friend Al is a sole practitioner with seven staff members and a thriving audit practice, besides the typical tax and small business tax clients.

MORE: When an Employee’s Growth Has Gaps | My First Trainee | The Growing Pains of a Small Firm | Giving Clients the Best You’ve Got | Why MAP Programs Are Essential | How to Become a Specialist | Secrets in Specialties | Making Sure the Son Got Proper Credit | Yes, Shirt Logos Can Matter | 10 More Reasons CPAs Quit Public Accounting | Family Trees of Clients
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He is getting older, and while he has no plans to retire and is actively trying to grow his practice, he periodically meets with larger firms to see if there is an interest in acquiring his practice when that day comes. By doing this he stumbled on a fantastic business development formula.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

The Key that Unlocks Client Advisory Services

Which of the five types will you deploy?

COMING SOON:
Profit in Disruption
A Special Report by Gary Bolinger.
Click here to be notified when it’s ready.

By Gary Bolinger
Profit in Disruption

An annual strategic review is key to a structured advisory services practice. The review provides an annual event where everyone’s attention is focused.

MORE: If You Can’t Explain It, No One Will Buy It | The Three Types of Advisory Services Clients Need Today | You Can’t Separate the Business from the Client | Tell Managers What Ownership Means | Clients: What Accountants Don’t Understand | Why Accountants Fail at Consulting
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The review can follow the annual financial report or precede when budgets are being put together. The annual strategic review articulates and confirms your strategic role. And make no mistake, the annual strategic review delivers a process to secure recurring fees and upon which to hang your advisory hat. The client receives a copy of the plan and then the fun starts when you support them in the implementation of their plans, one project at a time and one action at a time. Billable time.
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FEATURED

How Crisis Illuminates Your Biz Dev Skills

Relationships remain king.

By Sarah Johnson Dobek
Inovautus Consulting

A common turn of phrase is that a crisis reveals our character in how we respond. While that may be true in some respects, I believe what a crisis actually uncovers is how effective we are with our skills. The question is, what is this crisis revealing about your CPA firm’s business development skills?

MORE: Take the Pressure of ‘Selling’ Out of ‘Cross-selling’ | Don’t Confuse Marketing with Biz Dev | Business Development and Sales Aren’t Scary
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It’s easy to sell when selling is easy. You don’t have to be as effective; skills don’t have to be as honed. Frankly, it’s easier to get by with mediocre skills.
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FEATURED

Keep Clever from Turning Fraudulent

Turn stress testing into a profitable revenue stream.

By Anthony Glomski and Russ Alan Prince
Your $5-Million High-Net-Worth Practice

For the extremely wealthy, financial stress testing is quite common. Just consider the following case.

MORE: Six Benefits of Family Offices | How to Profit by Being a Thought Leader | The Best Wealth Coaching Candidates | Opportunities within COVID-19 | Clients Who Prefer Obscurity | Four Steps of Stress Testing | The Smart Way to Handle Financial Products
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A super-rich individual (net worth = $500 million or more) asked us to examine a tax mitigation strategy he was using. He was quite proud of how ingenious it was and how well it worked. The complication was that some of his business dealings were under scrutiny, and he wanted to make sure his wealth planning would not cause any problems. As part of this tax strategy, he had done several things:
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FEATURED

Civility Goes a Long Way

Bad reputations spread more quickly now.

By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals

Technology has overtaken the traditional forms of communication that include face-to-face interaction, telephone conversations and of course, the handwritten or typed note slipped into an envelope, affixed with a stamp and dropped in the mailbox.

MORE: Don’t Overlook Office Relationships | How to Deliver Authentic Value | Making the Jump from Small to Mid-Sized Firm | What Sets Your Firm Apart … If Anything? | Why Deadlines Get Missed | Too Busy? You May Need to Reprioritize | Is It Time to Outsource? | Five Reasons You’re Not SWOT-Ready | Who Needs Another Meeting? | 4 Questions for CPA Firm Boards
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But wait. How can professionals succeed if the situation calls for in-person interaction if they have not been given the necessary training in the art of a conversation? Whether you are involved in a job interview or entertaining a potential client over a meal, how you exercise the appropriate behavior will determine whether a relationship is forged or tossed on the pile of failed results.
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The Seller’s Guide to Getting the Best Price for Your Firm

Featuring Ira Rosenbloom, CPA (LR), “The Merger Master”

A CPA Trendlines Flash Briefing: Rapid-fire 30-minute how-to, followed by an all-questions-answered discussion with participants.

Stream the video or listen to the podcast: Follow CPA Trendlines Podcasts on Apple Podcasts here or grab the RSS feed here.

With Rick Telberg
for CPA Trendlines

CPA firm M&A advisor Ira Rosenbloom presents “The Seller’s Guide to Getting the Best Price for Your Firm,” a Flash Briefing webinar hosted by Rick Telberg for CPA Trendlines.

PRO Members: Get the Top Take-Aways, the Transcript, and the slide deck download, with a bonus “12-Point Checklist for Seller Readiness:”

PRO Members: Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

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FEATURED

Four Strategies for a Future-Ready Firm

Embrace these to ensure you remain relevant.

By Donny C. Shimamoto
The Center for Accounting Transformation

A recent article from Harvard Business Review, “What Makes a Company Future-Ready?”, shared insights from multiple industries in looking at which companies adapted and thrived versus those that didn’t perform as well.

Related: The Changes Ahead for Corporate Finance | Top Issues for 2022: Talent, Time, and Transformation

Learn more about the Center’s Audit Advisory Board or view the Center’s transformation courses.

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As I read through the article, I couldn’t help but think, “How would these insights apply to accounting firms and the future of accounting?” READ MORE →

ABOUT US

Grunden, Zecca, Minkler Ink Anders Deal

The merger joins Jody Grunden, author of “Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud,” with Bob Minkler’s top 100 super-regional.

Minkler cites CPA Trendlines for sparking the deal.

Summit CPA co-founders Jody Grunden and Adam Hale and all 60 staff members are joining St. Louis-based Anders, bringing Anders’ total partners and staff to 335 with revenue of $60 million.

Anthony Zecca, CEO of Growth Path Partners LLC, and author of CPA Trendlines’ “Leading from the Edge,” advised Anders on the transaction. Zecca was instrumental in connecting Anders and Summit, and he will continue to serve as an advisor as the merger solidifies and grows. Zecca is a retired partner of CohnReznick and was managing partner of the firm’s Advisory Group.

More Grunden here | See “Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud” by Grunden
More Zecca here | See “Leading from the Edge” by Zecca

Founded in 2002, Summit has been a pioneer of remote work in the accounting industry since 2013. By offering virtual CFO services, including cash flow management, business tax planning and financial forecasting, Summit has grown fast to $8.5 million, approximately doubling in size every three years since 2010 and has been recognized by Inc. 5000. Anders has also grown rapidly through the addition of advisory services, new industry lines, organically and through mergers, doubling to over $51 million since 2013.

FEATURED

Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success

Plus four challenges to address.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

I’ve been focusing on the leadership accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors. We began with strategy, then empowerment. This third post will address the critical element that makes empowerment work – accountability.

MORE: The Art of Leadership: Empowerment | The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy
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A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone and understanding that as a leader, your responsibility is to lead and not manage. If you are the type of leader that manages, you own accountability since you can’t manage and empower at the same time. As I defined it in my previous post, a simple definition for empowerment that applies to all organizations is, “Authority or power given to someone to do something.”
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