Accounting Today – CPA Planners Urge More Tax Pros to Adopt Wealth Management
- The American Institute of CPAs added personal financial planning questions to the CPA exam, fueling hopes that more tax professionals will provide holistic wealth management services.
- “The reality is that as financial advisors are increasingly migrating toward a deeper level of estate and tax planning advice, the CPA world has been migrating increasingly towards financial planning.”
Accounting Today – Gen AI Expected to Grow, Not Shrink, Headcount
- “One thing is certain: Companies are reshaping their workforce to be more AI savvy.”
Accounting Today – How AI is Transforming Accounting
- AI has become a key part of almost everyone’s working life, with 90% of respondents using it in some form.
- “Most CPAs have seen the power of ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot and the progress these large language models have made in the past year.”
- “The growth and capabilities of AI are exponential, rather than incremental, and will transform the accounting profession in many ways.”
Accounting Today – Voices 5 Steps to Mastering a Holistic Services Model
- The proven holistic service model involves providing proactive advisory services to your clients.
- Key elements for building a holistic service model include:
- Embracing advanced cloud technologies and artificial intelligence
- Building a team with diverse skills beyond traditional accounting
- Implementing value-based pricing
- Cultivating a culture of innovation and flexibility
Accounting Today – Voices AI and Accounting: What’s Next?
- “The profession’s function of extracting data from documents and analyzing them against a predefined set of rules (e.g., the Tax Code) seems to be a perfect use case for AI.”
- “The problem that every actual practitioner knows is that documents require a lot of chasing and when they finally come in, they’re in various forms, including poorly taken images, messy books and endless unnecessary pages from financial institutions.”
- “Additionally, quality accounting requires an extremely high degree of data accuracy.”
- “Because of these challenges, the tools that will most immediately impact the accounting space are those that aim to augment human capabilities, rather than replace them.”
Accounting Today – Voices Art of Accounting: How to Make Clients Your Sales Team
- Some tips to increase referrals to your firm include the following:
- Let clients know they want to grow and would appreciate referrals
- Develop materials for clients to use when referring, such as fact sheets, blogs, memos, and speech handouts related to niches your firm covers.
- “You have to let clients know you want to grow and would appreciate any referrals.”
- “We changed the way we spoke and learned to never say we are busy or too busy and now we say, ‘We are doing quite well but are looking to grow,’ followed by ‘and we would always appreciate referrals. They are important to us.’”
- “Postal mailed information that is not immediately thrown away will linger for a while in sight of the recipient, giving it a much greater shelf life than an email.”
Accounting Today – Voices Small things to show clients some love
- When you complete a significant engagement with a client, or after tax season, consider facilitating the ability of your staff to show your clients appreciation.
- When these gestures come from the individual the client worked with most closely, it can be more impactful.
- This could be as simple as having your staff send handwritten appreciation cards or postcards to clients, or you could do something more elaborate, including a small gift.
- Either way, the gesture will seem more sincere if each of these gestures of appreciation references something specific or unique about the client, the client’s family, or a positive or interesting aspect of the engagement.
Boomer Consulting – Changing Work/Life Balance Expectations in the Accounting Profession
- “Managers need new metrics for measuring productivity that don’t rely solely on physical presence in the office.”
Boomer Consulting – Invest in Project Management Training for Your Team
- Investing in project management training can enhance accounting firms’ operational efficiency.
- A structured project management approach helps anticipate risks, manage resources, and meet deadlines.
- Project management training offers benefits such as helping with goal setting, budgeting, communication, and quality assurance.
- Firms can provide project management training through certifications, workshops, webinars, and internal sessions.
Boomer Consulting – Learn from the Best in a Peer Community
- Joining a peer community offers numerous benefits for leaders in the accounting profession.
- Collective problem-solving multiplies resources and helps resolve complex issues more efficiently.
- Informal connections with peers often lead to breakthroughs and accelerated solutions.
- Peer communities provide a platform for sharing knowledge and strategies beyond one’s own firm.
- Participating in a peer community is about collective elevation, not handing over competitive advantages.
- Leaders face a choice between growth through shared wisdom or stagnation through isolation.
- “Leaders in the accounting profession can benefit from the wisdom of peers who have faced similar challenges and overcome them.”
- “Imagine joining 30 other Managing Partners, HR Directors, or CIOs in one room, each bringing their own perspectives and experiences to the table.”
- “If you’re struggling with a challenging problem in your firm, it might take months to overcome alone. However, if you bring up this challenge in a conversation with a peer, you suddenly find a solution in a matter of minutes.”
- “Ultimately, the question you need to ask yourself isn’t whether you can afford to join a peer community but whether you can afford not to.”
CFO Dive – Internal Audit Leaders Need to Hire More Tech-Savvy Accountants: IIA
- Internal audit will evolve beyond providing assurance to encompass a broader advisory and business strategy focus.
CPA Practice Advisor – Marketing for Growth – 4 Tips for Firms
Some ways to grow your firm include the following:
- Understand Clients’ Needs Through Conversations – Stay close to clients and have one-on-one discussions to deeply understand their stressors, dreams, and goals to obtain the best insights on growth opportunities.
- Align Messaging with Trends and Needs – Frame marketing messages around how your solutions address clients’ current pain points and help them grow now.
- Consistently Engage Through Multiple Channels – Deliver your message regularly through various touchpoints like calls, emails, events, and social media to nurture relationships and remind clients of the value you can provide them.
- Leverage Authentic, Cost-Effective Marketing Tactics – Use tools and resources you have to engage with clients and potential clients on LinkedIn and other platforms. Create and share educational content and insights, and base the content you share around your authentic brand identity.
CPA Practice Advisor – More Than a Tech Upgrade: How AI Investments Can Sharpen a CPA Firm’s Competitive Edge
Some ways your firm can use AI include the following:
- Automate Routine Tasks Using IPA – Intelligent process automation (IPA) streamlines complex work like tax preparation and payroll, reducing errors and improving quality.
- Identify Trends and Risks – Advanced data models and predictive analytics help identify financial trends, assess risks, and assist in providing clients with strategic advice.
- Detect Financial Anomalies Using ML – Machine learning algorithms can analyze large datasets to detect anomalies.
- Enhance Client Service – Generative AI can provide personalized financial advice, automate routine client communications, and create tailored content for clients.
Future Firm – Perfection Doesn’t Scale
Why perfectionism can hinder accounting firms:
- Perfectionism Doesn’t Scale – As the firm grows, seeking perfection in every aspect becomes infeasible and can stunt growth.
- Perfectionism Leads to Micromanagement – Firm owners may feel the need to review and approve every task, even if it’s immaterial, leading to inefficient use of time.
- Perfectionism Comes at a High Cost – Striving for perfection in all areas of the business can result in firm owners working far more than they would like.
Practical tips to overcome perfectionism:
- Determine What’s “Good Enough” – Consider whether minor imperfections will significantly impact clients or the business, and focus on delivering high-quality work that meets standards without being perfect.
- Define Roles, Expectations, and Processes – Spend time establishing clear roles, expectations, and systems for the team to follow, allowing firm owners to step back and focus on more important items.
- Pick Your Battles Wisely – Recognize when near-perfection is required (e.g., tax audits) and when “good enough” is sufficient (e.g., blog posts), and allocate time and resources accordingly.
- Work on Relinquishing Control – Become more comfortable with the team taking the reins and doing things their way, as long as it aligns with the firm’s standards and processes.
Karbon – Tips for Conquering Your Accounting Firm’s Busy Season
Some ways your firm can “conquer” busy season include the following:
- Manage Expectations – Communicate clearly with clients about required documents, deadlines, and expectations.
- Assess Your Bandwidth – Evaluate past performance and current resources to avoid overcommitting to work that is beyond your firm’s current capacity.
- Quality Over Quantity – Focus on deepening relationships with high-value clients who align with your firm’s goals and expertise.
- Pricing Strategies – Consider hourly-rate, fixed-rate, or value-based pricing models to ensure you are properly compensated for the value of your services.
- Invest in Technology – Utilize cloud-based accounting practice management tools and other helpful technology resources.
- Embrace Automation – Automate tasks such as client reminders, onboarding processes, data collection, and app integration.
- Leverage AI – Use AI for tasks like email composition, task automation, and research to improve accuracy and efficiency.
- Keep Meetings Concise – Limit meetings to 5-10 minutes on a single topic to avoid wasting time and maintain focus.
- Address Common Challenges – Proactively tackle issues like client delays, increased workload, changing tax regulations, communication gaps, and staffing shortages.
