Accounting Today – The Biggest Decisions Young Accountants Have to Make
- Two of the biggest decisions young accountants make include:
- Choosing a firm to work for and
- Deciding between tax, audit, and bookkeeping
- When selecting a firm, key considerations include:
- The firm’s culture, including work/life balance,
- The firm’s willingness and ability to embrace technology and automation, and
- Opportunities for growth within the firm, both vertically and horizontally
- While there are benefits to staying at one firm for a long time, younger generations are more likely to job-hop.
Accounting Today – FieldGuide Bets AI Can Help Fix Accountant Shortage
- The introduction of AI into accounting practices is a crucial step towards alleviating workload pressures and opening up accountants to perform more valuable tasks.
- “The top accounting firms, the so-called Big Four, have collectively pledged billions of dollars for artificial intelligence.”
- “The startup [FieldGuide] is building an array of AI-enabled tools for auditing, fraud detection, compliance and forensic services, to help certified public accountants tackle endless hours of mundane, repetitive tasks.”
- “Former Ernst & Young consultant Jin Chang, who founded the startup in 2020, estimates about 40% of jobs remain unfilled in the audit and advisory industry.”
Accounting Today – Foundational skills for young accountants
Key foundational skills for young accountants include:
- Technology skills:
- Proficiency in data mining, data analytics, data visualization, and data security
- Familiarity with automation, generative AI, and other emerging technologies
- Ability to leverage professional expertise, understand new technologies, and interpret information using critical thinking and analysis
- Proficiency in using spreadsheets
- Communication and soft skills:
- Storytelling and the ability to communicate insights effectively
- Self-marketing and relationship-building skills
- Relatability, attentive listening, and client interaction skills
- Leadership and management skills
- Accounting fundamentals:
- Thorough knowledge of core accounting principles and practices
- Understanding of tax, audit, and accounting specialties
- Adaptability:
- Willingness to learn and adapt to the rapidly changing accounting landscape
- Openness to acquiring new skills and knowledge throughout one’s career
- Interdisciplinary knowledge:
- Courses in humanities to develop critical thinking and interpretive skills
- Minors or electives in sales, marketing, writing, change leadership, change management, or entrepreneurship to foster communication skills
Accounting Today – Voices 3 actions will make you a better people manager
Here are three ways to be a better people manager:
- Provide a Why
- Share:
- The rationale behind decisions,
- The strategic thinking that informs chosen approaches, and
- Why certain paths are avoided.
- This approach:
- Provides clarity,
- Makes tasks more meaningful,
- Enables nuanced decision-making, and
- Cultivates a sense of judgment.
- Share:
- Empower Decision-Making
- Establish clear guardrails by clarifying the boundaries of decision-making for the team.
- Delineate areas where team members can independently make choices versus where they need to seek input or get explicit approvals.
- This provides a sense of autonomy and lays a foundation of trust and transparency.
- Engage the Human Side
- Be intentional in your approach to maintain a closely-knit team regardless of physical distance.
- Have regular one-on-one check-ins, celebrate milestones and successes, and encourage informal interactions.
- This fosters a more connected and high-functioning team.
CFO Dive – AI scales up fraud controls, but humans still vital
- AI and machine learning are transforming the fight against fraud in finance by enabling the analysis of vast amounts of data more efficiently.
- Financial intelligence platforms, like Valid8, offer real-time processing and anomaly detection, which significantly reduce the time and effort required for fraud detection.
- Despite the advances in technology, human oversight remains essential in monitoring systems and interpreting AI-generated alerts.
CPA Practice Advisor – How to Onboard Clients the Right Way
Tips to make your firm’s client onboarding process standardized and efficient, while still providing a tailored experience, include:
- Determine your Ideal Client Profile – Define your ideal client profile so you know which types of clients are the best fit for your firm’s services
- Standardize Your Process – Standardize and document your client onboarding process to ensure it is consistent, efficient, scalable, and easily trainable
- Centralize Documents – Centralize all onboarding documents and resources in one location for better organization and management
- Discuss Goals – Discuss the client’s needs, goals and definition of success to ensure alignment with your firm’s services
- Standardize Questions – Ask the same key questions to each new client to learn about their unique needs in a standardized way
- Set Expectations – Clearly communicate your firm’s availability, response times, deliverables, and client responsibilities to set proper expectations from the start
- Introduce the Team – Introduce the client to the specific team members who will be working on their engagement and give them a chance to ask questions
- Continuously Improve – Optimize and continuously improve your onboarding process over time based on client feedback and results to maximize its effectiveness
CPA Practice Advisor – More Companies Adopt 4-Day Work Week
- Some firms are seeing benefits with respect to attracting and retaining staff after moving to a 4-day workweek.
- Some suggest AI could eventually enable a 3-day workweek.
CPA Practice Advisor – Should You Rehire a Boomerang Employee?
Here are some things to contemplate if you’re considering rehiring a boomerang employee:
- Rehiring boomerang employees can be beneficial if the firm struggles to find talent, as they already know the company, technology, processes, and culture.
- Consider the reasons why the employee left initially.
- If they left due to personal reasons, it may not be a concern.
- However, if they left due to issues with management, career trajectory, or firm culture, ensure that the environment has changed before rehiring.
- Clarify expectations by discussing with the candidate any changes that have taken place since they left regarding the firm’s organizational structure, technology, processes, or policies.
- Clarify the employee’s role, responsibilities, and compensation as the firm may have changed since their departure.
- Conduct an in-depth interview with the boomerang employee, as you would with a new applicant, to ensure that both parties are still a good fit for each other.
- Be aware that there could be more disconnect than anticipated if significant time has passed or the firm has undergone rapid growth since the employee’s departure.
Future Firm – 6 Things Your Clients Hate About Your Accounting Firm
Here are six things clients dislike about their interactions with accounting firms and how to avoid these issues:
- Surprise bills – Nothing frustrates a client more than getting an unexpected bill for work.
- Fix: Clearly communicate scope and price upfront, before delivering the service.
- Last-minute requests – Clients dislike being asked for information or documents right before a deadline.
- Fix: Use a project management system to track tasks and give clients around a one-month lead time for requests needed prior to deadlines.
- Poor communication – A Widespread issue in the industry is using overly complex jargon and not providing proper context or required steps.
- Fix: Explain things in a manner non-sophisticated users would understand, provide summary emails with clear steps clients need to follow, and keep clients informed about upcoming deadlines and their numbers.
- Outdated technology – Using outdated methods, such as sending tax organizers in Word documents, makes things difficult for clients.
- Fix: Use modern apps and technology to make it easier for clients to provide the information needed to perform the job.
- Slow response time – Clients dislike slow responses or emails going unanswered.
- Fix: If dealing with a high volume of emails, set up an automated acknowledgment of receipt. Address any capacity problems that may be causing slow response times.
- Non-proactive accountant – Clients are frustrated by accountants who only reach out once a year and fail to add value.
- Fix: Check in with clients a few times per year, even with a simple email asking how their business is coming along. Proactivity doesn’t have to be complicated.
Future Firm – The Best Staff Accountant Job Description Template
- One of the top issues accounting firms face is staffing, and a recent blog post from Ryan Lazanis at Future Firm shares insights into tweaks you can make to your process that can make a significant difference.
- One of the key insights is to make sure the initial few sentences of your job postings are highly engaging, which can result in far more candidates applying for your firm’s open positions.
Journal of Accountancy – How to best tackle technology and the talent pipeline
- Embrace digital transformation and emerging technologies like AI to stay competitive
- Invest in modern, cloud-based technology infrastructure to enable digital transformation
- Pilot and adopt AI technologies like ChatGPT to automate tasks and gain insights
- Provide training to upskill staff on using new digital tools and technologies
- Develop a multi-faceted approach to finding, retaining, and upskilling talent
- Implement apprenticeship and internship programs to build your firm’s talent pipeline
- Offer competitive compensation and benefits to attract and retain top performers
- Provide ongoing learning and development opportunities to grow the skills of your staff
- Foster an engaging, flexible work culture in a hybrid environment
Rosenberg & Associates – Truth is Never Disrespectful
Here are some insights regarding how to enhance your communications, including how to hold other partners accountable for the multifaceted nature of their work.
- Deliver Truth With Tact – When addressing issues with partners or staff, manage the message carefully. Be direct about the problem, but do so in a constructive, respectful way focused on finding mutually beneficial solutions.
- Hold Partners Accountable for all Duties, not Just Client Production – While maintaining a profitable client base is crucial, partners must also be held responsible for other vital activities like firm management, mentoring staff, developing specialties, fostering teamwork, and demonstrating a strong work ethic.
- Address Performance Issues Promptly – When problems arise with partner behavior (e.g., acting like solos, poor billing practices, complaining to staff, overworking, last-minute delegation, ignoring feedback), management should intervene quickly to get the issues resolved.
- Take a Positive, Collaborative Approach to Problem-Solving – When confronting a partner about an issue, avoid accusations or punitive threats. Instead, engage them with questions like “How can we work together to resolve this? How can I help you?”
- Recognize That Great Performers Want Direct Feedback – While average performers may prefer to avoid scrutiny, the most successful people actively seek out coaching and honest critiques. Foster a culture that delivers thoughtful, truthful feedback to help people grow.
- Develop Strong Management and Leadership Skills – Running a firm requires the ability to work well with people, set expectations, uphold core values, and inspire respect. Partners who lack these fundamental skills will struggle in leadership roles.
