Is Your Firm Real-Time?

If you’re a CPA and you are serious about being the firm of the future, you should read Rob Nixon’s Remaining Relevant:The Future of the Accounting Profession. Rob is CEO of Panalitix, an Australian-based firm that uses cloud software to enable accountants to offer real time business advisory services to their clients. He has coached accountants how to run profitable and efficient firms since 1986.

Redundant or Real Time

Nixon designates firms as either Redundant or Real-Time, citing these examples:

Redundant firms are noted for late delivery of services, with little follow-up. They rarely call or visit clients, preferring to wait for something to “happen.” The bulk of their work is in compliance, and they run their businesses from their hard drives.

Real-time accountants, by contrast, deliver services immediately and make systematic follow-up calls and visits to their clients. They operate from the Cloud and the majority of their work is advisory.

How CPA Firms Work: The Business of Public Accounting, is a primer that explains how CPA firms work as a business. It is primarily intended for staff that have just joined a firm. We address ►CPA firm economics/how firms make money, ►trends in the CPA profession, ►what it takes for staff to advance, ►the image of CPA firms, ►how firms are managed, ►how firms get clients, ►what attracts staff to CPA firms and other issues.

Chapter Three is eye-opening. Nixon surveyed 428 business owners on what they want from their accountants.

What sort of accountant would you prefer?
- Real time 93%
- Redundant 7%

Would you prefer more face-to-face contact with your accountant if there was value in the meeting?
- Yes 62%
- No 38%

How often do you receive a proactive call from your accountant checking in to see how things are going?
- Never 40%
- Once/twice/year 37%
- 3 or more/year 23%

How often would you like to be proactively called, for free, by your accountant, checking in to see how things are going?
- 1-2 times/year 53%
- 3 or more/year 35%
- Never 12%

If you gave advice to your accountant on running his/her firm, which would you choose?
- Offer more services to improve my business 39%
- Focus more on the future than the past 22%
- Be more transparent with your pricing 17%
- Improve your service level 14%

How does your accountant deliver your year-end financials and tax return?
- By mail or email 52%
- Face to face 45%
- Don’t know 3%

- This is what accountants should be doing 9%
- Very interested 15%
- Worth discussing 38%
- Quite interested 16%
- Not interested 21%If your accountant used technology to keep an eye on your financials and key performance indicators in real time, then sent you alerts and advice if something went off track, assuming this was reasonably priced, how interested would you be in pursuing it?

Sounds to me like you have the impetus for re-engineering your firms.

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Marc Rosenberg is a nationally known consultant, author and speaker on CPA firm management, strategy and partner issues. President of his own Chicago-based consulting firm, The Rosenberg Associates, he is founder of the most authoritative annual survey of mid-sized CPA firm performance statistics in the country, The Rosenberg Survey. He has consulted with hundreds of firms throughout his 20+ year consulting career. He shares his expertise regularly on The Marc Rosenberg Blog.