10 big ideas for accountants

June 19, 2023 10:52 AM

For every challenge that accounting firms face (and there are plenty) there are strategies out there to help — and many of them were the subject of discussion at the American Institute of CPAs' mammoth Engage '23 conference.

Held in Las Vegas at the beginning of June, the event featured a host of practitioners, consultants, regulators and other experts sharing ideas, insights, strategies, tactics and best practices; below are 10 of our favorites.

Start tax season right

With capacity issues looming over the profession and firms looking to better manage their client rosters, Amber Goering, president of Goering & Granatino in Leawood, Kansas, shared a pre-tax season client strategy from a fellow practitioner that allows him to manage his cash flow, his clients and his capacity all at the same time: "He sends out letters to clients in January saying, 'Here's what we expect your tax prep fee to be; if you pay it now, you can be a client, and we'll bill you for any excess.'"

"And he didn't lose anyone!" she added — though he's in much better shape to manage his tax season.

Talk like a business owner

A picture of William Pirolli at AICPA Engage 2023

Pirolli at Engage 2023

Once, while going over the details of their company for him, one of William Pirolli's clients paused and said, "Bill, you probably don't understand this, because you don't run a business."

At the time, Pirolli was a partner at DiSanto, Priest & Co., one of the leading firms in New England, but his client didn't see him as a business owner like him. From that moment on, Pirolli said, "I began to communicate with my clients as a fellow businessman — 'Yes, we have that same problem. Everything that you're talking about as a problem or an opportunity is a problem or opportunity for me.'"

Clients already trust their accountants as providers of expert advice; making it clear that you also share their challenges and frustrations as business owners can only deepen that trust, and give greater weight to your advice.

Take a lesson from teachers

Jennifer Wilson

One of the problems firms have with hiring for tax season is the worry that they won't have enough work for seasonal hires to do during the summer. "What if you said, 'We have a 'Summer's Off' program, where you get six to eight weeks off during the summer?'" asked Jennifer Wilson, a partner at ConvergenceCoaching. "We don't have to run our mother's or father's accounting firm."

Think inside the box

Erik Asgeirsson, Barry Melancon, Lisa Simpson, Kimberly Ellison-Taylor and Alex Door at Engage 2023

Alex Dorr (far right) at Engage 2023

It's common to suggest that staff think "outside the box," but this often leads to impractical suggestions that are rejected because of budgetary or hiring constraints. "If you ask for answers and then refuse them, your employees are going to stop playing," explained Alex Dorr, vice president of people evolution at Reality-Based Leadership. "Thinking outside the box leads to an argument with reality, and you're going to lose that 100% of the time."

Instead, Door suggests asking for suggestions that are inside a box of clearly delineated rules: "Draw up the reality and the constraints, and have everyone come up with their answers within those."

Who are your MP's clients?

According to David Wurtzbacher, founder of private-equity-backed firm platform Ascend, managing partners should pare down their list of clients to just one. "We are trying to elevate the MP to a true CEO of the firm," he explained. "They should have one client — the firm they're leading, as opposed to hundreds of clients to deal with."

Accountants don't know about accounting firms

Pirolli at Engage 2023

William Pirolli, who's now executive vice president of firm services at the Succession Institute, has given countless classes on the economics of how accounting firms work to both staff and partners — because so many of them really don't understand what makes their employers' tick and how they make money. In his session at Engage, he recommended teaching young accountants in particular everything from where clients come from and which ones are valuable, to what the firm's budget looks like, and which KPIs the firm tracks, and more.

Turnover as KPI

Accounting firms pay a lot of attention to realization and utilization rates, revenue per partner and FTE, and the like — but one number they may not be paying enough attention to is the rate at which they lose people. Michael Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work, argued at Engage that the importance of turnover rates as a key performance indicator is being elevated. "Turnover used to be just an HR statistic," he said. "Now it's a business statistic."

Find your ‘Wow’ factor

Jennifer Wilson at Engage 2023

Everyone knows staff are hard to find, and simply offering market-rate salaries, hybrid work environments, and "flexibility" isn't enough. To attract them, you need to have what Jennifer Wilson calls the "Wow" factor — one or perhaps two characteristics that really differentiate you from all the other firms that are out there competing for the same talent.

Aside from the "Summer's Off" program mentioned above, Wilson threw out some examples of genuine differentiators:

How about not tracking time (though this won't be a differentiator for long, as more firms are forced away from the billable hour)?
Or being deeply committed to alternative career paths that are customized for each employee?
Or guaranteeing that staff will never work overtime?

Rethink your competition

Michael Horwitz

It's not just the CPA firm down the street that wants to take your business — and it's more than just the big regional firms or the Big Four: In an environment where technology plays an ever-greater role in what accountants can do, the barriers to entry to the professional services marketplace are dropping rapidly.

"You can't go very many days without reading an article about a new vendor that's prepared to serve our profession," warned Michael Horwitz, executive director of the BDO Alliance, in a session at Engage. "They'll continue to evolve and grow, and you might think, 'This isn't my competition,' but I would challenge you to think differently about what exactly your competition is."

The Taxpayer Advocate wants you!

Collins at Engage 2023

When there's a processing problem with a single client's return, chances are it's a problem with the return; when the same processing problem shows up on multiple returns, chance are it's a problem at the IRS — and tax pros are perfectly positioned to identify these types of issues.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins — who, in her 20 years or so in tax at KPMG noticed more than her share of these kinds of systemic glitches — offered a particularly effective way for you to get these problems fixed for your clients (and everyone else's): The Taxpayer Advocate Service's Systemic Advocacy Management System, or SAMS — an online platform for highlighting problems that the TAS can then get the IRS to fix.

(See more on her session

here