Opsahl Dawson, one of Accounting Today's
"We built our website maybe 10 years ago," said CEO Aaron Dawson. "But the firm has since doubled, if not tripled, in size, and if we wanted to continue to revitalize ourselves in the business, we thought one of the best ways to do that is to come out with a new fresh business look that represents who the new Opsahl Dawson is. "
Opsahl Dawson was the founding firm in the Ascend platform, which the PE firm Alpine Investors
He predicted another 15 to 18 firms will be signing up with Ascend within the next year. 'It looks like this next year, we could hopefully be twice the size," said Dawson. "M&A is going really well this year. It's almost like, at first, CPAs were scared. CPAs don't like change. But we like change — my wife and I and my business partners — we like adapting. We like being proactive about what the future of accounting is, rather than just sitting back [with the] accounting and letting things happen. We like to be intentional and involved, and we like to be the firm that helps shape the future of public accounting. That's part of the reason that we rebranded, because we want to be intentional about where we're going and what we look like."
The new Opsahl Dawson branding doesn't incorporate Ascend's branding. "All of us operate our firms independently," said Dawson. "Marketing is still within each firm's wheelhouse. This was Opsahl Dawson deciding to rebrand ourselves."
As Ascend evolves, he foresees it getting more involved with the marketing of each firm. "Ascend has several strategic initiatives that they're taking on right now, including M&A and bringing on more firms," said Dawson. "They're helping us with our 'people first' strategy and recruiting."
Ascend offers a Rising Star Program, and Opsahl Dawson is sending about eight of its professionals, where they can interact with people from the other 18 firms in Ascend to train them on how to be future leaders. Ascend is helping the firm in other ways as well with services as well as technology.
"Ascend has taken all our bookkeeping and payroll off of us," said Dawson. "They took our IT off of us. I no longer have to be in charge of our servers. They've got a professional managed IT network that Ascend-wide is applied to every firm. They've got a 10-person AI team, so we're developing our own tools. They're writing code and developing a program called CBOR, Client Book of Records, that's going to read all of the CCH Axcess client information,"
The system helps keep track of client relationship management interactions. "Are we talking to them enough? What are some of the personality traits of our clients? Do they have estate planning done? Yes or no," said Dawson. "What's the net worth of these clients so that I can have that documented somewhere?"
The system keeps track of information about client interactions year-round. "I believe that CPAs need to learn a thing or two from financial advisors," said Dawson. "We need to learn how to document and understand our clients so that we know: is the wife or the husband the main financial contact? We need to know who to call and get in touch with, especially because in 10 years 90% of the CPAs that will remain in public accounting will have 10 years or less of experience. We're going to have a huge turning of the tides, and we'd better have a platform or a system in place that allows our senior remaining baby boomer CPAs to be handing down relationship type information to the upcoming managers. Who are these clients? How often do they like to meet? What's important to these clients?"
Opsahl Dawson has a program called Tax Forward in which it works with investment firms. "We have figured out how to work with other financial investment firms, and we offer tax planning to all of their clients if they want it," said Dawson.
There are nine CPAs in his family and extended family. "Thanksgiving dinner is always exciting, lots of tax planning happening," he joked.
One of the incentives offered to retain accountants is an equity buy-in program offered by Ascend.
"They have an equity buy-in program that they can allow even nonpartners to buy equity in Ascend," said Dawson. "You own the same Ascend stock that every other firm member owns, and it's the same stock that all the Alpine investors own. Back in the day, people had to wait for a shareholder to finally retire before they got an ownership opportunity. You had to wait for the guy down the hall to give up his shares before somebody would be allowed to buy in. It was a huge waiting game, and people would leave public accounting because they didn't know when they could buy in and become partner."
He sees it as an incentive to retain employees. "We can offer managers and senior managers, our rising stars, as we like to call them, equity buy-in, and they can use their year-end bonus to buy Ascend stock," said Dawson. "It helps with retention, entrepreneurship and aligning our financial goals."
The practice encourages business development. "I've seen our junior staff really step up and want to get involved in business development," said Dawson. "It's not just the partners doing business development anymore, because we have this opportunity to have a new type of corporate structure under the Ascend model. It's not the old partnership model. It's reinvesting in the business with our junior staff owning the business before they make partner."
