I recently read an
My simple answer is — not necessarily!
How can that be, when there is so much buzz around innovation? As the co-founder of an innovative technology company serving accountants, why would I downplay the role of innovation in accounting practices?
The answer lies in a simple question: What do you want to accomplish for your firm?
Faster growth? Higher profit margins? Better serving your clients? Adding more value to your clients’ businesses? Providing a better work environment? Something else? Whatever it is, you’ll find that you can achieve all that easily by effectively using tools and resources that are already readily available.
What most accounting firms need isn't innovation; it is the drive and clarity to do better. Once you have those elements, you’ll find that the easier and smarter path to success is to renovate your practice using what others have already innovated.
There are numerous solutions that already use the cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other technologies to change the way we perform our client engagements and run our practices. These are mature products with tried and proven ways to benefit from them. What you need to capitalize on the opportunities these solutions present is not innovation; it is the passion for your practice and courage to challenge the status quo.
If you have the drive to take your practice to new heights, you’ll find that these innovators have already cut out the hard work for you.
Many of these technologies have turned services that were considered commodity offerings into high-profit-margin services. For example, many accountants think payroll a commodity service. Few CPAs would consider completely getting out of tax and accounting and making a living offering payroll services. But we know of a CPA who did just that. In fact, he now has a quality of life that he could have never dreamed of doing tax and accounting work. Today he is processing over 400 payrolls with just two staff members. His goal is to process 1,000 payrolls with just three to four staff members! Some simple math will indicate to you how profitable this CPA has made payroll services.
Here’s another example: Steve Brewer, a CPA in Salem, Indiana, grew his accounting practice by 75% in five years without adding clients. How? Primarily by realigning his business.
“I saw the shifts that were taking place in the profession and realized that we had to get away from heavily depending on tax returns as our main source of revenue and expand our reach geographically,” he said. “Now our main focus is client accounting services and CFO services, and now we have clients in 20 states from Massachusetts to California.”
None of these accountants innovated anything to achieve this level of success. All they did was to realign their practices and capitalize on innovations that solution providers had already brought into payroll processing and CAS. But more importantly, what contributed the most to making this feat possible was their passion for excellence and a mindset to think big.
These are just two of hundreds of examples of how accountants have revamped their practice by implementing simple growth strategies. COVID-19 was a totally unexpected event. No one was prepared for it. And yet accountants found ways to run their practices in a completely new environment. That’s not all — so many accountants rose to the occasion to help their clients survive under the most adverse circumstance. In that process, many accountants found ways to emerge stronger than ever.
So, don’t worry about innovation. No matter what your aspirations are, tools and resources are already available for you to accomplish your goals. Others have done that hard work. All you have to do is get out of your comfort zone and capitalize on what others have innovated. That’s the more brilliant way to become more successful!
