Inside CAS 2.0

Merhib CAS 2 podcast screen.jpg

Client accounting services has been hugely successful as a service offering, but CPA.com president and CEO Erik Asgeirsson and vice president of growth and professional services Kalil Merhib say firms need to evolve toward the next stage: client advisory services.

Transcription:

Dan Hood: (00:03)

Welcome to On the Air with Accounting Today. I'm editor in chief Dan hood. You know, CAS has become the fastest growing service offering at accounting firms across the country. And it's growing so much, in fact, that they're actually bringing out a second edition of sorts — of sorts, I say — CAS 2.0. Here to talk about CAS 2.0 and what it means are Erik Asgeirsson, he's the president and CEO of CPA.com. Erik, thanks for joining us,

Erik Asgeirsson: (00:22)

Dan. Great to be with you.

Dan Hood: (00:23)

And we've also got Kalil Merhib the vice president of growth and professional services at CPA.com. And I should mention CPA.com has really been one of the, the standard bearers for CAS over the last five to 10 years. Really one of the, uh, out there in front leading a lot of the way, um, on this, uh, introducing firms to it, helping them grow it, helping them understand it. Um, one of the big things that's going on, uh, is we're seeing a change from cast and I've been saying cast specifically, not saying client accounting services, cuz one of the big changes has been the switch from for many firms from client accounting services to client advisory services or in some cases, client accounting and advisory services. But there's that introduction of the advisory, the swapping of the a, why is that important? Do you think? And, and why is that important, Eric, I'm gonna throw this one to you first.

Erik Asgeirsson: (01:05)

Well, thanks Dan. It's a great opening question and you're right. We related to, you know, our focus on this area, we've been focusing on the cash area of the past decade and we are at another inflection point as, as, as we look forward to see, you know, what, you know, how, how best firms can really truly leverage this opportunity. And there's no question that by playing the client advisory services role is the way to truly deliver, you know, the best possible service related to the cast line. And let's just talk a little bit about what, you know, the why behind client first client accounting services, you know, that started over a decade ago, really the move to the cloud enabled firms to provide these outsourced accounting services, basically cloud based financial services, right? We've been doing this for a decade. It was one of the highest growth areas previous to the pandemic ban.

Erik Asgeirsson: (02:05)

And now it is clearly a must have every firm needs to really have this service offering and firms have really worked hard at providing the cloud accounting cloud, bill payment, uh, uh, you know, the monthly closed services, all those, you know, somewhat controller level services for these small and medium sized businesses. But as we all know, it's about also providing the advisory services at one time, Dan, a few years back, we actually labeled this, uh, client accounting advisory services. So it was, it was a CAS, but one thing that, you know, you stick with three letter acronyms . So this, some people at times are providing client accounting services. And we're gonna talk about that in some ways that's almost what we call CAS 1.0 cloud-based financial services. And then client advisory services is where we think firms need to go. And, and that we're calling that CAS 2.0, and as you stated, this is in your recent top 100, uh, report. This is the number one growth area. But one thing we also know is non CPA firms are growing faster than CPA firms. So there's things that we wanna help the firms with so they can truly realize this opportunity,

Dan Hood: (03:32)

Right? Yeah. It's always where I was mentioning you talk about that. It was the, the number one growth service across the widest range of firms. And it's also the growth rate. Um, you see this from a bunch of different studies, one from yours, the growth rate for cast services is double digits as opposed to some of the more traditional areas tax and, and, uh, audit where they're growing tend to be growing in single digits. So it's an important area for, for firms to get into. Um, and we've talked about CAS 2.0, and obviously right, this isn't a software product, so it's not literally a CAS 2.0. Um, because every firm is delivers cast in its own way. And there's a sort of spectrum across which like you said, cloud accounting services is, is where you begin, but there's firms that are all along the spectrum along, moving along to, um, uh, the giving of advice, uh, being more of a primary part of their CAS uh, thing. So let's talk about 2.0, when you, uh, cpa.com talks about CAS 2.0, What do you mean by that?

Erik Asgeirsson: (04:21)

Well, what we, this is, this is a very significant initiative, uh, that we've undertaken and we view CAS 2.0 and, and basically all that we're doing around the CAS area is truly a methodology to help the firms build a truly state of the art practice. And we know some of the things that are holding firms back as well as driving success. So when we think about the overall CAS area, we're thinking about the firm's strategy and governance, we're thinking about the delivery of that service, the, the practice development, we're thinking about the tech stack. And that's sometimes when people just jump right into the tech stack, that's clearly one of the we, the, these four pillars that we think about. And then we think about capacity and incentive of excellence. Sometimes for a large firm, they might have a shared services center for a small firm.

Erik Asgeirsson: (05:12)

They'll think about building capacity in, in other areas so that, you know, broadly, we're really working hard at putting together the processes, the methodology on how you can deliver a successful cast practice. And then why we've called this cast 2.0 is that we do want firms also to lean in as to that advisory area. And we might want to bring kil in here, cuz he's working hand in hand with a lot of firms. We're actually doing some assessments of firms to see where they stand and we're giving them a lot of input on all these practice strategies, because it really starts with that. You first gotta start with your practice strategy. You start talking about, you know, what tools do you wanna leverage to build that state of the art cast practice and really move to cast 2.0,

Dan Hood: (06:05)

Gotcha. Yeah. Well, Kail let's bring in. I saw, I saw you recently at, uh, the engaged conference in early June, uh, with a couple of pioneering firms that were, you know, way into, it seemed like they were way into, you know, UHI was one of them you're way into 2.0 or what, what I would think of as two point. Oh, do, do you see that sort of spectrum across of firms being at different areas and, and, and are most of them still need to be moving into 2.0, is that a fair assessment?

Kalil Merhib: (06:28)

Yeah, Dan, I think we see a wide range of places that firms are in their maturity of their cast practices today. And you know, as Eric mentioned, the methodology related to cast 2.0, it, it really leads to a business model framework that ultimately starts focusing the firm a little bit differently on how they view client relationships, focusing on lifetime value of client and the opportunity to introduce a lot of the advisory services that today live in different areas of the firm and are occurring on a project base, but thinking more diff or differently rather around how to deliver those as a single value proposition in a fractional basis and really fundamentally rethinking, uh, their go to market strategy and in looking at the way that their practice areas, uh, have interdependence with one another. So how the technology practice and the accounting services practice and the fractional CFO practice are coming together and how they can really start to think to become chief value officers for clients.

Kalil Merhib: (07:40)

And, you know, this move from accounting services to advisory services in, in the cast definition, I, I client demand, uh, particularly during business relief was one of the key drivers there. So clients were out there seeking advice and trusted advisor relationships and insights from their firms and that kind of thrust the firms into that advisory role for a specific topic. And in as we've gone forward, I think clients have gotten comfortable and used to that type of conversation and are looking for that in other parts of their business. And you take that and couple it with the technology. And now what we have is just the further ability for firms to develop a service offering that leverages that conversation with clients they've, they've started to have and introduce other services and value as part of the, the cast relationship. And so firms are a lot of different places on that spectrum. I think, uh, many firms are focused on optimizing that controllership level service and getting more consistent and productized in the way they deliver it. So it really is exciting. And, and, you know, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of great change in, in momentum in the way firms are, are professionalizing, this practice area.

Dan Hood: (08:56)

That's cool. I, you know, I'm glad you talked about the, the, um, uh, the, the services that they're offering under, in maybe in different departments or different, uh, under different, uh, forms because it, part of the broader conversation of the accounting professions need to move to a more advisory focusing, not just specifically within CA but just in general, to be more advisory focused. A lot of people say, oh, how could we do this? How do we do even do advisory services? We've never done this before. We don't know anything about it, but there's a, uh, in many cases, as you sort of said, they're offering these services already in some form or another, uh, they just may not call it advisory services. It's, you know, they ask a question and I answer it, but that's an advisory services. Uh, do you think there's, do you have a sense of how much of those kind of advisory services firms are already offering? Uh, you know, in sense of, like I said, offering, but in, in ways that may not be as efficient or as, as, uh, uh, uh, effective as they might be.

Kalil Merhib: (09:47)

Yeah. That's a great question. I think if you were to ask most firms, if they provide advisory services to clients, their answer would be yes. Right. But I think as you would ask a follow up question and get to understand what that actually means, they're answering in the context of the service they're providing to their best client, or maybe a couple of their best clients. And so really with the framework at around cast 2.0 a core element is how do you do that in a scalable way? And how do you take your best client and start to create many more clients that look that way. And in order to do that, it requires reflection, uh, at the firm leadership level, a growth mindset around the ways that maybe they, they currently are structured or the ways that they have defined some of the roles within the firm to do that. It requires, uh, a lot of understanding, uh, about the, the, the different ways that you can start introducing those skill sets to other members of the firm to be able to offer that to more clients.

Dan Hood: (10:54)

Excellent. Well, I wanna dive more deeply into, you're talking about skill sets into that and the, the tool sets the firms need to, to develop or, or Polish, uh, cause they may have them already to move into cast, uh, 2.0. Uh, but first we're gonna take a quick break. All right. And we're talking about cast 2.0, which is the, the next iteration, the next evolution, the next stage of, of client accounting slash advisory services. Uh, we've got, uh, LIO, me and Eric Alkis from cpa.com. Uh, filling this in, on all the details. K. I wanna, uh, pursue the skill sets that you mentioned that you might need to bring to all your, uh, your staff members, cuz the skill sets that go into the sort of CA 1.0 the, um, uh, you know, cloud accounting services might be a little different from some of the advisory services focus that are going on in CA 2.0, can you tell us a little bit about those, those tool sets and skill sets that firms might need to be like I said, developing or polishing, cause I may already have them.

Kalil Merhib: (11:47)

Sure. Dan and I had mentioned before the break, the, the leadership level and the growth mindset, but I think taking that a little bit further, it's the understanding around how to build a recurring revenue business model that that really leads with a, a consistent, uh, uh, delivery of service, uh, that leverages value billing, uh, that takes into account the willingness to invest in key areas to continue to evolve, uh, the service offering and thinking about what's happening in the finance organization of many businesses and industry it's not too different than the transformation happening in client advisory services. It's about speeding up the data to decision process. And from a toolkit perspective, there are some wonderful, uh, technologies out there that enable this, uh, both internally to manage the service, but also for the client service delivery. So firms need to really be thinking about the automation of the service itself.

Kalil Merhib: (12:55)

So the project management, the status, the visibility into how these services are provided, uh, from a client facing perspective, as Eric mentioned, cloud is table stakes at this point, um, and the interconnectivity of the ecosystem that's out there of solutions. And also, uh, the networks that are connected through through systems is key. Uh, in, in the, the AI ML, that's driving more efficiency in the service is really creating opportunity to free staff up from focusing on transactional work, to moving more towards, uh, a monitoring and analyzing and exception handling. So not too much different than what we've seen in hard automation, uh, in, in manufacturing in that way of being able to monitor what's happening in the assembly line versus, you know, spot welding for example. And, and so the skill sets that carry with that are really those that, that align with, with finance, accounting and management accounting. So, uh, you know, this is very different than, uh, performing tax or audit. Uh, it's really driving business. So industry expertise, uh, business insights and interpretation and budgeting and forecasting, uh, how to build financial models, how to establish KPIs and manage to those.

Dan Hood: (14:12)

Gotcha. Well, let's, I, you know, I wanna sort of flip that around. Those are the, those are the skill sets. Those are the toolkits. Um, let's talk about the team that, that a firm might be building for its, um, its cast practice, cuz in some ways I, you know, if you look at, uh, like we talked about the CA 1.0, is that sort of cloud counting, uh, services where you are, you weren't looking for people who are, uh, good with technology fast and efficient in terms of processing and being able to check stuff out. Good, good bookkeepers might be a way to put it or good. Uh, you know, uh, uh, tech savvy bookkeepers might be a way to put it. Um, but if you're moving more towards, like I said, helping with business decision making, that might be a different, uh, uh, call for a different kind of person. Do you see the teams that you're putting that are people putting into cast 2.0 practices being different or are they adding people to it or change or just uncovering new skills among the people they've already got?

Kalil Merhib: (15:04)

Yes, significantly different skill sets stand to, to the points you just made. And I think that, uh, if you look at being able to truly deliver a more frictionless finance experience for your clients through the cast service, then you're really looking at understanding how the flow of information moves from system to system, uh, all the way from operational systems through the reporting and planning process. So, uh, understanding concepts that take into account multidimensionality for reporting and understanding how to, uh, streamline versus maybe jump into the GL and make a journal entry for every transaction, rather being more focused again on the, the workflow and the system integrations of that ecosystem that you're leveraging. So, uh, we think actually that the, the cast 2.0 team for many firms will include partnership opportunities with potential managed service providers, uh, that are able to bring a expertise around implementation and systems and vendor integrations and, and some of those things to free up the advisor to really focus on, on delivering that, that service to, to clients and Eric, I know you've, you've talked a lot about this and, and are thinking about, uh, how firms are, are really embracing this as well.

Erik Asgeirsson: (16:26)

Yes, and I, I, I think it's there, I think the, you know, the firms have, have fundamentally focused on first providing that base service, that accounting services and making sure they've, they've, you know, they've got the right staffing plan and, and there, there is things to think through here. And, and when we, where we're at right now in this journey is that, you know, we've got a, a base, you know, cast practice development workshop where we review the staffing plan. We review pricing strategies, we review the different, you know, core technology offerings that you need to put in place for that client accounting services offering. You know, in some ways you could call it the 1.0, and we shouldn't get too caught up in 1.0 2.0, but it's good to kinda put labels. It makes people think about where we are on the journey. And then when you go to the advisory services area, firms are thinking about things such as financial planning and analysis, doing forecasting, doing budgeting, SI you know, talking about where that business is going and helping them do different models to, to look at okay, what, what will you gain by making these investments and what will be the time, uh, the time period for, for payback.

Erik Asgeirsson: (17:49)

And then that when you start doing that is, as KH mentioned earlier, that's bringing in that advisory services, fractional CFO element. So for the first time we're actually seeing these different and some larger firms, these different departments merging, as they say, okay, I'm now gonna put that FP and a capability in place. I'm gonna leverage that fractional CFO, that person before was just being offered to a business, they'd go into the business and they would work with their systems. So this is where you're taking that fractional CFO and saying, no, we're putting you on, uh, as part of our client advisory services delivery model. So this is, this is, this is what's happening. And you need to, you know, you need to determine where you are in the journey. And, and I talked about this, an engage, you know, you probably need to put together a two year plan.

Erik Asgeirsson: (18:44)

This is like, where are you right now? Where do you wanna go over the next six months? Where do you wanna go over the next two years? And that's, that's how you have to view this, this, this practice area, this practice area should be equal in the next five years at a large firm to the assurance and tax line. That's what we're talking to large firms about, but this is this all firms of all sizes can take advantage of this opportunity, but we're talking about firms, large firms of building a two to 400 million client advisory services practice. And then I can, I can give you examples of smaller firms that only focus on CA

Dan Hood: (19:19)

Right, right. Well, and you're, you're right. We shouldn't, I, I just like the whole 1.0 2.0, and you're right. We shouldn't get caught up on that though. Three letter acronyms are always great, but, um, uh, in, in some ways it's a useful way to think about it, particularly when you talk about that journey towards it's a two year, three year, four year journey towards building this enormous practice. Um, it's worth thinking about the different stages because, uh, the, the, the advisory services really depend on having that, that foundational base of, uh, what we, we might use to have called writeup work, right? You need to have that deep insight into the business to get their numbers, to have access to all their systems so that, you know, what's going on in the business to be able to offer really specific, useful advice to them. I mean, or that's always been sort of my assumption that the, the reason accountants were uniquely positioned to offer this kind of advice was because they had the numbers to back them up and they had a deep understanding of the numbers.

Dan Hood: (20:07)

So you sort of have to have that start in cloud accounting, uh, where you have access to the systems and, and know the daily ins and outs of the business before you can really start giving them useful advice. Um, so that process knows. It seems like, and, and we are gonna get into this question in a, in a, in a second, but seems like there might be sort of a, um, an order in which you wanna build your cash practice and sort of needs to start with that foundation. Um, but I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but you're

Erik Asgeirsson: (20:34)

Right. You're right. Me a comment on that. And Phil and Jim, and we'll, we can kind of go into even do a lightning round here as we kind get to the end of, of this discussion. But I think that that's, that's right. You, you, you need to have that base, that base practice, and some firms might just say, you know, we're just going to offer this for now and that that's okay. That's, that's make an intentional decision. Say we're going to provide cloud based financial services. There's huge demand. I know firms that all they take is inbound calls on their cloud cloud based financial services. Think about the segment though. You wanna provide, think about, um, how you want to eventually move into that inside area, cuz that's gonna be the competitive mode because over time this, in some ways we look six years out, this could be like payroll.

Erik Asgeirsson: (21:21)

I think every small business in America will say, am I going to outsource my accounting services? Just like every small business in America says, um, thinks about outsourcing the payroll. So this is where this category's going and where the firms are gonna be able to win. Long term is playing that advisory role, doing the business insights. And that's, that's just how, how services always evolve. So you, you kind of, you know, seven years ago, Dan doing cloud based financial services was leading edge. That's not leading edge now. It's important. You wanna make sure you're doing it well, there's lots of ways to do that really well. And then secondly, you wanna think about, okay, I wanna be doing the insights and you do need to think about specialization. It's, it's the same thing in the assurance and tax area. It is all about specialization. It, you don't wanna be a generalist.

Dan Hood: (22:18)

Right? Right. Well, real quick, CLE, I wanna turn you on this. Cuz you had talked a little bit about, uh, how it might impact your clients or your client base in terms of right now we offer advisory services to some of our best clients, but maybe not all of our clients. So that's obviously a change if you're looking to offer it to a much broader range of people. And if you're looking to specialize to Eric's point, um, then that might mean you narrow your client base to a specific focus on an industry or a, something like that. Are you seeing any other ways in which it's gonna change this? You know, 2.0 is gonna change, um, accountants relationships with their clients

Kalil Merhib: (22:50)

And yes, absolutely. I think that this is one of the greatest opportunities to deepen the relationship with the client and also expand, uh, the, the scope of the conversation you're having with that client about their business. So if you think about what CA does it establishes a relationship between the firm and the client that really starts with the data and ultimately leads to decision making for that business based on the insights that the firm's able to provide as a service to that client because of that access to the data. So that foundational, uh, back office accounting and, you know, uh, controllership level horizon of, of the business and, and looking at it that way is still all core. But what will start to happen is if you're able to optimize as a firm, the way that that's occurring. And then that becomes the foundation that you're looking to build your advisory service on.

Kalil Merhib: (23:48)

You are going to have a seat at the table with your client in a way that maybe you haven't had in the past. And you're going to be able to have conversations with them about their business, about where they are in their life cycle about what's happening in their industry. And then naturally through the course of business conversation with the firm at, with that seat at the table, then you're going to be the first person that that firm looks to for advice about a decision that they may have coming up. And that is very different than a traditional cross selling model of talking about additional services you can provide and bringing in, uh, other parts of the firm to maybe say, okay, tell us about your business. You already understand the business and the primary relationship management function in firms for clients in this service area really needs to be architecting value, helping the client understand how to navigate everything, the firm that could provide to them through that relationship and thinking about it through again, a lifetime value of, of client mindset and, you know, the ultimate goal there is as you continue to provide more and more advisory services, you're really playing a CX O role for those clients across multiple areas of the C-suite and leadership for that.

Kalil Merhib: (25:05)

So I think that this is a, a not only a great business opportunity, but it will fundamentally, uh, change the, the, the depth of the firm and client relationship as well.

Dan Hood: (25:15)

And that, and, and I think we'd all agree that can only be good for, right, for both for the accountants and for the, for the businesses, right? The more exposure and time they get with their client and the deeper those relationships are, uh, the, uh, the better everyone's gonna be doing, but, you know, just, uh, uh, the business will be more efficient. Accounting accountants will be more, it's a it's, it's, uh, it's more satisfying right? To, to deliver that kind of value to your clients. Uh, it's also more, more profitable. So those are all great things. Um, I was gonna, Eric, I wanted to, I started ask you briefly about this. Uh, uh, we mentioned, uh, top 100 firms survey, 80% of the top 100 firms are offering some form of CA, which is more than any other service, right. Are seeing growth in CAS, which is more than any other service for this year. Um, but for the 20% who Aren and all the other firms, maybe that haven't begun this journey, do you see, and we talked a little bit about that, but I just wanna get a little more specific on it. Um, if they look at 2.0 and say, that's, that's great. That's where we wanna be. Is there, is there, can they leapfrog directly to that? Can they skip that, you know, the, the beginning part, or do they really need to lay that foundation before they, they move up to the advisory level?

Erik Asgeirsson: (26:17)

I, I think they, if they want, if you, you can go, you can go all in and say, we're gonna right outta the gate offer, you know, cloud financial services in, on top of that advisory services. So I think that it just, you need to be intentional about what you're doing. I mean, there's, there's top 100 firms that are just providing, uh, insurance services in particular. There's a couple that just do SOC services and that's fine. They're like, that's my, and I'm the best in the country at, and that's what I'm gonna do. And it doesn't make any sense for them to get into the cast Perx line. So all firms do not need to do this, but I think what you wanna do is, is really make sure you have control of your strategy because different from the tax insurance line, where you're pro you're delivering an output here, you, you have to be careful because you can get into a business.

Erik Asgeirsson: (27:09)

And before you know it, that that business can say, well, we need you to customize this and customize that, and it can get very complex, very fast. So it's important to be able to describe your offering and say, this is how it's, it's, it's, it's much easier to say this than to do cause you're in there, you're taking over, you've got a business they've called you up. And they said, I want you to do outsource accounting services. And then hopefully you have some, you should have some familiarity with that vertical. They're gonna have some specialized systems in there if they're in franchises, if they're in construction, if they're a membership club or not for profit. So, and you're gonna, you're going to have to say, okay, under, but understand maybe a couple of things that you'll keep that are proprietary, but you do need to have your base offering.

Erik Asgeirsson: (27:58)

Cuz what can happen is you can, before, you know, it have too many customized client accounting services clients. And then what you'll see is your realization is not where you want it to be. And we're doing an annual benchmarking survey on the cast line. We're really studying this line. And what we do know right now is still the revenue per professional is not as high as some of the traditional errors, even though it's a high growth area, it's very strategic. And the reason, the reason behind that is firms are still getting their arms around how to deliver this effectively. So that's why I say yes, you can. So answer your question. Yes, you can make that leap. Um, but you know, beware, beware of where you're leaping dance

Dan Hood: (28:45)

well, I'm glad you brought up standardization, cuz that really does seem to be one of the core elements. It's not the sexiest element of cast, but it's, it's, it's crucially important that your services, whether it's just the basic, uh, cloud based accounting and finance, uh, financial services or the, the higher level advisory services standardization, so that you're offering it the same way to everybody, uh, is, is crucial to effectiveness and, and efficiency and, and profitability. Uh, as you mentioned, all right, well, this has been great gentlemen. I lightning round style to give you a 60 seconds, uh, each to give us any final advice. We've, we've talked a lot, a lot of great advice for people who are looking to improve or build upon their cast practice or to start one. But, uh, Eric, any, any final thoughts?

Erik Asgeirsson: (29:25)

I just, you know, if I look back the last two years and it's just been a defining moment for the firms and what the pandemic has shown is the value that these firms provide that, that they can provide to their clients. This cast line is continuing to bring these small businesses fully into the information, business insight, age. It's exciting, it's exciting what you can provide to them. Uh, it's a great time. And, and, but with, with all that said, there, there is complexity out there. And we're thinking about that and we're thinking about how to simplify things, even simplify things from the standpoint and delivery of the tech stack. So, um, you know, stay engaged with us and let us know how we can help you.

Dan Hood: (30:10)

Excellent. Kail final, uh, final piece of advice for people looking at a cast practice or improving a cast practice.

Kalil Merhib: (30:15)

Yeah, Dan, I think, uh, a couple of things. One is, uh, do some research, really immerse yourself in the category and understand the trends of what's happening. As Eric mentioned, this category's moving very quickly, uh, and there are providers that are very far along. So if you're coming into this category, get out there, engage in the community. Uh, that's talking about CAS, whether it's with state societies or your firm association, uh, our digital CPA community, uh, the, the vendor community that has a lot of great insights and expertise, and then also pay attention to the trends that are occurring in industry. So, uh, the, the same innovation happening in the internal finance organizations at companies are the same innovations that are driving the cast service forward. It is, uh, it is the same conversation. So, uh, I think there's so many great resources out there today as we've moved into this, this part of the adoption and, uh, of cast in the marketplace. So, uh, hopefully, hopefully firms are, are, are looking at this already.

Dan Hood: (31:13)

Very cool. And as you say, there is this community of, uh, of, uh, people in CAS that your digital CPA conference has a lot of, lot of people there talk a lot about that. That's a hot bit of CAS activity. Um, but you guys also offer cpa.com offers all kinds of resources and advice and guidance on this. Uh, so maybe that's great place for people to start, uh, with that Kalil Merhib and, uh, Erik Asgeirsson, thank you so much for joining us.

Erik Asgeirsson: (31:34)

Thanks for having us, Dan really appreciate you doing these podcasts and providing all this information to all these firms in the profession.

Kalil Merhib: (31:40)

Thanks for having me.

Dan Hood: (31:42)

All right, cheers. And thank you all for listening. This episode of On the Air was produced by Accounting Today with audio production by Kevin Parise. Rate or review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accountingtoday.com. Thanks again to our guests. And thank you for listening.