CPA Trendlines Podcasts

Changing the way firms are structured, operated, and financially managedWith Steven SacksFor CPA TrendlinesThe CPA profession is entering another period of shifts in how firms will attain growth levels – the main force being the influx of private capital entering the accounting profession, according to David Bergstein, CPA, CITP, CGMA.See more hereNew, external investments will change the way firms are structured, operated, and financially managed, as well as granting them increased capabilities to make more strategic decisions, Bergstein tells Sacks for CPA Trendlines.Bergstein is a veteran technology executive at a number of tax and accounting software companies, including Intuit, Walters Kluwer, and Thomson, and is now an independent author, educator, and advisor.David Bergstein’s Takeaways:Disruption is what smart business people see in a profession that is ripe for change because the traditional CPA series of audit and tax will move to the back burner. The real value of services will be in consulting services.CPA firms will split in two – separating the traditional services from consulting to ensure that there will be avoidance of client/service conflicts, and to make the investment more attractive.Baby Boomer partners who are a few years from retirement see the infusion of private equity as a way to reformulate partner agreement that were overdo for such a review.Technology will continue to be a driver of how firms will change the way they operate and the greater efficiencies accrued will go for additional services that can be outsourced.CPAs who break off and begin their own non-CPA-advertised consulting firms will be more apt to hire non-CPAs because of their broader educational experience.

Venture capital and private equity are pouring billions into financial technology start-ups. And this business will never be the same. Here CPA Trendlines founder, publisher, and editor Rick Telberg tells an audience of conference-goers what it means for the future of the profession, including:The real meaning of the "pandemic pivot" for accountants and small businesses.Why the accounting industry is more than just ripe for revolution.The new rules driving investment capital into new financial technologies. And,The three essential strategies for surviving and thriving in the new age of fintech-driven accounting.Download the slide deck here.See more here.

The Disruptors with Liz FarrMore here: https://cpatrendlines.com/?p=94950Matt Wilkinson’s Take-AwaysPart of your marketing is attracting new talent. Make yourself look good talent as they do their due diligence. Update your website and make sure your social media is engaging.Business owners like Matt have been asking accountants for predictable monthly billing and help with KPIs for their businesses since the early 2000’s. It’s only recently that accountants are beginning to provide that. Exclusively for PRO Members. Accounting firm owners tend to have limiting beliefs about how to run their firms – billing by the hour, working in the office, and the partnership structure. The partnership structure itself can be problematic for growing a coherent firm, where each partner acts almost like a freelancer with their own clients, and decisions require agreement between groups that oppose each other’s ideas.Accounting firms don’t have scale issues that can be solved with technology and automation. Instead, they have quality issues or people issues. A better way to grow is to focus on doing a better job. Make small 1% improvements in areas like client communication or selling additional services to existing clients. Focus on being local or boutique – all the things that the biggest firms can’t do.Times change, people don’t. People skills will always be essential.Instead of trying to “make a dent in the universe” as Steve Jobs did, try to model being a good person and what a good company looks like. Those changes will ripple out and impact more than your clients and your team. Thinking smaller can be thinking bigger.About Matt WilkinsonMatt Wilkinson has been a marketer for over 20 years. He’s run campaigns promoting everything from a Paul McCartney concert to a skincare brand used by Madonna. Since 2010, he’s worked exclusively with accountants and bookkeepers. His goal is to help them become small business heroes.Matt is co-founder and CEO of New Zealand-based Bizink, which specializes in websites and online marketing for accountants throughout the English-speaking world. Bizink helps busy accountants and bookkeepers grow by improving their marketing. They do that with high-performance websites, engaging content and modern marketing tools. Everything Bizink does is built for accountants and bookkeepers and streamlined so they can run their practices in the knowledge their online marketing is in safe hands.

With Rick TelbergFor CPA TrendlinesThe changes wrought by COVID are still rolling through the business world, pushing many of them into online commerce and cross-border sales, according to Liz Armbruester, senior VP of global compliance at Avalara.In the U.S. states are gearing up to crack down on the new sources of revenues, leaving many businesses and their accountants still ill-equipped to handle the new rules, Armbruester tells Rick Telberg for CPA Trendlines.As SVP Global Compliance, Armbruester oversees global compliance operations at Avalara. With more than 20 years of leadership experience from a variety of technology sectors including software, media, and services.From her perch, see tracks how governments at all levels and across the globe are capitalizing on the rapidly digitizing business world to automatically collect taxes due.See more here: https://cpatrendlines.com/?p=95008

The Disruptors with Liz FarrSee more here: https://cpatrendlines.com/?p=94934Corey Schmidt's Take-AwaysOffer your staff different paths to being successful.Pinpoint the talents you have on your staff, and nurture those special skills.Carve out time for people to work on those skills, not just the backlog.Challenge your people earlier in their careers so they have three years of experience rather than one year repeated three times.Create roles for the kinds of skills your people have.A forgotten metric is client happiness. If we provide a service that makes them feel good about what they’re getting, they’re going to be willing to pay more and will stick around much longer.Firms should own who they are. A firm with a hard-driving culture that values working long hours should seek out team members who like that kind of work culture.Think about where you want to be in five years, and start hiring people who fit that kind of work culture. Build in the people, processes and systems around that end goal.Stop doing what you did last year. Start with a blank slate. Following SALY is easier than figuring out how to do things differently. This requires carving out the time for meaningful planning.Challenge everyone on the audit team to come to the planning meeting with ideas for doing things differently, whether that’s using data or being efficient.Start rewarding the behaviors that are in line with the vision of the firm you want five or ten years in the future.Partners with high billable hours send the message to younger people that the way to get ahead in a firm is to do that, even if those same partners also talk about building a flexible data-driven culture.Let people pick their own career paths that make sense for them and for the firm.The need for a historical financial statement will be gone sooner rather than later.Firms need to adapt to the needs of the stakeholders.Banks only care about a few key metrics on the financials, so providing those on a real-time basis rather than an entire set of financials three or four months after year-end may be more useful.About Corey SchmidtCorey Schmidt, CPA, Manager of Audit Innovation, joined ACCOUNTability Plus, LLC with a decade of diverse public accounting experience, focused on providing audit and assurance services to clients in a variety of industries. He is dedicated to finding provocative and inventive ways to help move accounting firms and A&A practices into the future. Corey relies on his analytical abilities to assist his clients in gaining a thorough understanding of their financial situation and how certain decisions will impact their organization. He is passionate about working with all levels of the organization to provide accurate financial data and improve future results. Outside work, Corey likes to golf, fish, travel, and spend time with his family..

The Disruptors with Liz FarrGeraldine Carter is on a mission to make accounting more attractive as a profession, and to make accountants more profitable, particularly soloists and small firms.In this episode of The Disruptors with Liz Farr, Carter explains the trouble with "orphan 1040s," how to "level up" your firm, the priceless value of emotional intelligence, and why giving your all is too much (80 percent is enough.)More here: https://cpatrendlines.com/2022/02/14/geraldine-carter/

With accounting talent so scarce, tax and accounting firms may be surprised to find untapped talents within their current staff, according to Tyler Anderson, partner and director of A&A innovation at Accountability Plus tells Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines.More here: https://cpatrendlines.com/2022/01/28/disruptors-tyler-anderson/

With Sarah Dobek and Ty Hendrickson for CPA TrendlinesMore here: https://cpatrendlines.com/2022/01/17/close-the-sale-getting-across-the-finish-line/ Negotiating the terms of a new engagement can be intimidating and downright scary.However, it’s the most important – and last – step to securing new revenue.When you can learn what you need to have ready for the discussion, know what questions to anticipate, understand common pain points in any agreement so you can address them head-on, and how to show the value of what you’re proposing, closing the deal will become much easier – and lower your anxiety.Negotiating price and/or new business is something everyone seems to struggle with early on in selling. Why is that? (hint…talking money can be uncomfortable, but price is only negotiated when you haven’t built enough value in the sales process).What is ideal to know about your prospect once you make it to the proposal stage with a prospect? (Who is involved, decision making criteria, timeline, potential obstacles, budget)What are some tips to close more business at higher rates? (Hint…build value and take objections throughout the sales process, know who you are selling to and what they value, follow their buying timeline, not your selling timeline, and build trust.Key Take-Aways1. How to negotiate price and/or expanded service offerings.2. What you need to know about your prospect when you make it to the proposal stage.3. Tips to close more business at higher rates.

“Process, process, process” and other lessons in scaling an accounting business.With Liz FarrMore here: https://cpatrendlines.com/2022/01/13/the-disruptors-new-padgett-coo-amanda-aguillard-explains-how-to-scale/To beat the staffing shortage, tax and accounting firms will need to rank technology skills as important as accounting skills, Padgett COO Amanda Aguillard says in this episode of The Disruptors, a new CPA Trendlines series of conversations between special contributor Liz Farr and leading change-makers in the profession. This is the first of the series.“We will have to be creative about who we hire,” Aguillard says. “Knowledge of accounting is important, but it’s not the only thing… Being tech-curious is just as important.”Take-Aways We will have to be creative about who we hire. Knowledge of accounting is important, but it’s not the only thing. Being tech-curious is just as important. Specialization isn’t just vertical niches, but we can gate a practice around particular services. Building practices around services like outsourced controllership, tax resolution, or monthly accounting can make hiring easier because the candidates don’t have to be good at all of the different things. Process is the key to scale. Build and document processes around the idea that you will scale, even when the firm is just one person. Don’t be the bottleneck. Add technology on top of the process so that when the technology changes, you can find another one to take its place. A key skill for the future will be tracking data flow. Understanding where the data is coming in, and where the data will end up will help with developing processes and choosing technology. Ask for what you’re worth. Clients engage you in a business relationship, so they anticipate having to pay you. This is not charity. What firms are doing now is working well enough, but the people coming behind us aren’t interested in good enough. They want to work to live. They want to work just enough to do the things they love. The next big thing will be high-touch client relationships. We need to stop using technology as a shield, and use it to provide value to our clients. How can we help our clients, shoulder to shoulder? About AguillardAguillardAmanda Aguillard was only 16 years old when she realized she wanted to become a CPA, and she’s used that passion ever since to encourage innovation in the industry she loves. That commitment lives on through her work as the Chief Operating Officer of Padgett Business Services, one of North America’s largest accounting service and business consulting providers.Amanda is responsible for providing operational and logistical guidance for the company’s network of franchisees. This includes identifying and incorporating the latest cloud technologies into the Padgett firm operating model. She also is focused on developing and facilitating the necessary training to ensure these platforms and tools are successfully implemented by Padgett firms.Amanda, who was named one of the Top 50 Women in Accounting in 2018 and 2019, is the author of Xero: A Comprehensive Guide for Accountants and Bookkeepers. She was the Xero Evangelist of the Year in 2016 and used her experience as a Xero Certification instructor to co-found Elefant, a continuing education company for accountants and bookkeepers.Prior to joining the executive team at Padgett, she ran Aguillard Accounting LLC, focusing her efforts on providing unparalleled client support service through a cloud-based practice that could be done anywhere in the world. Amanda also is the founder of Accounting Salon, a think tank of cloud accounting experts, and its virtual offshoot, SALON.Amanda, who holds a Master’s Degree in Taxation from the University of Denver, regularly speaks at state CPA societies and industry technology conferences, including Accountex, Engage, Clio Could Conference, and Xerocon. She also is a Certified Instructional Systems Designer.When she’s not advocating for her industry, she spends her free time cooking for her two children, reading historical fiction, and backcountry hiking.

Matt Solomon interviews Shawn Parikh about the world of Offshoring and Outsourcing in a Covid world and a post-Covid world.