traditional services will atrophy over time.
by chris frederiksen
rosenberg map survey
2016 was another good year for accountants with demand for services outstripping supply in most firms.
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the lack of qualified team members to get the work done continues to be the bane of the profession, particularly among smaller firms, where the resources are not available to provide the training needed by recent graduates.
every year, the authors of the rosenberg map survey ask the industry’s top consultants to share their observations of what they are seeing at cpa firms. specifically, they are asked the following questions:
- what kind of year was 2016? what were the major trends you observed? what were the issues you saw firms struggling with the most?
- 2017 is half over. based on your experiences this year, what are you seeing? what are the major trends? what are firms struggling with and what are they working on as the year progresses?
the change in the filing dates for tax returns compounded the tax season compression and led the majority of firms i surveyed to declare “worst tax season ever!” to ease the crunch, more firms than ever used “scan and populate” services offered by the likes of sureprep and gruntworx.
there was also a significant expansion in the number of firms offshoring tax return preparation through companies such as xpitax and sureprep. the hangup has always been the fear of clients refusing to sign off on the 7216 consent form, but more firms are getting over that hurdle and report remarkably little resistance from clients.
during 2016, we also saw a marked increase in the use of offshoring for bookkeeping and accounting work and also saw the number of countries involved expand. the philippines and thailand are moving to be major players in business process outsourcing and challenging india, where costs are rising.
in 2017, more firms understand that many of the traditional services, such as tax preparation, will atrophy over time and that their best bet is to promote controller-cfo services (maintaining the accounting records with the added services of strategic planning, profit improvement, benchmarking and business coaching). done right, using the latest technology such as bank feeds, bill.com and receipt-bank, this service line is highly profitable.
there has also been a decided uptick in the number of firms deciding that their internal succession plans are not viable and therefore looking for an alternative exit strategy to monetize their goodwill.