define not just what, but also when.
by hitendra patil
accountaneur: the entrepreneurial accountant
“people think of us (accountants) as the compliance agents – the necessary evil.”
this sentence haunts me even today, after hearing it nearly 15 years ago from a multi-award-winning, highly experienced cpa.
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perception!
has the accounting profession’s brand been (predominantly) perceived as “compliance” only?
- “we deal with the past. we do audits. and we deal with the present. we do taxes and books. future – is not our business.”
- “we are ‘engaged’ with our clients, but the relationship has no guarantee to carry over into the future. we live with them for today and listen to the stories of their past. we do not participate in their future together because we do not have any stake in their future. why would clients want to do anything with us about their future?”
when some experienced cpas expressed this, i was even more puzzled. i did a quick one-question poll, which i sent to randomly selected people. i had no clue if such people bought any services from accountants. the question was simple, “what word comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘accountant’?” about 46 percent of the respondents said “tax,” and about 26 percent said “balance sheet.” that means a total of about 72 percent of respondents think “tax or balance sheet = accountant.”
merriam-webster dictionary defines “accountant” as:
- one who gives an account or is accountable
- one who is skilled in the practice of accounting or who is in charge of public or private accounts
the dictionary defines accounting as:
- the system of recording and summarizing business and financial transactions and analyzing, verifying and reporting the results.
while technically these definitions can be considered literally accurate, they are more clinical/academic definitions. these do not fully reflect what an accountant does in today’s world, and what the impact of an accountant’s work is.
contrast these dictionary definitions with the wikipedia description of an accountant:
- an accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy, which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resource(s).
is the wikipedia definition comprehensive? it is debatable. “accountant” and “accounting” defined by many dictionaries and other reference materials surely does not reflect the modern-age work that accountants do.
now, contrast it to the merriam-webster definition of the word “lawyer”:
- one whose profession is to conduct lawsuits for clients or to advise as to legal rights and obligations in other matters
lawyers advise based on the interpretation of the laws.
accountants, in today’s world, advise clients on several crucial aspects, but the dictionary definitions do not cover that part. advice in the accounting profession emerges from the interpretation of several facts, laws, regulations and business context. only a trained, experienced professional accountant formally educated in accounting, business, finance and technological aspects can provide reasonable advice.
the more i researched, the more i spoke with cpas and accountants, the more strongly i recognized that overcoming this centuries-old perception – that accounting is (mostly) about compliance and the past, somewhat about the present, but not the future – is one of the most critical problems for the accounting profession to solve.
the (long-term) solution?
when the profession manages to create the perception that accountants are for:
- the past (write-up, audits, compliance, taxes)
- the present (payables, receivables, real-time books) and
- the future (results-ownership via planning, advisory, strategy) …
… it will form the “perfect engagement ring” that creates long-term, ever-relevant, meaningful, blooming and rewarding relationships between clients and accountants.
the real question is not whether accounting professionals can create the engagement ring. it is how. and how fast. and that is where your critical attention and effort must be invested to make your client accounting services practice better.
statement of work – shared responsibilities
broadly, accountants’ engagement letters can contain the following main parts:
- modes of communication
- technology, privacy, security, confidentiality
- scope of work: list of services the client has bought; what is in scope and out of scope
- work delivery methods and timings
- client responsibilities
- accountant’s responsibilities
- engagement term
- fees, billing and payment terms
- other “legal” terms, e.g., limitations, liabilities, etc.
it is essential to specify what the “shared responsibilities” are, i.e., the client’s responsibilities and the accountant’s responsibilities or “what” each party will do. but it is equally important to specify the expected timelines for each party to complete those responsibilities, i.e., “when” should things happen from each side.
let us now see how this standard engagement letter can be turned into a cas-specific engagement letter that also becomes your firm’s marketing and value statement.
your cas engagement letter/agreement
the cas survey revealed that the following five are the top internal tools cas firms use for growing and managing their cas practices:
- checklist for identifying potential cas clients: 22.4 percent
- cas marketing/sales brochures: 22 percent
- cas-specific engagement letters: 43.6 percent
- standardized cas report sets: 22.8 percent
- list of kpis firms use to monitor cas clients: 10.8 percent
cas firms use cas-specific engagement letters/agreements twice as frequently as any other internal cas tools for growing and managing their cas practices. i gathered cas engagement letter/agreement samples/templates from some of the accountants that i know of. i reviewed the most common and most uncommon aspects of such engagement letters. i also noticed that most accountants do not include some effective methods when creating their firms’ cas engagement letters.
for the purpose of this post, i will exclude the legal prose of such engagement letters because, based on your location, certifications and other factors such as state regulations, the legality of such agreements is a specialized responsibility best handled by relevant attorneys. from cas clients’ and firms’ marketing and sales perspective, i recommend that you include the following in your cas engagement letter template:
- make it a “cas engagement ring,” i.e., include the past, present and future aspects of the accounting work your firm can do for the client. let the client select what he/she wants. just putting in there the whole list of your cas components, you are making the clients aware of what your firm can do for their businesses, thereby reducing your marketing and sales efforts. by not selecting some choices, the clients can psychologically feel they will miss out on important insights. it is likely to get you add-on sales without making a special sales effort.
- separate the “scope of work” and attach it as an annexure to the main agreement. your cas engagement letter must focus on the outcomes and value you deliver. the scope of work is more or less a ground-level “what,” which should not dilute the value pitch you are making through the cas engagement letter.
- present all the cas levels you offer along with their pricing. provide a checkbox for the client to select which level he/she wants to subscribe to. position your highest-priced cas level offering immediately and then present the next lower-priced levels. make this another “annexure” to be attached to the main engagement letter. it helps the client to focus only on selecting the cas level he/she wants. putting such pricing information somewhere in the middle of the agreement can make your clients skim over some valuable outcomes you can deliver and instead select the lower-priced offering. you want to let outcomes and value drive the price selection, not vice versa.
- make it a separate clause in the pricing annexure to highlight your requirement that the client agrees to review the initial price at the end of 90 days. provide your reasoning for this requirement. have the client sign/initial this clause separately (in addition to the overall signature portion of your engagement letter). this additional signature plants the expectation in the client’s mind that he/she must review the price at the end of 90 days. at the same time, your engagement letter should also provide a small paragraph that gives an assurance that the change in price after 90 days, if any, shall not vary more than plus or minus 10 percent of the initial pricing the client is accepting now. (but make sure to take all efforts to estimate the volume of work and the trend of the number of business transactions that the client undertakes every month.) not providing the extent to which the price can change after 90 days can make it feel risky for the client. at the same time, quantifying a possibly higher fee opens the door for you to actually charge more after three months. (but charge more only if you can measurably prove to the client that there is a consistent trend of increase in work volume, i.e., justify the increase when the times comes to do so.)
- attach all the sample reports from all the cas levels, even if the clients do not select your highest-priced cas level service. i have seen real-life examples of how new clients reviewed such report samples after signing the cas agreement and later asked the accounting firm to “upgrade” them to the next cas level because some of those reports seemed priceless.
- attach another “annexure,” listing the shared responsibilities of your firm and the client. where required, state the timeline, e.g., by which date every period you want the client to provide clarifications on transactions that your team cannot easily interpret. this helps in creating subconscious commitment in clients’ minds.
- as much as possible, convince the clients to “subscribe” to your cas level and ideally on a retainer basis so that clients pay your fees in advance. if you keep billing after the work is done, you will always have to chase the clients for information so that you can complete the work to be able to bill the client. and even after billing, you may have to chase the clients to actually pay. it may sound challenging to pull this off. but even if 20-30 percent of your cas clients agree to this method of front-end payment, your firm’s cash flow can improve significantly. to dilute the risk factor of such front-end payments, put in a “penalty clause,” e.g., after the client provides all the information required to produce the accounting work, the firm will deliver all the reports agreed within x days, and if not, the firm will provide y dollars credit to be adjusted in the next billing cycle. when clients see you are willing to take an equal risk, clients generally feel better.
your cas-specific engagement letter, therefore, should broadly have the following structure:
- modes of communication
- technology, privacy, security, confidentiality
- work delivery methods and timings
- engagement term
- fees, billing and payment terms
- other “legal” terms, e.g., limitations, liabilities, etc.
- annexure 1: scope of work:
- list of services – all cas levels
- space for the client to indicate which services the client wants to purchase
- what is in scope and out of scope
- annexure 2: shared responsibilities with their timelines (service level agreement – sla)
- annexure 3: pricing of all cas levels, billing and payment terms
- annexure 4: sample reports of all cas levels
setting and reinforcing the right expectations
if you analyze the most recent instances of conflicts and unhappiness your clients expressed or the “bad reviews” clients posted online for other accounting firms, you can sense that the root cause is many times a mismatch in expectations. such expectation mismatches arise because of, first, lack of clarity in communications from the firm and clients both, and also because of non-performance of stated responsibilities of both parties to the agreement.
your cas engagement letter is, therefore, the perfect tool and opportunity to set the correct expectations in your clients’ minds. it should also unambiguously state what happens when the responsibilities of each party are not adhered to in the time they are required to be adhered to, i.e., define and state the consequences. “surprise consequences” trigger negative emotions quickly. your engagement letter should aim to remove the surprises. even after you specify such implications in the engagement letter, it would not be prudent to expect clients to remember all the stuff mentioned in the agreement. your firm needs processes to identify/bring to attention such issues as quickly as possible, e.g., the client did not send you the information about a large payment made to a new vendor/payee. if your process comes to a halt because you are awaiting information from the client, do not just remind the client to send such information to you but specify the consequence in the reminder, e.g., “we still haven’t received the details of the payment of $____ that you made to <payee name>. this may be a transaction that may have an implication on depreciation and hence, taxes. in the absence of this information, we are unable to reconcile and close the books. hence the financial statements will be delayed by x days.”
the periodic reset
as discussed earlier, you may include a clause that allows you to increase the price if the client’s work volume increases or decreases by, say, 10 percent or more. this is the “reset” clause that can reset pricing and also client expectations. with this clause, the client will not feel surprised by your request for a midterm pricing review and will be more amenable to consider the justifiable data points related to the proposed (required) price reset.
but this requires your firm to lay down processes to measure the work volume of each client periodically. it could be the number of bills paid every month, the number of sales invoices processed, the number of transactions on bank/credit card statements and so on. without measurability, it will be challenging to get into pricing reset discussions with your clients. and without such periodic, mandatory measurement processes, you may end up continually reducing your firm’s profitability because some clients’ businesses are growing, and you are processing more work for them. now, do not get tempted to go into hourly billing methods as those are proven to cause conflicts with clients and loss of trust and goodwill. it is just not worth it.
taking the marketing and sales angle
engagement letters have traditionally been “legal” documents, and they need to be so, i.e., they must clearly state legal responsibilities and liabilities of the parties to the agreement. but that should not stop you from taking a marketing and sales angle to create such cas engagement letters. a primary reason for doing so is people can be expected to read more carefully when they are signing off on anything that requires them to pay and/or agree to certain possible liabilities. hence, while signing on the cas engagement letter, when they read about more of your services and what those can mean for their business, clients may be inclined to buy more add-on services. most product companies are pretty good at this. take the example of the iphone. when you purchase an iphone, you are asked if you’d like to buy “apple care.” instantly, you may perceive the risk of not opting in for such “insurance,” especially so if you have lost a cell phone or damaged it. apple also shows related accessories you can buy. while you have the utmost attention of the buyer (when they are about to pay or agree to pay), it does not require additional marketing and sales time, effort and cost to sell more to the same clients.
even if the clients do not buy any additional services at the time of signing the agreement, it serves the purpose of making them aware of your firm’s other services and capabilities. when the need arises, clients will remember and reach out to you. i have had several instances when my prospects and clients reached out to me after a few months or even a few years asking for that additional service i provided. it is better that a client asks “don’t you provide x service?” (confirmation) than “do you provide x service?” (inquiry). confirmation does not need much additional convincing/sales pitch (why they should buy a service and why from you); inquiry does. confirmation-driven discussions end mostly in price discovery and negotiation, not the need validation. inquiry-driven discussions go through the entire sales cycle.
service delivery options
it is prudent to lay out all the service “delivery” choices you can offer to clients. it should be your earnest endeavor to create multiple ways in which clients receive your service delivery. creating and including “self-service, online” service consumption choices in your engagement letters can add several thousands of dollars to your firm’s bottom line by avoiding the time and costs associated with printing, mailing, creating pdfs, emailing and so on.
it is also a good practice to associate service level measurements with each delivery choice. for example:
- client portal access: 24 x 7
- requesting reports by email: monday-friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
the more you can drive the clients to online consumption of information, the better it will be for your firm’s profitability.