you may need to boost their human skillsets.
by hitendra patil
accountaneur: the entrepreneurial accountant
“we do not have the staffing for client accounting services.”
non-cas firms cite this as the topmost reason for not being able to offer cas. nothing could be further from the truth.
more: two tech approaches to cas | when to start building your cas tech stack | your firm needs a cas champion | your top six cas questions
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experience of firms that offer cas, including that of small firms with fewer than five staff members, proves beyond doubt that you do not need more staff to start offering cas. even solo practitioners provide cas. the only thing you need to begin your cas journey is to be ruthless, relentless and fearless to leverage newer and cloud technologies. automation, integration and even artificial intelligence make it easier, faster and cheaper to perform some repetitive, time-consuming work of accounting firms.
technology can perform tasks like write-up that traditionally you or your staff did manually. such automation can save you 75 percent to 95 percent of the time taken for such work. in my experience of interacting with several firms, just in write-up work, if you automate the work of 75 percent of your existing clients, your cost of producing such work can go down by about 60 to 65 percent, and the gross profit from such work can go up by 50 to 55 percent.
in other words, within the same productive hours your firm has now, you can produce similar work for four to 10 times more number of clients. imagine the impact on your firm’s profitability! and this is just one such example of how technology can provide you with efficiency and productivity gains. you can automate many of your routine processes to varying degrees. it is, of course, essential that you optimize your firm’s technology stack and processes.
given this understanding that you do not need more staff to start offering cas, let us now examine how to create your firm’s cas team.
cas – different expectations
cas is more interactive than traditional transactional services. it means clients start expecting different results, processes and how you treat them. these different expectations require your entire firm to adjust the mindset, skillsets and toolsets. to deliver on the different expectations, you want to ensure that you and your team are on board with the adjustments required. some examples of how the different expectations manifest in your day-to-day work are:
- unlike monthly write-up in which you deliver the end-of-month financial statements, in cas, you will provide at least weekly insights into clients’ books.
- unlike after-the-fact recording of business transactions that have already completed, you will record and organize incomplete business transactions, e.g., bills received but not paid, sales invoices issued but payments not received, payables and receivables analysis, etc. to create cash flow reporting.
- unlike just preparing the tax return, you will likely engage in tax planning interactions with clients.
- unlike just delivering period-end reports, you will likely give clear action points based on insights from the reports.
depending upon several factors such as industry, size of business, growth trend of the company, expansion/diversification plans of the business owners, etc., the expectations and hence the way you work with your cas clients can be different. one key factor in catering to different expectations is to identify the timeline of when business owners make their business decisions and divide your services into
- before,
- at the time and
- after they make such decisions.
as much as possible, make all endeavor to assist the business owners while and before they make their business decisions.
the cas champion
if your firm is newly entering into the cas segment, formally make one person the “cas champion” of your firm. this person should understand your firm’s processes, but you need to relieve this person from some of the “work-producing” responsibilities. this is to enable him/her to focus on identifying the different expectations, creating ways and reports to fulfill those expectations and implementing performance evaluation and measurement parameters. this person should conduct a periodic review of your firm’s cas performance from cost, client service quality and profitability point of view.
if your firm is already offering cas, it still makes sense to have one person to be the designated cas champion of your firm. cas evolves in every firm, and there are no real best practices you can simply copy-paste into your firm’s cas processes. to help your cas offering develop and mature, you need one person accountable for it.
cas and human skillsets
in a separate research and analysis i conducted based on disc profile assessments as the base, i found common, predominant personality traits and the key drivers of 200 successful accountants. the list below shows the most common personality traits of successful accountants:
top four key traits:
- assertive
- demanding
- outspoken
- outgoing
the next five top traits:
- confident
- decisive
- gut instinct
- intuitive
- sociable
the next three key traits:
- driven
- fast-paced
- friendly
least common traits:
- accommodating
- deliberate
- eager
- efficient
- humble
- innovative
- optimistic
- patient
- persistent
- practical
what drives successful accountants?
the list below shows the most common drivers of successful accountants.
top six key drivers:
- ambitious goals
- winning
- speed
- peer recognition
- competition
- excitement
the next four top drivers:
- challenges
- fun
- new relationships
- producing results
least common drivers:
- feeling accepted
- group cooperation
- peaceful environments
- stability
- exploration
i know this is debatable, and the research sample size may not truly represent the accounting profession. but the accountants exhibiting these traits were more successful – per the most common definitions of success. it does not mean accountants who do not show these traits are not, or may not, be successful.
how to raise the human skillsets of your team members
it is essential to identify who among your team members are better suited to “produce” the work and who is more adept at interacting with the customers. you may or may not use any assessments like disc profiles. but you should attempt to observe your team to know the difference in their human skill sets. from my interactions with several accounting firm owners and their staff, here are some ways in which you can raise the human skillsets of your cas team members:
- help them learn empathy: accounting clients are not generally formally educated on accounting knowledge. while explaining insights from numbers, your team will need to be conscious of how to simplify the accounting jargon into actionable intelligence that clients will be able to understand and act upon. it is not just a matter of being a wordsmith. it all emerges from the foundations of empathy.
- help enhance their presentation skills: i do not mean just how to use powerpoint or slides to present to clients. the presentation skills include explaining complicated matters in more straightforward ways but also a well-practiced method of making sure that clients understand what you are telling them. it means your team will need to develop excellent listening skills.
- more persuasive communication skills: as basic as it sounds, it is crucial to pay special attention to enhance your team’s communication skills. ideally, team up your staff with those who already have excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. involve them in client meetings, so they witness live action of good communications. cc client service emails to the staff. it is all a learning journey.
- flexibility: experts have high conviction in what they know. it is an excellent thing. but, at times, it also makes them inflexible. other than the letter of the law that requires you to do something in a particular way, cas team members need to be flexible to consider multiple possibilities. in other words, instead of being overly judgmental (this is the only way it will work), they need to become considerate (there are three different ways to do this, and each of these ways has its pros and cons, which are … based on this, i recommend this course of action).
- other human factors: likeability, honesty, integrity, persuasion skills, negotiation skills, problem-solving skills and so on emerge from how a person is as a human being and his/her belief systems. the team members need to have an open mind and a learning attitude.
cas and technical skillsets
technical skillsets, i.e., knowledge and skills that help people produce accurate, timely and high-quality work, are the foundation of cas offerings. your cas offering needs to help clients make better and timely business decisions. you cannot achieve this result if your team does not have strong technical skillsets.
your team’s baseline technical skillsets will be based on these four key factors:
- technology: hardly any successful cas firm can deliver exceptional services without technology. it is the fundamental requirement that your cas team is reasonably tech-savvy. also, there is no escape from trying out new, emerging technologies to continue to gain a competitive advantage. your team members should expect to test and change technologies/solutions.
- process: your firm’s operating procedures will change when you start offering cas. take all the necessary efforts to train your team members on new process requirements. they must know how the process performance will be measured so that they are alert to delays, possible mistakes, and quality issues that can emerge. if you find your cas staff coming to you (firm owner/partner/cas champion) frequently during the day-to-day operations, it is a clear sign that your team does not have enough process skills.
- understanding clients’ business and industry: every staff member who interacts with any given client must understand the client’s business model, type of business, how it operates, and preferably the sector in which the client operates. this is an essential skillset your team members must possess to deliver a high-quality customer experience and, in turn, slowly but surely create the “most trusted advisor” perception in clients’ minds.
- compliance: ideally, your firm’s operating processes need to incorporate necessary compliance of applicable laws. your internal review processes must have enough checks and balances to ensure compliance. clients should never have to worry about non-compliance. at the same time, not every cas staff member needs to be a compliance expert, but it pays to train staff on telltale non-compliance signs.
cas front and back office
as your firm’s cas practice grows, you will most likely experience that your cas team gets divided into the front-office and back-office teams.
you will do so based on human and technical skillsets. it is okay to let that happen. the aim is to leverage the core strengths of each team member. but when this segregation happens, it also results in an increased need for internal coordination so that you minimize “i will check and revert” kind of communications with your clients. it requires real-time sharing and access to shared information related to each client that two or more staff members work on. cloud and collaborative technology can easily make this happen. you would want to reduce internal emails and instead move to online shared spaces, e.g., google’s g-suite, microsoft teams, cloud cabinet/cloud files storage solutions, collaborative cloud solutions for accounting, payroll, taxes, etc.
it will also make increasing sense to provide your clients with a single point of contact – a staff member at your firm who is in the “front office.” it helps avoid a bad customer experience if a client has to interact with multiple staff members periodically. as long as your firm shares real-time information between the front- and back-office staff, it is easily possible to create such “front office client success representatives.”
how to train your cas team
i am assuming you and your team are already producing reasonably good work for your clients. now, you want to up your game to provide a great cas offering. i have witnessed several such transitions of accounting firms that went from the usual, now increasingly commoditized and increasingly automated transactional work to the higher end, higher value, higher fees and higher profitability cas segment. one of the most critical requirements for cas success is the upskilling of your team. here are some effective methods that i have regularly seen to work when training cas teams:
- end-to-end work process training: “you process. i will review.” if you are the owner or partner of your firm, you want to avoid this practice of reviewing your staff’s work. train them on end-to-end processes, including what and how you review to ensure accuracy, compliance, and completeness. do not worry about losing your “trade secrets.” technology is already automating so many aspects of what was once considered accountants’ intellectual property. the end-to-end training ensures that your team becomes capable of providing quality service to your clients, and does so faster without the frustrating delays caused by multistep, multiperson bureaucratic processes.
- standardize your processes: take away the need to create individualized processes per client. you can still provide customized insights, but the procedures to get to that stage need to be standardized. train your team on these processes so well that they know exactly what to look for when they see key insights in the client’s books and reports. it takes away the flab from your processes, takes out the guesswork and focuses the team on outcomes.
- client interaction training: this is perhaps the most challenging and most intimidating aspect of cas training. interacting with a “business owner” who looks at things not from an accounting point of view but from a risk-reward point of view requires your team members to change their viewpoint. teaching your team members to look from the client’s point of view, as an entrepreneurial person, is difficult, but there are proven ways to do so. i covered many aspects of this “entrepreneurial accountant viewpoint” in my previous book “accountaneur: the entrepreneurial accountant” published by cpatrendlines. delivering insights skillfully, in easy-to-understand ways and words, and turning business intelligence from the numbers into actionable intelligence is an art and a science – and takes practice. for this training, no method is better than shadowing the experts in client interactions. let your staff get trained on client interactions by being present in client meetings. ask them to prepare minutes of the meeting – without taking any written notes during such meetings (which ensures they do not focus on taking notes but instead concentrate on learning the nuances of interactions).
- dress rehearsals: when you have trained your staff internally for cas readiness, the next step that you need to do repeatedly is the “dress rehearsal.” you (the firm owner/partner) don the hat that the client wears, and your cas team member dons your hat. you ask the team member to present the cas insights to you. you ask the team member all the questions that the client generally asks. not only does it prepare the team member for the real performance, but it also makes you think like your client. in my interactions with firm owners, many times, i ask them the question, “if you are the client, which questions will you ask your accountant that your clients should ask but aren’t asking?” i often get fascinating responses. accountants have told me that this one question made them look at their client interactions in new ways.
- obtain and share client feedback with team members: the proof of the pudding is in eating. once your team member delivers cas insights to the client, as quickly as possible, ask for the client’s feedback. what did the client think of the cas service delivery? did he/she find cas insights useful? how did the cas staff do in explaining the cas insights? offer to send a starbucks or amazon gift card to the client in return for taking the time to provide you the feedback. use google forms or surveymonkey to obtain the feedback so that you can later collect multiple responses, compare and analyze them. make sure you immediately review the client’s feedback and take instant corrective action if the client is unhappy about anything. the client must feel that your firm addressed his/her concerns immediately. share the feedback, positive, negative, or neutral with the cas team members. there is no better way to enhance your services than understanding what clients value more.