find the magic 20 percent that could create clients for life.
by alan anderson, cpa
transforming audit for the future
the pillars of our ethics are objectivity and integrity, and our profession has chosen independence to measure our objectivity as cpas. we can still offer advice and insight to our clients and remain objective. we cannot, however, act in the capacity of management. our clients must decide which ideas to use and implement them.
more: stop mixing up your v’s and losing your best people | empower your team by dumping c and d clients | eleven types of audit clients and which to fire | don’t take on audits in an industry you don’t understand | how ‘business expert cpas’ get their own business wrong | exceptional audit client service demands effective communication | five ways to prevent audit bottlenecks | how do we drive relevance in audit? | lack of relevance drives audit commoditization | four basic understandings every auditor must master
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the tricky part comes when something we recommend fails. for example, let’s say a client asks for software advice, and they choose one of the three options we suggest. but that package isn’t working. now, can we be objective enough to admit that the advice we gave them and they paid for was wrong? do we have the integrity to tell the client they must write off the cost of that capitalized software? can we be objective enough to face the possible negative consequences and not just protect ourselves?
admitting that our advice was wrong might mean we lose a client, but it lets us keep our integrity intact. in the long run, that integrity will serve us better than any face-saving deflection of blame for problems that our advice might cause.
auditors tend to focus on the numbers, not the business behind the numbers. those numbers reflect the history of previous business decisions made by that company. those decisions are driven by and influenced by the owner’s or manager’s strategy and risk appetite. as an auditor, you see how different businesses manage that information flow to determine that particular financial transactions make sense, and you become better at seeing opportunities.
over time, as you develop industry expertise and ask good questions, you become a best practices connoisseur. it’s the classic 80-20 rule: 80 percent is the same, but it’s the 20 percent that makes the difference. you cannot distill that 20 percent overnight. however, with enough practice in an industry, you distill the differences between companies in the same industry and find that magic 20 percent that will help your client the most.
say one has a gross margin percentage that’s two points higher than their competitor. what is it that they are doing differently? do they service their clients well when something breaks down? do they have internal processes and systems that make them more efficient? how do their practices compare to best practices benchmarks?
when i saw one client doing really well in one area but another client in that same industry not doing as well, i recommended that they follow the practices of the one doing well. this comes from taking the time to listen and think about the depth and breadth of all your clients.
when you learn to look at the big picture of a business you’re auditing, you can see all the audit processes not just as tasks to mark off on a checklist but as tools to gain insight into the 20 percent that makes the difference. helping clients find that missing 20 percent might make them a client for life.
indeed, a lot of the business blocking and tackling of finance and accounting is industry-agnostic. you still have to invoice customers and pay payables. so, you might learn good things for a manufacturer by seeing something done in a nonprofit or a distributor.
while vital, bringing efficiencies to those back-office functions is not something that most companies really care about. but if you can help that company develop procedures that bring cash in the door faster, that can be a start to demonstrating your value to a client. that can open the door to peering under the hood of their operations to see if you can help them in other ways.
while a firm that works with a diverse set of clients can certainly provide ideas for making their back-office accounting more efficient, you won’t be able to help them with what will really help them. a small manufacturer will be more interested in an audit firm that can help them source their materials differently. that’s where a specialized audit firm can be truly invaluable to small organizations.
for example, lots of people don’t know that the business model for restaurants – besides great food – is table turnover. all the auditors see is the revenue from selling food and the cost of the food. but to really understand what drives success in a business, you need to understand the business model. then, you can develop industry-specific kpis that actually help that client pay attention to what’s important for their business so they can track what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.