if you can’t change your pricing or your customers, it doesn’t matter how efficient you are
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the disruptors
with liz farr for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
jody padar, the author of the radical cpa, has been shaking things up in the accounting world for years. but today, firms are at a boiling point, limited by supply and demand. “you only have so many people doing the work. and what are you going to do? you can’t make the work up. it’s got to get done,” padar said.
more: jody padar here
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the old business model was taking whoever walked in and billing by the hour. but today, we don’t have the capacity. “there’s so much work out there,” she explained. “i have not heard any accountants say that they are looking for work. they’re all saying, ‘stop, go away. i don’t have the resources to serve you.’”
she encourages firm leaders to prioritize time to think about what kind of firm they want. “it’s really about having a practice that works for you instead of you working for it, right? it’s about making sure that you spend time focused on your business and not in your business,” she explained.
even with the stresses of today, padar sees a bright future ahead with the automation tools that will be available in the next few years. we’ll still need all the cpas, but, she said, “we really will be able to build these beautiful practices with automation, and people doing advisory, and kind of getting rid of that grunt work and all that work that was so manual, and be able to have really amazing, profitable firms.”
she sees a day when tax advisory will evolve significantly. advances in ai will largely automate the compliance part of taxes. under the current model, padar said, “typically what they do is they sell compliance, and they give advice for free. i think that model is going to switch.”
she also predicts that with automation, firms will be bringing in a million dollars per full-time equivalent employee. but, she added, “you can’t get there without putting in the work to make your firm go through that transition. and so you need to commit to doing the work, running that marathon, and making those changes happen.”
11 more takeaways from jody padar
- we need to save our professionals, and doing that means changing from the top so we’re not working crazy nonstop hours. that means changing our business model so that no one works more than a certain number of hours in a week. if the work doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done. without those stops, nothing changes, and your team will all quit.
- to build a new kind of firm, start with a blank sheet of paper. forget everything you’ve had in the past and build what you want. start incrementally moving your firm in that direction.
- the needed changes start with pricing and getting the right customers. if you can’t change your pricing and you can’t change your customers, it doesn’t matter how efficient you are.
- we need to make the changes instead of talking about it. re-evaluate where you are, where you want to be, pause for a minute and get your intentions behind it. figure out what you truly can do.
- embrace the technological changes coming our way and lay the groundwork. within a few years, automation will take care of 85% of the work, and we will come in to do the last 15%. put advisory on top of that, and we’ll have highly profitable firms.
- managing partners shouldn’t have their own book of business. they need to focus on being the one decision-maker for the firm.
- restructure compensation so that people don’t have to become partners to share in the profits. redistribute the profits to the people who do the work.
- one big problem is how to buy out the legacy partners who staked their retirement savings on being bought out. venture capital buyouts of legacy partners are one solution. younger accountants aren’t interested in buying the legacy book of business. the next generation must be involved in developing the exit strategy for older partners.
- the first step to productizing your services is to sort your clients into the many different ways you serve them. whittle those many ways down to just a few. then you can think about how you want to serve them and who you want to serve.
- if you want your culture to be an advisory culture, you need to help the younger generation pick up those advisory skills. then, teach them how to be curious and how to look at things differently. but if you don’t have the capacity, you can’t train your team to be advisors.
- changing your firm requires dedicating non-billable time to working on your firm. hiring a consultant can give you guidelines and structure, but in the end, the firm owner has to be the one making the changes on a regular ongoing basis.
more about jody padar
jody padar is ceo and principal of the new vision cpa group, a public accounting firm based in the chicago area. jody joined her father’s firm a decade ago, bringing her expertise in the areas of taxation, quickbooks, and small business accounting. as one of the profession’s emerging thought leaders, jody has transitioned new vision to new firm status—adopting advanced technologies and best practices that support web-based client services. this allows jody to efficiently manage her firm with transparency at the heart of all engagements. jody and her team provide financial insight and practical strategies to their clients in real-time, not just during tax season. jody leads new vision cpa group and is a highly sought-after speaker and thought leader in the tax and accounting profession. she is the author of the radical cpa: new rules for the future-ready firm, a book that sparked a movement within the accounting profession focusing on four tenets: cloud technology, social business, value pricing, and process. she is a regular contributor to a number of industry publications, including 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 and accounting today, where she offers practical tips and advice on running a next-generation firm.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr
welcome to accounting disrupt your conversations. i’m your host, liz farr from cpa trend lines. my guest today is jody padar, the radical cpa and head of tech strategy and evangelism at april. welcome to the podcast. jody.
jody padar
thanks for having me, liz. i’m excited to be here.
liz farr
well, i’m really glad to have you because as i mentioned to you before, you were a bright light when i was stuck back in a dead end job and public accounting and gave me the courage that there was a future beyond just filling out endless tax returns that thank you. well, let’s jump in, because we’ve got a lot to talk about. now counting talent in the us and around the world has been scarce for years. what are some ideas you have on how to make things better? so
jody padar
i think there’s two pieces to it. i think one is culture of your firm. and the second one is automate, automate, automate, automate, right. and i think like they go hand in hand, right? they go into this culture of innovation and a culture of automation. but i also think that so many firms are at a point where they just need to stop where they’re at, rethink what they’re doing, pause for a minute, and really get in there and automate certain things so that they can make things more efficient, so that they can give themselves some time to kind of adjust their culture evolve, change, so that they have the opportunity to.to attract talent, and i think to the opportunity to retain talent, because it’s really hard to find people. so we need to think about doing things in a different way and a new way and evolving our firms.
liz farr
what are what are some of the things about culture in particular that a firm might need to change?
jody padar
well, again, i think it starts with automation and hours, right? because people are burned out. we’ve been on this never ending tax season, right? there was no season right? really since covid. started. and, and now like three years later, two and a half years later, people are just tired, right? they’re just tired. so how are we going to rethink what we’re doing so that we can give people a break? because we’re going to blink, and it’s going to be tax season again? or maybe it is tax season, depending on, you know, when the podcast gets released? and how do we help help our teams get that break that they need, so that they’re not in this burnout, because i’ve heard about so many people who are not just leaving firms, like they’re not going from firm to firm, they’re just quitting, they’re just saying, i’m done. i’m not going to do this anymore. and they’re like, they’re going to do yoga or something else. i mean, truly, they’re like changing their lives, because they’ve had enough. so we need to save our professionals. and it has to start at the top of leadership and culture and making the just making the decision to say, look, we’re not going to have this crazy, nonstop, constant hours. and what do we need to do to our firms at the top to adjust for that. and that means either changing our pricing or changing our, like the clients we take, i mean, there’s so many things that have to be adjusted, and our business models. but it starts with saying, i know my team isn’t going to work more than x hours per week. and that’s it. and if it doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done. and if you don’t put those stops on it, guess what, nothing changes, we’re going to be back. and then all your team is going to quit on you. so where’s that? got you?
liz farr
yeah, yeah. and you know, and i like what you say about changing the business model, because that was the next thing i was gonna ask you about, you know, what are some things that firms can do to change their business model?
jody padar
so i think it starts at the top again, with saying, okay, i want to start with something new. i want to redefine what a cpa firm looks like. and, you know, even in my books, i talked about this, like, just take a blank sheet of paper, and like, forget about everything you’ve had in the past and build what you want, like just put it on a sheet of paper. and then you can incrementally start kind of shifting your firm to get there, right? because you’re not going to like throw everything out because that would be kind of crazy, right? but it starts a lot with pricing and getting the right customers and it and if you can’t change your pricing, and you can’t get the right customers and it doesn’t matter how efficient you are, because it’s still not gonna if it’s not going to help, and when you think about pricing and raising prices and things like that, i mean, let’s just talk about basic economics. now supply and demand, you can’t find people to do the work. and even with all the automation, there’s still not not enough accountants and more retiring. so the only way you can do that is by raising prices, which i believe firms should have done years ago. but again, like, let’s wait, now we’re here. so let’s do something about it. let’s adjust our pricing, let’s really figure out what our value is to our clients. and let’s express that value so that they understand the value that they’re giving. and then let’s build a capacity plan. that’s reasonable. let’s talk about what our team members can actually do during the year or during tax season or during a certain period of time. and if our capacity doesn’t meet with what our client’s needs are based on pricing, and how we’ve built our firm, then guess what it’s time to, like, throw out that plan, and start a new plan so that it all matches because you can’t, you can’t just wing it anymore, you can’t just take everything that comes in the door and pass it off and assume that your your team is going to get done. because guess what, a they’re not going to get it done and be they’re going to just rebel there. they don’t care. they don’t want to say they don’t care, because i think they care too deeply. but they’re at a point of burnout in their lives, that they’re just going to walk out because they’re not going to that it’s too much. it’s been too long, and it’s too much. and so you as a leader, you as that managing partner, you as that partner needs to make sure that your client work aligns with your capacity. and however automation fits into that, and only take on that much work. because if you take on more than that, you’re going to end up with nothing, because you’re not going to have anyone to do the work. and it’s sad reality. i mean, but it’s true.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. and i think it’s, it’s really kind of a of a shock to many practitioners that, that we can’t expand our capacity infinitely. we can’t take on every single person that walks in the door, we have to be more discerning. and that’s, that’s a huge radical shift from the way it has been. then, if you had two legs and a checkbook, we would take you.
jody padar
right? and and we just can’t anymore. i mean, honestly, it’s supply and demand, you only have so many people doing the work. and what are you going to do? like i, you can’t, you can’t make the work up. so it’s got to get done. so i, again, it’s a different way of thinking about it. when we think about new business models, right? before it was whoever walked in, you’re going to build by the hour. we know how i feel about that. but like, you know, you’re going to take this work in and i have capacity, and i’m going to fill it but now that that’s not that’s not true anymore, because there’s so much work out there. i have not heard any accountants say that they are looking for work, that there is no accountant out there saying they’re looking for work. they’re all saying stop go away. i don’t have the resources to serve you.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. and and what i’m seeing a lot on tax, twitter is firm owners who were actively paring down their, their client lists. yeah, anybody who is excessively demanding, or too hard to work with, or a pain because they get their documents in too late. they’re they’re out. they’re just gone.
jody padar
and this should have happened years ago. so like, this is not like, i mean, honestly, the problem is, is we’re just at the boiling point today, right? like this stuff should have happened years ago. i’ve been preaching about it for years. it’s really about having a practice that is works for you instead of you working for it, right. it’s about making sure that you spend time focused on your business and not in your business. right. but now we’re at this boiling point. so i think everybody’s feeling it. and i’ve heard honestly, partners who are just said, like, i’m ready to just like, go away, basically just close my doors, because i don’t want to deal with it anymore. and i think that’s sad, because i think like they’re beautiful businesses here. and all they need is a little bit of love and tenderness and basically help on the restructure side. but it’s a reality that that’s the that’s the pressure people feel. and that’s part of its three years of covid and all the other stuff and all the changes but i mean that’s the reality that we’re facing. so it’s time to really reevaluate where you are, where you want to be and pause for a minute and gets get intense. go behind it and figure out what you truly can do. and restructured and again, i don’t think that’s a good thing or a bad thing. i just think, like, we need to just actually do it instead of talking about it. and, and the other thing is, is when you talk about raising prices, and whatever, there’s so many people on tax twitter now who like 1040s, like nobody wants to do 1040s unless they’re associated with businesses now, right? and it makes sense, because you think about the value to your firm and the value the the long term value of that client versus the long versus a value, you know, just a 1040. so it makes sense for that to happen. and honestly, that’s where april is going to come in, because april is a computer or is a consumer focused product. but i don’t think that’s a bad thing, either. right? like, i i don’t think it’s a bad thing for practitioners to kind of get out of the 1040 business. and less when i say get out of like, the simple 1040 business, not the yeah, obviously high net worth, etc, those 1040s are always going to stay inside of firms. but most firms who’ve had like 1040 practices, because their legacy and they’ve been dragging him along. if there’s never been a better time to get out of that business and say, hey, you know, we’re no longer doing 1040s anymore, or this is our minimum price for a 1040 if you’re willing to pay it stay. if not, that’s okay, too.
liz farr
yeah, you know, i did so many 1040s, when i was in public practice, that really, they could have gone to h&r block, or they could have used turbotax. they, the reason they were coming to a cpa firm, i think was really just the fear of getting it wrong. but if there are tools that make it easy, then i think that that will go a long ways towards clearing up some of our capacity problems.
jody padar
right? i mean, that that’s the good thing. that’s the opportunity that i see. right, like, so i don’t know, i seems like i’m a little bit negative. but like when i, when we talk about the tools that i see that are coming and how the evolution of tools are happening, like if these firm owners can like kind of figure it out, and just kind of hang on in the next year, two years, three years, the tools from an automation standpoint are going to be amazing. and truly like not to say we won’t need all the cpas, who were losing, but the automation is going to make up the difference. and we really will be able to build these beautiful practices with automation, and people doing advisory, and kind of getting rid of that grunt work and all that work that was so manual, and be able to have really amazing, profitable firms. so like, we’re there, we just need to like, embrace it and say, look, we need to lay the groundwork now. so that in a year, two years, three years, whatever, like, automation is 85% of the work is 85% of the work we’ve done is automated, we come in to do the last, you know, 10% 15%, and we put advisory on top of it, and like those are going to be beautiful businesses and highly profitable. and i mean, and when you think about it, that’s why all this private equity and venture capital is coming into our space, because they see that opportunity. i wish cpas could see it right. like i wish the accountants could see it the way the outside investors see it. and just be like, like, i could do this too. and i can read redefine what my practice looks like, so that i can have a really profitable practice and not work a bazillion hours a week. and all i have to do is kind of restructured today in my business model with my pricing with my package services, etc. and i can to get there because it’s so it’s hard for me because i see it so well. and yet, then i see all the practitioners and i see them struggling and i and i just think just just hang in there like you’ll get there. but you got to start you got to do something you have to make move to it. you can’t do whatever you did last year and expect it to be the same next year.
liz farr
absolutely not. no. and what are some? what are some different ways that you’re seeing firms structure themselves? i mean, we’re starting to get away from that pyramid where there’s a couple partners at the very top and then a whole bunch of people at the bottom. what are some things that you’re seeing?
jody padar
well, i think, you know, when there’s multiple decision makers, basically there’s no decision. so i mean, that’s the traditional partnership model, which we know doesn’t work right. it doesn’t work. yeah. so and even if you’re going to own shares in partnership, whatever, you still need one person who’s making that those decisions and that person should not be responsible for his own book. good business, let’s start there.
liz farr
no, that person should be that person
jody padar
should be essentially a ceo of sorts, our president of the firm, right. and right now, there’s too many firms that still that that person who’s allegedly the managing partner still has a book of business, which again, that doesn’t work, right? no. so we need one decision maker. and then we need to restructure compensation, we need to really think about how we’re going to compensate people. and not everybody wants to be a partner. and that’s okay. how do you make it so that you can stay on the technical track, or you can stay in the firm doing just work? and it’d be a respected position, right? because i think sometimes people feel like, oh, well, if i’m not a partner, or whatever, guess what, you don’t have to be a partner, you can be an a plus contributor, and you can make money be profitable, like you can be, and that can be a long term career path. and that can be okay. right? like, it’s because in the old model, it was you made partner you left, right, and you don’t, that doesn’t have to be like the way it is in the future. the other thing is, is how do we share compensation across the team? right? so when we talk about profitability of a client, how does that get redistributed to the people who actually work on that job? right? because guess what, if you incentivize them with cash, they’re going to be incentivized to work on it in a different way than if they’re not. so how do you help kind of share that wealth? so i think that like part like it always was partner cup, how about just employee comp, let’s relook at how we pay our employees, how we play, pay all the people who are in the firm? and then i think the last piece, which is the big question, and i don’t know the answer for is all the legacy partners who expect to be bought out, i don’t know how that’s going to work. because, honestly, the next generation doesn’t want to buy your mess. and i like, like it. so i’m sorry, you didn’t save for retirement, i’m sorry, that, like you, banked it all into this business, believing that this was going to be your future retirement. but somewhere that that idea needs to change. and that’s why private equity is coming in anyways, is because they’re buying out those partners, and they’re giving them an easy way out. but, or i should say, not an easy way out just a way out in general. but the next generation isn’t going to buy that legacy book. so we’re gonna have to figure out a different way for these partners to get compensated and to leave as well. and i don’t know that i wish i had the magic bullet there. because i don’t know what that answer is. but i can tell you this, the next person coming up, doesn’t want to pay for your legacy client, who still needs to be automated, there’s all these other things that have to happen for them to even be relevant to the firm. and chances are you’ve held on to that relationship so tight that the minute you leave, they’re going to leave anyways. so that that’s the piece. i don’t know, i wish i knew. and that’s the piece i think that has to get figured out. but i the only thing i can say is it’s got to be figured out with the next gen in the room, not with the expectation that you’re just going to tell them how it’s gonna work. because right ain’t gonna happen. so, so how do you how do you bring those stakeholders together to kind of figure out the right exit strategy for all these partners that somehow need to get paid out? that haven’t planned? or they they thought they were going to have this remedy evolve? and it’s not going to happen? and, or they’re just gonna get eaten up by these big firms? and again, is that the worst thing in the world? i don’t know, though. like, what’s gonna happen is the bigger are gonna get bigger, the boutique are gonna say small, and the middle is gonna go away. and yeah, and, and i wish i had an answer. i really do. but i don’t think anyone knows the right answer for that.
liz farr
yeah, and i think it depends a lot on the individual firm, right, you know, a, a firm that is, you know, one owner and fully cloud based e commerce. they have so many more options than the guy who lives in a little rural town, and just works with the teachers and the veterinarian and the feed store and the supermarket. right, they have a very different situation. and it’s those people in the little communities that i’m most worried about.
jody padar
well, so here’s the thing. if those…if those people who are looking to sell those firms. and again, they have to think about saying, look, i want to sell, and they’re willing to adopt new technologies, and to kind of share that automation process with whoever is going to come in and take them over, or, you know, evolve them, that’s fine. but i can tell you this, it’s not going to be $1 for dollar based on client retention, because there’s too much no automation that needs to happen in the meantime. and that’s the piece i think that people haven’t thought about, because they always thought they were selling a book of business or a client base. and i don’t believe that that’s what they’re selling anymore. i believe they’re selling, they’re truly sell selling automation and processes in a business, not a client list. whereas i think before, it was, like you were selling a client list. and and i think that’s the difference. so the value of these firms isn’t what they thought they, you know, what these owners thought they would be? and now how do you how do you reconcile that? how do you evolve? how do you? and again, i wish i knew all the answers, but i can tell you this, if you don’t change and you don’t start on that road, your clients are just going to go away, and there’s going to be nothing left a value to your firm.
liz farr
right. now, what about growth? i mean, do firms even really need to grow?
jody padar
so i think the smart firms are growing in the right ways. so again, it’s not about take everyone who walks in your door, it’s about productizing, your service offering, knowing exactly what you sell and how you sell it. and then that becomes scalable and repeatable. and then those firms are growing crazy, like if you look at some of the cast surveys and stuff like that, 30% i mean, they’re having huge growth. so i think it’s really about growing the right way, and not just growth for growth’s sake. right? and right, and having firms strategically think about how they want to grow, which again, i think is is new for many firm owners.
liz farr
yeah, yeah, i think it’s, it’s thinking about exactly who they take on. you know, there were so many times when i worked with a client, that it was the first time i saw that that particular industry. and so i had to get up to speed really fast in some particular industry, or some particular business model. or maybe they were just a really terrible client to begin with. and it was somebody that we shouldn’t have taken on, ever.
jody padar
right? so i mean, i think as we look at automation and productization of services, and being cloud firms, that’s truly what makes cloud firms, most of what it is, is they they do everything in a standardized way, right? and when you standardize things, and you make them repeatable, it’s very easy to add to them. when you’re taking on all these new things. you can’t that that doesn’t scale that doesn’t grow. and, and so again, it’s it’s how do you want to grow? who do you want to grow with? and then strategically thinking about it?
liz farr
yeah, and i think it’s the strategically thinking about it. that has been lacking for so long. there were there are there are different strategies for growing that work better for a solo firm, or for a multi partner firm?
jody padar
so i think any well, first of all, when it comes to growth, again, the more you can stand arise, the better off you are. so if you think about our traditional firm, is most traditional firms do everything for everyone, and they haven’t standardized anything. and if you go back to just thinking about your client base, i would say if you have 200 clients, you probably do things in 20 different ways, which is not bad. well, i would argue you should try and get things down to four ways. but even if you have 200 clients, and you do things in 20 different ways, if you start to bucket those clients in 20 different ways, you’ll start to see how your patterns arise, and how you’re actually serving clients more similar than not. and then what you got to do is once you bucket them into 20, you got to figure out how to take those 20 and whittle it down to only serving them in four different ways, right, and having those client conversations etc. then, again, this is like the beginning of productizing your services, then if you do that, then you can actually think about how you want to serve them and who you want to serve. because until you do that. it’s very hard to say i’m going to serve them because people used to say, oh, well i serve i’m going to like be in a niche or whatever, right? like i’m only going to serve? that’s right. well, that’s great. but are you serving vets who are on intact vets who are in quickbooks about two are on sage? how are you like you, it’s not industry specific, i believe it even goes further down, where you need to really standardize, you know, how you reconciles certain accounts, how you help them with their kpis. because again, that’s where the advisory comes in. and until you know, that, you can’t really grow at the rate that you want to. and so i don’t know if it matters, if you’re a sole practitioner, or a multi partner firm, i think what the more important thing is, is to kind of figure out how you can standardize certain things, so that you can sell them and in a certain way, and then, and then you can choose who you want to serve. and then that leads to, you know, strategic growth versus just, like focus on a niche, which i think has always been, like, everyone’s just said, focus on a niche. well, yeah, not really, like, that’s just the top layer. okay, so right. it right, it’s really, it goes beyond that. and again, as you start looking at kas, or like, i think what they’re calling kaz two o or whatever, right, you really need kpis and things to help them with, which means you really need to understand what’s happening behind the scenes in their business. and that’s more than what they spent on something last month, that’s truly understanding their business model. and so that requires a certain level of standardization to get there.
liz farr
yeah, and it also requires collecting some non financial data to make your some of your kpis. a friend of mine said, you know, the thing that drives profit in a restaurant is how quickly a table turns over. well, that’s nowhere in the financials, right, but that’s not in there. so you’ve got to figure out how to rack those kpis that are actually meaningful, and figure out how, how you can push the needle on them.
jody padar
and so that’s to when you think about automation, right? like for the firms who aren’t as automated as other firms. that’s where all the data comes in. and that’s where the magic happens, right? when you can take your financial data and marry it with your marketing data or marry it with, you know, the turnover times of a restaurant. and most of these restaurants have their own databases that they’re working with, they have some sort of industry level, like, i’ll call it a crm, for lack of a better term, but a point of sale or something else that they have that’s tracking this kind of data, and how you take that data and your financial data and marry it. that’s where the magic happens. and the way you get good at that is to see lots of different companies doing the same thing, right? so lots of different vets using those things, right. and so that’s kind of that next level advisory that again, everybody talks about, but nobody tells you how to do it. but you can’t do it unless you have all these other data sources, organized and coming in. so it’s so funny, because it’s what comes first the chicken or the egg, right? oh, let’s do advisory. let’s do advisory. well, guess what, before you get to advisory, you have to have some sort of standardized process. and then you have to do all these other things, so that you can actually get to do true advisory. now, i would argue many of us do advisory, we practice random acts of consulting, and we do advisory and we like and we’re selling it as compliance, but it’s really advisory. but if you want to really do kind of that next level advisory, you really need that detail from other sources of data from that come from outside your financial systems.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. and it you also the people in the firm’s really just need the bandwidth to absorb that. and notice that to understand it, and you can’t do that if you’re just cranking as fast as you can.
jody padar
well, again, think about that capacity plan that we started at the beginning of the conversation with, like, you can’t do any of this higher level stuff. if you’re too busy doing bank recs on the back end, because you can’t there just isn’t enough time in the day.
liz farr
yeah. yeah, you know, if you have to spend two hours doing a bank rec because you have to do it all manually, or you can do it in two minutes, because it’s completely automated, new set up all the rules, and you’re doing this on a regular basis. then suddenly you have an hour and 58 and minutes, that you can sit back and look at the numbers and say, hmm, what are the trends i’m seeing just in this business? and what ideas? do i have to help them out?
jody padar
right, right, you have you have opportunity there.
liz farr
right. now, it used to be that we had to be really good with a 10 key to be successful in accounting. i, i’ve talked to a lot of people who talk about literally keying in the phone book to get good at it. what are the skills that accountants need to be successful today and in the future?
jody padar
i think it’s curiosity, and a love of learning. right? so things are changing so fast that you just have to be able to figure it out. right. and i think that’s the skill that, again, we have to help the next gen learn, right. and we have to teach them those advisory skills, because we were able to accumulate them, accumulate them over 25 years of experience. and guess what, they’re not going to have 25 years to build those advisory skills, they’re gonna have to be advisory probably within two years, like, probably as soon as like, and that’s not a bad thing, because i hear people saying, oh, well, how can you be advisors if you’ve never seen anything? well, it just means we, as their elders need to help them learn faster, which a, again, it’s kind of that focused intent, where if you want your culture to be an advisory culture, if you want your culture, to learn to be innovative, etc, then you’re going to have to put those advisory skills in and help them learn those skills. and, again, it’s so funny because i always think it’s something new, but it’s really not. anderson years ago, when andersen consulting came around, hired liberal arts majors, and they taught them accounting, and then they taught them how to be consultants. so and they did it right out of for kids right out of school. so for accountants who say the next gen is incapable guess what, like they did this 40 years ago when andersen started, right? so it’s not like, it’s not like it’s something new. but it takes intention. and it takes the, it takes us as firm owners to say, look, we need to teach them how to look at trends, how to, like see the bigger picture, how to find all these things together. and then let them like use the tools to, to, to produce the the financials and to do all of that. so. so i think truly, it’s about kind of helping the next gen or, again, if we’re retraining kind of our managers of today, let’s say that the people have been around for a few years, i’m just helping them see what advisory skills are, how to look at things differently. and it’s not easy, i’ll tell you, it’s not easy. because if you started in accounting, and you went to be an accountant, because you liked reconciling things, and that was your and not all accountants are like that there are definitely some who like business development, and there are some who like conversations, but don’t kid yourself. 50% of the accountants out there like to reconcile, and that’s why they, that’s why they’re still reconciling, you’re gonna have to help them realize that guess what, the the role you have is changing. and you need to get on board and learn these new skills, because we don’t need you to reconcile anymore because computers can do that. so, and maybe those are hard conversations to have or honest conversations to have. but to realize that, you know, not everyone is going to be embracing advisory, but they’re gonna have to learn how to do it if they want to be relevant as the world continues to change, because the automation is only getting better. and i don’t think anyone talks about those aren’t conversations. i really don’t think people think, oh, pounds can just be advisory.
liz farr
yeah, it’s really hard to get to that point. i heard of a firm somewhere. i can’t remember where it was, but they would do a lunch and learn once a week, where they would just pull up some clients books, their quickbooks file or there’s zero file and just throw it up on the screen and have everybody say, okay, what are you seeing here? and what are some ideas?
jody padar
that’s great. that’s a great idea. yeah, i heard i heard of to like a tax return. like all the review notes are all questions. like, again, you’re getting a review note. it’s not this is right or wrong. it’s all questions making you think about it right? how many times do people not even write up a review note, they just let it go out because they don’t have time. but if you have time, again, all comes back to capacity and time. if you don’t have capacity and time, you cannot train your team to be advisors. and so, again, where’s that time going to come from the only place that’s going to come is if you rethink your business model, rethink your pricing, and build that capacity and for your team to evolve, so that they can be advisors otherwise, again, like, where are you going to be in three years? i don’t know. and i don’t want to be doom and gloom, right? like, i really care because i see the opportunity, and i’m like, oh, my god, it’s gonna be so awesome.
liz farr
it is for the people who are willing to take that chance yeah, to change. now, what do you think accountants should stop doing immediately?
jody padar
um, i think they should stop? well, i think they should stop billing by time. but i think that kind of like, i don’t want to say like, i know, there are accountants who are still out there thinking about it. but i think the tune is changed a lot. so i think we’re longer or we’re further along in the journey where people are, like, actually thinking about alternative ways of pricing. so i think that’s a good thing. but i think client, i think, accountant should stop taking in every new client, and think they can serve everyone, i think they really need to take an honest look at their firm. and again, if they have 200 business clients, they probably serve them in 20 different ways. think about starting to group, how they serve their clients and figuring out what those package services are. and if they start with the clients that they have, and kind of bucketing them, then they can then kind of evolve those processes, and continue on kind of that product division of services. but if you keep taking in all these new random people, or all these new random services, you’re never going to get there. and so i would say stop there. plus, you probably don’t have the resources to serve them anyways.
liz farr
you’re here? yeah, yeah, no, i found myself in a couple of situations where i really didn’t know quite what i was doing. but we taken this client on and okay, and we have to do this. so now all of a sudden, instead of, in addition to learning about microbreweries, i have to learn about gas and oil accounting. and you just can’t do that. and debit all you can’t know. now. now, a lot of accountants really do know what they need to do what they need to change. but what are some of the blocks that keep them from changing?
jody padar
so it comes back to time. and i would say you need to make a commitment to yourself in your firm, that you are going to spend one day a week with no client work, and you are going to work on your firm, and you are going to start changing it. and if you can’t commit to that time. i can’t help you, right, like, i can’t wave my magic wand and just make all your things happen. because it has to be it has to be the structure that you as the partner or whoever, right like and again, you can have your team help you with it. but you have to dedicate non billable time to this. and this is where the billable hour model really incentivizes you not to change, which is why we’re in this big mess that we’re in to start with. so because if you’re billing time, right, then you’re profitable, and you know, you’re making money and then like, then i’m not going to change, right? but it’s kind of like netflix, right? so if we’re still sending out dvds and live streaming comes along, and we didn’t make that shift to live streaming, then we’re going to be blockbuster. so, you know, so you have to make a commitment to spend time working in your firm and figuring out these new ways of doing business evolving your business model. and it’s stuff you have to do i wish you could again to say, well, i’m gonna hire a consultant, and they’re gonna do it all for you. yeah, they can’t. they they they can give you guidelines. they can give you structure and kind of help to kind of organize things. but at the end of the day, you have to go through your client list and figure out how all these things intersect because that consultant is not going to know who your client is and how you serve them. so they can give you the structure around it. but at the end of the day, it has to be someone inside the firm who’s made a commitment to making these changes, and is doing it weekly, not after tax season not for three weeks in the summer, there’s no longer the the chance that you have to say, oh, i can change it after tax season, the world’s moving too fast, it has to be consistent, it has to be weekly. and you have to have either yourself or a team of people who are moving your firm forward. and honestly, that should be like, i’ll say, a billable code or whatever. i mean, i know technically, it’s on billable, but like it should be moving your firm forward. and that’s it. and there’s a commitment to it. because if you don’t like you’re never going to change, we’re going to be sitting here next year, and you’re gonna still be complaining about how nothing’s changed.
liz farr
right. and, and partner compensation around that has to change also, because if their buyout is based on their book of business, then they’re not going to want to write, right?
jody padar
i mean, that’s, honestly, that’s the hardest part about this. this evolution of firms is the people who are in charge the people, the partner comp, it’s that model that’s prohibiting all this change at all. and if you look at to what’s funny is the firm’s that, like just are the young managers who just jump out and start their own firms. they’re not having any problems. they’re building these new firms, they’re growing them, they’re doing everything. and there are lots of legacy firms that are beautiful, and like really can make it through the change. but there has to be a focus on the change management, not just or the the change leadership, not just, oh, i wanted to change, but i still want my chunk of money. and, again, my personal opinion is you’re not going to get that chunk of money anyways. because like, if you don’t make these changes, there’s no you’re the value of the firm is diminishing as we speak anyways.
liz farr
yeah, yeah, just hard to hear.
jody padar
it’s a hard pill to swallow. but it’s reality.
liz farr
right. and i’ve seen it in a couple of times where a partner will be forced to be bought out because of some age that they reach in their partnership agreement. and but they’re not ready to stop. and so they’ll go to another firm. and because they really didn’t want to stop working their clients, their entire book of business goes with them. and so then you’re just kind of screwed in two ways. right? yeah, it’s, it’s terrible.
jody padar
yeah. and i think that’s the other evolution that i think is changing with the internet is kind of this relationship, right? i’m not saying that you don’t have a strong relationship with the person who works with you on your accounting. but i also know that i believe that when you look at things through the lens of a cloud, and through real time accounting, i think it’s less focused on the relationship and more on the service. so which i don’t think is a bad thing. again, like, it’s not everything connected to that partner. it’s connected to the team who works on that account, or it’s connected to the firm that works on that account, which is very different than it was in the past, which again, i don’t think is a bad thing. and i think that firms need to encourage that more. because again, that’s how that livelihood of the client is going to, or that the client is going to stay connected to the firm and not just leave when a person leaves or, you know, a partner retires, etc. is focusing on that.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. it’s, it’s more developing a relationship between the firm and the client, not just the person, the key person and the client, correct. yeah. now, i want you to get out your crystal ball. client accounting services, client advisory services, kas, whatever we want to call it, that’s really big now, what do you think will be the next big thing?
jody padar
so i’m gonna take it back to tax, i think tax is going to make a comeback. and i think tax advisory is going to evolve significantly. so again, now that i’ve seen how i’m evolving tax software in april. the ability to do advisory around compliance is going to be amazing. it’s coming. it’s not here tomorrow, but it’s, it’s in the works. and i think it’s gonna be really helpful for cpas in the future when you look at how artificial intelligences and machine learning is affecting taxes. and we’ll be able to give cpas and accountants better insights to give their clients better advice. and so taxes will be the compliance piece of taxes will be just, it’ll just get done. and then the value of the cpa will come on top, which, again, i think cpas have always been giving well, they typically what they do is they sell compliance, and they give advice for free, i think that model is going to switch. and i think we’re gonna go more to year round planning opportunity. and i think compliance will be free, and the advisory will be the value and will actually get charged for so as i start to see the tools that are are evolving and changing. it’s pretty exciting. and i think that’s what’s next. so, and i think it has to be too because if you think of client accounting services, tax advisory, right, i think those makes sense. on it. on it’s going to like i don’t think what’s who knows what’s going to happen on it, like, where else would it change? if you think about a traditional firm? what, where where else could you go? for it to change? there’s there’s new things calling, they’re called audit advisory, which is interesting to me, too, right? like, i see that as being another little circle or pocket of stuff. that’s that the technology is evolving to give this thing called the audit advisory actually a name. and i see that in writing too. so it’s going to be the in the advisory space tax audit, but advisory not in traditional compliance roles.
liz farr
yeah. and again, i think the interesting thing in the thing that people need to keep in mind is that these higher value services will not be for everyone. 100, they will not be for everyone. they will be for the people who have the more complicated tax or business situations. it’s not going to be for the person who has the etsy shop, or,
jody padar
well, i think there’ll be a place for them. but it’s not going to be for like, i think two you have to get to different levels of advisory, right, like what is what is advisory level one, what is advisory level two, what is advisory level three, so your micro businesses, yeah, chances are, you’re not going to be offering them these big advisory services. that was always the thing to like, people say offer advisory will typically until you’re at a million in revenue, you’re not going to pay for advisory services anyways. so you have to think about it from a revenue perspective. but i do think there will be tools out there that will help the smaller businesses get a little bit advisory, like kind of this automated advisory opportunity, and then maybe a cpa will come on top at a smaller at a at a smaller engagement level. but again, when you talk advisory, you have to have the means to pay for advisory. and typically, yes, that doesn’t happen until you’re at a certain level of business. which i think is some of the reason people say, oh, people will buy advisory. well, you’re selling it to the wrong person. like, right, right. i don’t care how much they want advice there. they can’t afford it. so like, what are you gonna do?
liz farr
yeah, yeah, there are a lot. you can’t save everyone. right? you can’t serve everyone either.
jody padar
no, you can’t serve any everyone. and that’s the problem with like, traditional with many traditional firms, like you get started and you take whoever you can, because you’re trying to feed your family, you’re trying to build a business. and then what happens is, is then you get down the road and you’re like, ah, now what do i do with all this? all the stuff that i acquired that doesn’t really fit my business model? and it’s, it’s hard right? it’s hard to make those difficult decisions. but no one said being in business was easy. no one said that’s what being a leader is you have to make difficult decisions. so like you and and i think accountants want to do good and so they try and they try and serve everyone and ultimately what happens is they end up serving no one, they end mostly and they hurt themselves the most because they work a bazillion hours and yet they’re not really serving any of their clients really well because they’re exhausted and they can’t get the work done
liz farr
well that’s that’s a discouraging place for us to be, but what do you see the future? i mean, you know, i don’t want to end on a on a really down knows. paint a picture for me of what you see a firm in 2030
jody padar
i see a million dollar dollars of revenue per full time equivalent, that means one person making a million dollars gross revenue, one person, and they’re using the tools that they need, and they’re spending the time with the clients that they need on advisory, and really helping them. and everything else is just automated. and it’s coming, it’s coming so fast. like, that’s, i think that’s the hardest part for me is because i know so many accountants haven’t like, even gotten up to where they should be today. so like, they can’t even make that leap. but for the firms who are in these cloud models, already, they’re pretty, they may not be at a million per full time equivalent, but they’re getting there. and now add a little bit more to it. i mean, to me, that’s awesome. that’s amazing. and, and that’s what we should be excited about. and we shouldn’t be excited about the fact that we’re not going to be doing all this busy work anymore. and, and we’re excited, we should be excited about the opportunity to come. but again, you you can’t get there without putting in the work to make your firm go through that transition. and so you need to commit to, to doing the work to running that marathon right to making those changes happen. and the cool thing is, is when you talk to accountants who have started down the journey of changing, they realize that, you know, they’re eight weeks in, and now they already have more time because they’ve automated things, and they fix things and whatever. and then they’re like, oh my god, like i can keep going, right? so. so that’s the energy you need to get is like, you know, if i can get through it, after eight weeks of making consistent changes to my firm, i will get to more time to more capacity. and, and i can keep going and, and i think that’s the hard part. because you just see it as like this big mountain declined, but realizes, after eight weeks, you should be far enough along that you’re seeing the benefits, and that you can say, okay, i could keep going, because i’ve already gotten myself so much time back. and, you know, i got this. and to me, that’s the exciting stuff. that’s the, that’s the cool stuff.
liz farr
that really is the exciting future for accounting. and i’m just grateful that i hopefully knock on wood will be able to see that change in my lifetime. and youtube god.
jody padar
oh, it’s coming are you know, i’ve been preaching about it for years. but now like, truly like, i think the signs for me is the fact that all this money is coming into our space, right. and like, that’s money with money comes power, and with power comes movement, right. and so i think that’s going to be the push, that’s actually going to make it happen. whereas before, we had tools and everything, but we we didn’t really have the money in the space that that’s come in over the last just, i would say 18 months year, that like is really coming in, and that’s what’s gonna push it. and that’s, to me, that’s a it’s a good sign. i mean, really, it’s, it’s, it’s changed that’s needed to happen for years. it’s not like, you know, i’ve been radical for years, i’ve been preaching about having a better life, and working less and enjoying, you know, your firm. and the fact that these firm owners can get there, if they put a little sweat equity into building their firms and making those changes, they’re going to reap the benefits, and they’re going to be much happier for it. so it’s exciting.