after distancing (a.d.), senior people want to work at home all the time. younger staff members want to work in the office all the time. so, what is the new normal?
the most likely is a hybrid model, where people work at home most of the time but come to the office one to two days a week for meetings and team projects – with appropriate masking and social distancing. in 2020, many firms are more profitable than in 2019 because they cut costs and raised productivity. read more →
ai, blockchain most likely to impact largest firms.
by chris frederiksen
what do i see for 2020?
cybersecurity: there is a heightened awareness around protecting client data and protecting firms from what appear to be increased incidents of hacking. firms are encouraged to move from in-house servers to entirely cloud-based solutions.
tax season: most of the firms i work with reported last year as the most brutal tax season on record. this was caused by lack of human resources – especially for firms that still had not adopted outsourcing – coupled with the need to spend extra time to comply with the new tax rules and to explain the changes to clients. read more →
the lack of qualified team members to get the work done continues to be the bane of the profession, particularly among smaller firms, where the resources are not available to provide the training needed by recent graduates. read more →
join chris when he presents: “how to turn your goodwill into cash.” retire gracefully, but get properly paid for what you have accomplished. multiples and valuation, and what’s critical to making a transition successful, including selling, buying or transitioning. learn more
clients demand real-time accounting.
by chris frederiksen
it’s been was another good year for accountants, with demand for services continuing to outrun supply, thus allowing for price increases.
firms continue to struggle with the issue of finding enough “good” people to get the work done, so we observed two simultaneous trends.
one was the hiring of more inexperienced people with good computer and it skills who could be trained to do things the firm’s way; the other was the inexorable rise of outsourcing (or “offshoring” to be more precise), both in the tax preparation arena, which has always been the principal pain point for accountants, but even more so in the bookkeeping/accounting arena. the philippines showed major gains, with a well-educated workforce speaking a close approximation of american english.
small and medium-size firms have recognized that the future of compliance for business clients would have to incorporate controllership and chief financial officer services (what i have dubbed ccfo services) and it was time to get serious. the new technology including saas-based cloud, automated bill-payment systems (such as bill.com) and expense recording without keypunching (such as receipt-bank) allowed ccfo services to be hugely profitable. firms have turned $10,000-a-year clients into $10,000-a-month clients.
now, a huge number of firms are finally “getting it.” we’ve been talking about the firm of the future for long enough and now it’s upon us. firms don’t want to wait any longer because the requisite technology is already available and they are seeing the gains being made by full-service, low-price competitors like indinero.
firms are acknowledging the disruption that is hitting the industry – clients are demanding real-time, up-to-date, in-the-moment information 24/7 at a reasonable price. the challenge for firms is getting clients to move away from desktop to online saas technology, which is inevitable but painful. this is the tipping point – it’s not just the early adopters who are on board, but the regular adopters are getting there too.
theysay“past results are no indication of future performance.” maybe. maybe not. but if anyone should know, it’s our panel of experts, their comments drawn fromthe new edition of the rosenberg map survey. these are their bullet points and comments, verbatim, looking back at the last 12 months and looking ahead to 2016. – rick telberg, ceo
the last 12 months have been good for accountants. the economy is expanding and the demand for service is increasing. most firms report little trouble in getting new clients, particularly those firms with a robust and consistent internet presence.
progressive firms have invested in better websites and are focusing on what makes them different. as dan hood noted recently in accounting today magazine, every firm promotes read more →
as basic tax and accounting services become common and commoditized, firms need to start looking for new revenues and business models — starting with wealth management and business benchmarking.
here, a leading consultant to the profession, chris frederiksen, talks about his vision for the firm of the future.
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ai, blockchain most likely to impact largest firms.
