If you’re keeping up with accounting industry news and message threads, you’ve heard a lot about how accounting advisory services can lead to huge growth for an accounting firm. But that blanket observation makes a lot of assumptions:

Remember going to the bank? We used to do it all the time for virtually every financial task related to our personal and corporate accounts. There’s still nothing quite like the whooshing sound that goes with sending a deposit through one of those pneumatic tubes—it felt so futuristic!

The accounting industry is changing, and more business owners are looking to accountants as trusted resources for securing their financial future. This creates a new opportunity for firms everywhere to start offering CAS services—they can be your key to growth in this year and beyond.

It’s one of the most valuable reports a business owner can have: the profit and loss statement. But too often, entrepreneurs obsess over the bottom line and gloss over everything above it.

Why? In a world where more than 25% of all small businesses fail in the first year, how can this simple yet helpful report be underutilized?

You know good bookkeeping is at the heart of healthy financials—and client advisory services (CAS), too. Whether you’re serving individuals or businesses, maintaining accurate, up-to-date ledgers and creating timely financial reports lie at the core of what you have to offer your clients.

This might seem counterintuitive, but narrowing your firm’s focus to specialize in one or a few markets can actually increase your firm’s growth potential.

Particularly, this is true for your CAS practice. Once your firm has committed to and built out advisory services, your ability to create and maintain momentum hinges on your ability to tap into the markets that most need your guidance and support.

Accountants are in a bit of a weird position these days—remote work is the norm, technology is rapidly changing workflows and firm operations, and services we’ve relied on as traditional money makers aren’t growing at the same pace as they used to. 

When it comes to adding accounting advisory services to your firm’s menu of offerings, there are a lot of resources available that will tell you to do this or do that. In fact, a quick Google search returns more than 81 million results for the question, “how to build accounting advisory” (although the most relevant/helpful results are probably limited to the first few pages). 

The accounting industry is changing, and with it comes a change to how accounting firms service their clients.

For instance, in Sage’s “The Practice of Now 2019” report, 44% of accountants believe that “business advisory” is a necessary skill set for the industry. But fewer than 20% of practices offer advisory (with only 5% offering outsourced CFO services).

Can you imagine a world without acronyms? Communication would without a doubt be more of a chore, and it would take longer, too. Indeed, acronyms are fantastic. But FWIW (for what it’s worth)—for an acronym to be truly effective, it must be defined and clear for everyone involved.

The role of accounting professionals has been in constant evolution for decades. Traditionally, accountants and CPAs were relegated to the books and compliance duties. This is mostly due to the pre-spreadsheet and pre-internet era when these tasks legitimately took up most of a firm’s available bandwidth. 

New tech can give accounting firm owners and partners mixed emotions. On one hand, there’s the hope of improving processes while driving greater revenue. On the other hand, there are concerns related to cost and how to implement a new tool across the entire company. There’s a lot to consider!