Client Needs Depend on Client Knowledge

Source: Current Accounts

In this article the author deals with two important client conditions—their feeling of isolation, and their complement of skills (i.e., how skilled they are in different aspects of business). Both affect the way you should relate to them.

With respect to the first, isolation, the author does not specifically offer a prescription for the behavior of the CPA, but the implication is clear that isolation is a factor that should bring the client closer to the CPA, and it is important for CPAs to understand that.

The second condition, the configuration of skills, has a critical effect on the nature of the CPAs services. When adequate information is not available to a company, symptoms of problems may be perceived, erroneously, as causes. As an example, it may be thought that poor cash flow is the cause of a company’s problem rather than a symptom of causes. Businesspeople who do not have strong financial skills may fall prey to this misunderstanding.

Most businesspeople have some combination of skills needed to guide the business, but rarely do they have all of them.

The ideal situation for a CPA is to be able to complement the skills of the client with his or her own (i.e., have the skills the client lacks).

Typically, entrepreneurs are highly skilled at sales or operations, less typically in finance. So they may tend to disregard financial matters.

An entrepreneur’s formidable sales or operation skills may compensate for his/her lack of financial skills. This sometimes infuriates accountants—makes them feel dispensable.

But an entrepreneur’s adequate sales or operation skills may not compensate for lack of financial skills. These people need CPAs to help them understand the impact of financial data on their companies. But don’t inundate them with data. Instead, help them look at numbers that are specific to identified problems. That is how CPAs build great relationships with clients.

For the complete article, click here and select “Giving Your Business Clients Things They Need and Things You Can Provide,” in the January/February 2009 issue.

From Current Accounts, Georgia Society of CPAs, January/February 2009, https://www.gscpa.org/Content/22439.aspx.