Is Your Firm Innovative?

Source: CPA Trendlines

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by L. Gary Boomer. Boomer suggests that a focus on “delivery skills” rather than “discovery skills” stifles innovation and offers several suggestions for improvement.

Here are five areas where innovation will produce significant results.

1. Billing and collection policies. Use technology to improve cash flow (ACH payments and credit cards). This requires different thinking and change management. Too many firms allow clients to treat them as interest-free or “cheap” banks. Turn this around with improved engagement letters that specify payment terms leveraging monthly bank drafts.
2. Tax return preparations processes. Avoid loops and focus on one-way workflow. There are better ways to train than sending work back to the preparer. You can use technology to grade performance and report errors. Current workflow software has its roots with outsourcing companies.
3. Client accounting in the Cloud. Provide transactional as well as value-added services such as bill payment, payroll, controller, HR, IT, and CFO-related services on a monthly basis. Private-labeled software that can be centrally updated and supported will allow firms to take back control of accounting. It will also allow your firm to become hardware-agnostic. It works the same on a Mac as it does on a Windows-based PC via a browser.
4. Portals. Use portals to aggregate client data for auditing and accounting as well as for tax return preparation. Avoid false starts and wasted time. Portals provide security, are inexpensive, and clients like them. Most of the resistance I see is within the firm.
5. Focus groups. Conduct client focus groups with marketing, tax, and technology expertise present. This will provide innovation at the intersection of multiple perspectives. Listen to clients and provide the services they want.

For the complete article, read “Is ‘Expertise' Blocking Innovation at Your Firm?”

From CPA Trendlines, http://cpatrendlines.com, October 27, 2011.