Integrative Advisory Services E-Book

Amy Vetter

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 294

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Stop crunching numbers and start truly serving your clients Integrative Advisory Services is the CPA, accounting professional and bookkeeper's guide to the future. As technology paves the way for increased self-reliance and DIY financial services, much of the traditional data entry tasks of accounting professionals and bookkeepers will be reduced. Yet, nothing can replace the human side of the client-advisor experience and the desire to improve your clients' businesses with financial information. Technology will continue marching on, so accounting professionals must adapt to the changing marketplace to thrive in this new paradigm. This book shows you how to provide the kind of value that technology cannot: human connection. Rather than simply reporting data, today's accounting professionals have an opportunity to take a much more active role in their clients' business by analyzing the story behind the numbers, understanding both operations and finance, and guiding the client toward the outcomes they need. Creating an ongoing relationship throughout the year allows you to be proactive rather than reactive, and help your client's business at a holistic level. Your business owner and CEO clients can get the numbers from the computer too--but, they come to you for personalized advice, explanations, and guidance based on their unique situation and financial needs. This book shows you how to take on more of an advisory role and become a critical component of your client's success. * Spend less time crunching numbers and more time advising clients * Become an integral part of the client's decision-making process * Provide real value by clearly communicating financial data analysis * Become the strategic partner your client cannot do without Cloud technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are not the death knell for financial advisors; in fact, they're the opposite--they do the number crunching for you, leaving you more time to provide the personal guidance that no computer could. As the financial advisory industry evolves, Integrative Advisory Services is your real-world guide to adapting and thriving.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

CHAPTER 1: History of the Accounting Profession:

From Compliance to Advisory

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANS

LOOKING BACK ON ACCOUNTING

REACHING FOR THE CLOUD

HUMANITY VERSUS MACHINE

NEW OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND

WHERE DOES YOUR BUSINESS GO FROM HERE?

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 2: Bringing the Human Side to Technology

THE OLD WAY OF DATA FLOWING VERSUS THE NEW WAY

WHAT CEOS WANT FROM THEIR CFOS

CHOOSING YOUR VERTICAL INDUSTRY NICHE

STEPS TO CREATE YOUR CLOUD PLATFORM

THE CHERISHED ADVISOR JOURNEY

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 3: The Cherished Advisor:

The Transformation Journey beyond the Technology

DOCUMENTING THE BUSINESS PROCESSES

OBTAINING NEEDED TECHNICAL AND BUSINESS SKILLS

NEW STAFFING MODEL

PRICING AND PACKAGING

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 4: Strategies for Marketing Your New Advisory Experience

HOW DO YOU WANT TO DESIGN THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE?

BUILDING AN OVERALL ARCHITECTURE

CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING A MARKETING STRATEGY

ONLINE MARKETING

NETWORKING

REFERRALS

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 5: Creating a Successful Sales Model and Client Onboarding Process

THE SCIENCE OF THE SALE

THE SIMPLE SALES PROCESS

CLIENT ONBOARDING PROCESS

CREATING A PROJECT PLAN

AUTOMATING YOUR INTERNAL PROCESSES WITH CRM

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 6: Building Lasting Relationships

CREATING PERSONALIZED VIRTUAL RELATIONSHIPS

CREATING TOUCH POINTS TO STAY ENGAGED

INTERPERSONAL AWARENESS TO SUCCEED AS AN ADVISOR: COLLABORATION, INFLUENCE, NEGOTIATION, AND COMMUNICATION

LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES TO GROW THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU: TEAM SATISFACTION AND REWARDS

SUCCESSION PLANNING TACTICS FOR BRINGING UP THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERSHIP

SUMMARY

ENDNOTES

About the Author

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 2

Table 2.1

Most Profitable Industries in 2016

Table 2.2

Health and Wellness SWOT Analysis

Chapter 3

Table 3.1

Payroll Client Interview Checklist

Table 3.2

Packaging Services

Chapter 5

Table 5.1

Sales Cycle Checklist

Table 5.2

Needs Analysis Questionnaire

Table 5.3

Onboarding Checklist

Table 5.4

Project Plan

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1

Millennials at Work: What Do They Look for in Potential Employers?

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1

Connected Platform

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1

Collaborative Staffing Model

Figure 3.2

Operations Team Model

Chapter 6

Figure 6.3

NPS Breakdown

Figure 6.4

Sample NPS Calculation

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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E1

Integrative Advisory Services

Expanding Your Accounting Services Beyond the Cloud

Amy Vetter, CPA, CITP, CGMA

Copyright © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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ISBN 9781119415978 (Hardcover)

ISBN 9781119422006 (ePDF)

ISBN 9781119422020 (ePub)

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © Jorg Greuel/Getty Images

Preface

Integrative Advisory Services is the CPA, accounting professional, and bookkeeper's guide to the future. As technology paves the way for increased self-reliance and do-it-yourself financial services, much of the traditional data entry tasks of accounting professionals and bookkeepers will be reduced. It is time for the accounting industry to change how it does business.

Nothing can replace the human side of the client–advisor experience and the desire to improve clients' businesses with financial information. Technology will continue to march forward, so accounting professionals must adapt to the changing marketplace to thrive in this new paradigm.

This book shows how to provide the kind of value that technology cannot offer: human connection. Rather than simply reporting data, today's accounting professionals have an opportunity to take a more active role in their clients' business by analyzing the story behind the numbers, understanding both operations and finance, and guiding their clients toward the outcomes they need.

Learn how to take on more of an advisory role and become a critical component of your clients' success by:

Spending less time crunching numbers and more time advising clients

Becoming an integral part of your clients' decision-making process

Providing real value by communicating financial data analysis

Becoming the strategic partner your client cannot do without—a cherished advisor

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my husband, Rob, and my children, Jagger and Austin, who have supported me through the ups and downs of my career and encouraged me to always strive for what my heart desires.

My grandfather has been a mere memory since I was 3 years old at the time of his passing, but he had a huge impact on my career. His legacy inspired me to pursue a life's mission of helping small businesses survive and grow.

My mother provided the example of being a business owner herself and involved me at a young age. She provided me with the experience that created the foundation and vision of what I wanted to do with my life.

A heartfelt thanks to my clients over the years, who taught me so much about the right and wrong ways to advise them. The experience I gained from seeing the impact of my advice on their businesses was so satisfying and rewarding that I have made a career since of training others on how to do it as well.

Much gratitude to Xero Accounting Software, who provided the support and encouragement for me to put this book together.

For their time and expertise, I want to thank Kathryn Duggan, Alex Mercer, Himanshu Singh, Matthew Solan, and Corina Standiford. Your contributions to this process of writing of this book have made a great impact.

I also want to thank the accounting practices from around the world that contributed real-world examples from their firms that supplement the topics described in this book: Amanda Aguillard, Aaron Berson, Paul Bulpitt, David Emmerman, Will Farnell, Jay Kimelman, Kenji Kuramoto, Shelly Lingor, Michael Lopez, Ryan Miller, Neil Sinclair, James Solomons, and Ryan Watson. Their contributions show not only the universal struggles of accountants, but also how we can overcome them by being innovative (and smart) about the need to create long-lasting and prosperous relationships with our clients. Their expert insight is much appreciated.

Additional thanks to Sheck Cho, Michael Henton, Judy Howarth, and Alex Vegbey at Wiley for their support and answers throughout the process.

Introduction

Since I was 12 years old, I knew I was going to be a certified public accountant (CPA). I grew up with stories about my Grandfather's CPA practice, which he began in the 1930s with the purpose of positively impacting the business owners in his immigrant neighborhood in St Paul, Minnesota. He was what I call the cherished advisor of his day—providing guidance to small business owners on financial decisions that were strategic for their businesses. Their relationships went way beyond figures and numbers.

My mother, as she grew up, decided not to become an accountant and instead was drawn toward the arts. However, her natural business acumen ended up coming out later when she opened her own maid service operation when I was young. I was involved right from the beginning. After school, I often worked the front desk and did various administrative tasks. I learned early on about the importance of knowing your numbers as a business owner because, unfortunately, my mom was not an accountant, and she found herself making decisions that ended up being detrimental to her business in the long run.

Like many small business owners at the time, my mom didn't have an accountant who was an advisor. Instead, due to limitations of technology, she received strictly compliance financials, and many times six to nine months after the financial year was over. She had no insight into the numbers, nor an accountant who could explain her performance, so she was left to make financial decisions without any guidance.

When my mom took me to trade shows and conferences for her business, I would ask other business owners what major I should choose when entering college. The answer was unanimous: accounting. They told me that no matter what career I eventually chose, having an accounting background would help me make better decisions in business.

In hindsight, I wonder about the root cause of this statement. Is it necessary for everyone to have an accounting degree to run a business? The answer should be no, because if you have an accountant involved with a business who provides insight and advice, the business owner should be able to stay focused on what they are good at, leaving the financial analysis to the experts. But my guess was that these business owners were not getting the advice and involvement from their accountants they needed.

Fast forward to today. We have finally reached a pinnacle moment in the accounting industry in which cloud technology, as well as the onset of artificial intelligence and machine learning, has greatly reduced the time and effort needed for traditional data entry and number crunching.

Technology provides us the opportunity to take our practices in a new and rewarding direction. We can now restructure our firms to offer services to clients that they have wanted for years. There are no more excuses as to why we can't offer these services—only ourselves and not taking the time to restructure our practices. Our clients are adopting the most up-to-date technology on a regular basis. In turn, as accounting professionals, we need to keep up with their needs and be familiar with how they conduct their business and interact with customers.

This new direction for accounting is not a trend. It is the future. The rapid pace of change is one we have never seen before in our industry. Now is the time to make an investment not only in your professional future, but also that of your business.

I have worked with accounting practices and small businesses for more than 20 years as an accountant, advisor, and consultant—offering advice and guidance on how to make these changes in an organized and effective fashion. I have gathered all my experience and interactions over the years into this book to create a comprehensive plan that guides you through building an integrative advisory service for your practice.

The approach goes beyond the latest technology. It's about creating the soft skills needed to market, sell, and deliver your advisory services. It's about how to create the necessary change management and quality control procedures needed internally to ensure you offer only the best service to your clients. It's about learning the skills to guide conversations with a client that go beyond the accounting, to give them the advice they need to maintain positive cash flow, to prevent them from making bad purchasing decisions, or to find innovative ways to create more efficient overhead to generate more profitability.

By becoming a cherished advisor, you will learn how to create an experience for your clients that they have not had before with other accountants or bookkeepers. You become an integral part of the real-time decision-making process; services are delivered proactively, rather than reactively; and you understand both the operational and financial sides of the business. As a result, you become a strategic partner that the business appreciates, highly values, and cherishes.

This book provides the steps you need for this journey into the next phase of accounting. Rather than worrying about whether your job will one day be replaced, be proactive and learn how to retool your skills to be ahead of the pack. The culmination will be that you can integrate these advisory services into your practice, expand your services beyond cloud technology, and be cherished by your clients.

CHAPTER 1History of the Accounting ProfessionFrom Compliance to Advisory

You could say that accounting is literally in my blood. My grandfather's family immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1909. They lived in an immigrant neighborhood in Minnesota, a tightly knit community where everyone set their sights on a better life.

As immigrants, my family saw accounting as an attractive profession because it supplied a steady job. At the end of the day, every type of business needs help keeping their books.

My grandfather worked hard and became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in 1935, in the depths of the Depression, and early in the formation of the accounting profession in the United States. He worked as a CPA until 1977, when he passed away. Throughout his career, he experienced massive shifts in the accounting profession.

From the stories I have heard about my grandfather, he was not today's model of a CPA. He saw the business as not just a way to earn a good living to support his family, but as a way to help his community. He was a one-person operation. He cultivated clients by word of mouth. He had an office with some contractors and used the traditional paper ledger and sharp pencils.

Of course in his days—the Stone Age of accounting by today's standards—accounting was strictly pen and paper. The lone piece of technology was often a 10-key machine. The “cloud” was folders in filing cabinets, each carefully labeled and arranged. These were the polished wingtips and bow ties days of accounting.

What made his work as a CPA different from that of many of the CPAs of today is that back then, 100 percent of his business revolved around personal connections. As an immigrant himself, living through the Depression, he worked to help other small business owners thrive and achieve their goals of protecting their assets and families. The thinking was simple: If he helped the business grow then his practice would thrive in turn.

My grandfather was what I like to call a cherished advisor. He was not just an accountant in the traditional sense. His practice was about building partnerships with clients. What could he do to make their business better? He made a personal investment, and it paid off.

As I grew up, what I heard about my grandfather was that he got to know his clients—and they got to know him. He met with them on a regular basis and sat down with them to go over their financial reports. He listened. They asked questions. He offered advice and insight. They were a team, and they worked together.

I was also told about how he would trade services with his clients, such as receiving a new fur coat for my mom each year when she was a child, or season tickets to the symphony. As times were financially strained for most people, these arrangements built strength in the loyalty of his clients because he was part of their struggle and wanted to find ways to help.

My grandfather's generation had a unique perspective on the industry from its beginning. They experienced perhaps the greatest evolution of the accounting profession. It began with little regulation and expanded to an extreme ramp-up of tax codes and accounting principles for businesses and individuals. Organization practice evolved from manual paper filing to the development of innovative technology such as accounting software and the industry-changing cloud technology, enabling information to be filed away with a few mouse clicks.

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANS

Yes, technology has been wonderful for our industry. With each improvement in software, it has aided all CPAs to complete our work faster. This ongoing evolution in our industry has never meant that there is less need for an accountant or a bookkeeper in business. Our generation now experiences the most profound advancements in cloud technology with machine learning, artificial intelligence, new economies, and alternative currencies.

Many fear that the traditional data entry tasks of accounting professionals and bookkeepers will be reduced, or even disappear. But it is actually the traditional tasks of accounting that we are meant to do. We should work toward getting back to the kind of client relationships our profession once cherished, like the relationships my grandfather experienced.

Due to the increase in compliance with regulations that were placed upon the industry over the decades, and technology not moving fast enough to help us, we may have lost something vital in the process: our advisory relationship with clients.

Instead of striving to improve our client's business with the financial information we provide, like my grandfather did, we have had to spend the majority of office hours trying to keep up with ever-increasing deadlines and extensions. Our only real connection with clients is when we present facts and figures via e-mail. Otherwise, we only sit down with them maybe once or twice a year, just like seeing our dentist.

When was the last time you met with clients? I mean really met with them. When did you sit down and discuss their goals, short- and long-term objectives, and where they need the most help and guidance?

The human side of accounting can never be replaced by technology—only enhanced. Accounting professionals now have an opportunity to create real value for their business-owner or CEO clients. The advances in technology can free up our time, which can now be devoted to more meaningful client conversations beyond just communicating the analysis of their financial data. This approach can change the dynamic and outcome of your CPA–client relationship. You can help your clients make informed decisions about cash flow, business forecasting, and financial strategy to help them succeed and thrive. In other words, you can become a cherished advisor.

As a cherished advisor, the accounting professional becomes an integral part of the real-time decision making process. The process becomes proactive—rather than reactive—as you better understand both the operational and financial sides of your client's business. As a result, you, the CPA, become a strategic partner that the business appreciates and highly values.

Now is the prime time to move forward into the next generation of accounting. And you can do this by looking backward.

By learning the lessons of how accounting used to operate, and taking advantage of the current and future generations of accounting professionals, you can create vertical industry niche practices in your accounting business from which you offer outsourced advisory services for specific industries—and build or grow your practice in ways that were never before possible. You can become a cherished advisor for this next generation of clients as your take your practice into the future.

LOOKING BACK ON ACCOUNTING

To understand where we need to go, we first have to look at where we came from. As the world changed how it conducted business, and as new countries were developed with expanding governments, the accounting industry slowly was bogged down in regulations, new tax laws, and financial oversight. Exploring the evolution of accounting can provide insight into where we may have gotten off the path of personal connection and how we can find our way back.

Have you ever heard of Luca Pacioli? He is often regarded as one of the founding fathers of accounting. In 1494, he first described the system of double-entry bookkeeping used by Venetian merchants in his book of mathematics, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Summary of Arithmetic, Geometry, Proportions, and Proportionality).

Businesses and governments had been recording financial information long before this, but it was Pacioli who was the first to describe the system of inputting debits and credits in ledgers, which is still the basis of today's accounting systems.

For the next 200-plus years, through the 1700s, both large and small innovations were added to the double-entry records approach. For example, the East India Company—the powerhouse trade company of the 18th century that linked the East Indies with Western Europe—strengthened the concept of invested capital and dividend distribution. As a result, they could attract more investors to fuel the enterprise through expansion and investment in stronger business practices. This approach also created the need for a change in financial accounting and managerial accounting. The first was how the company presented its financials to gain investors, and the second was used so that the business could be run as efficiently as possible.

In America, the first big change in accounting occurred in 1862, at the height of the Civil War. This is when President Abraham Lincoln approved the creation of the Internal Revenue Service (now more commonly known as the IRS) and the nation's first income tax. The IRS was a revenue-raising measure to help pay for the war's expenses. The IRS levied a 3-percent tax on annual incomes between $600 and $10,000, and a 5-percent tax on income more than $10,000. The new taxes created a surge in accounting because everyone's income had to be recorded and reported to the IRS.

At the same time, the concept of business was changing. Originally, the concept of business was to do one thing at a time. Take the agriculture business, for example. A farmer would raise sheep for wool. The wool would be sold to a company who would make a sweater, or some other garment, whenever a customer requested one. The accounting transactions were linear. One input created another output, so the recording of those transactions were simpler in nature.

All that changed with the development of mass production and assembly-line technology of the Industrial Revolution throughout the 19th century. Businesses could create goods faster and more efficiently than they could by hand. It was a new, yet complex, way of doing business, with multiple inputs for work in progress, but it was successful. It helped to spur more consumer demand for cheaper products, which in turn stimulated the need for more production, and the entire commercial engine began to hum along.

Accounting grew alongside this new era of industry. More transactions and complexity created the need for more advanced cost-accounting systems, as well as a way to report these activities on financial statements.

As these new industries grew, larger corporations were created that desired more classes of external capital providers: shareowners and bondholders. These were individuals who were not part of the firm's management, but had a vital interest in its results. Accountants had to evolve how they did business and expand on the traditional double-entry accounting methods.

The rising public status of accountants helped to transform accounting into a powerful profession. In 1887, 31 accountants gathered in New York City to form the first accounting organization: the American Association of Public Accountants (AAPA). The title and professional license of the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) followed in 1896. The AAPA eventually became the American Institute of Accountants, which changed its name in 1957 to the current American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and now has more than 410,000 members in 143 countries.

Perhaps accounting's greatest challenges that paved the way to today's dilemma occurred during the depths of the Great Depression. After the stock market crash in 1929, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was formed in an effort to avoid another Wall Street meltdown. Henceforth, all publicly traded companies had to file periodic reports with the Commission to be certified by members of the accounting profession.

At the same time, filing individual taxes became more complex. The Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1942, which was hailed by President Franklin Roosevelt as “the greatest tax bill in American history.” This act increased the number of Americans who were subject to income tax and the amount of those taxes, but it also created deductions for medical and investment expenses.

This was when the compliance era began to hit its stride. For the next several decades, the accounting profession felt the weight of stricter tax rules that made accounting standards denser and more complex. There were more forms to fill out; more laws to read, understand, and follow; and more deadlines.

When you think about this from a professional standpoint, what appears to have happened is that as compliance grew, accounting got more complicated and time intense. Accountants began to spend more time in siloed offices, buried in paperwork and deciphering government regulations, and less time fostering client relationships.

To put it into perspective, in 1935, the 1040 form included two pages of instructions; now it is well over 200 pages. The number of pages in the federal tax law has exploded from 400 pages in 1913 to more than 74,000 pages (and still growing) today.

You can see how an accountant's time shifted to dealing with paperwork, rather than meeting with clients on real-time questions they had about their businesses. Still, it was a slow transition, and the industry got comfortable with the new way in which it provided services. It began to focus more on crunching numbers, filling out forms, and abiding by ever-changing rules. Meanwhile, contacts with clients became more infrequent.

The result: Invisible walls began going up in accounting offices around the country. Accountants often worked alone and only interacted with clients when there was a need, which was typically about delivering compliance work.

Accountants who are too plugged into this compliance work become rusty when it comes to client interactions and offering sound advice. I have spoken to many business owners over the years who complain that their accountant does not call them back when they need advice about their business. When I speak with accountants, they say the reason for this is two fold: (1) they lack the time, and (2) they worry that the client may ask a question they don't know the answer to. For many accountants, they don't want to feel inadequate if they don't know the answer to a question at the precise moment a client asks a question, so they end up avoiding the interaction.

This is where the advancements in technology can help transform our profession. By using cloud technology to break down walls between accountants and clients instead of building new ones, we can get back to the cherished advisor status previously associated with a CPA, an accountant, or a bookkeeper.

As accountants, we can take this to a whole new level by allowing cloud technology to take care of the many compliance requirements, thus enabling us to spend more time with our clients to help them improve their businesses. That is when we can achieve the cherished advisor status, which is more than just providing necessary and accurate financial information—it's becoming an advisor whom a client cannot imagine living without. As a cherished advisor, you provide so much value that your clients consider the fee for your services as an investment in their business because they can get the advice they need when they need it, and they do not have to wait until tax time to get your attention.

This is what we need to return to—this is what our clients want. The technology of today and the future will allow us to get back out there and follow the footsteps of the accountants of my grandfather's generation and earlier.

Studies and surveys have found that there was a clear divide between what our clients wanted and what a business needed. There was also a divide within a company about what accountants deliver versus what they think accountants should deliver. Here are some highlights of recent research on this topic:

In a 2014 survey conducted by The Sleeter Group, 85 percent of small businesses said they wanted their CPAs to be more proactive in technology.

1

According to a report by KPMG International, one in three CEOs don't think their CFO is providing the value they need.

2

According to a study conducted by EY in 2013, 66 percent of global CEOs do not think the title CFO accurately describes the role's diversity.

3

This highlights an interesting divide between what we accountants value versus what our clients value. Traditionally, accountants have valued their services by the billable hour—our time is our inventory. However, when our clients and CEOs want information, they don't care how long it took to calculate—they just want the answers the numbers provide to help their business better perform. The quicker, the better. And technology, especially cloud technology, provides the speed to deliver results in real time. The gap is that those results are just numbers (also referred to as data). The value of a cherished advisor is the expertise to decipher what the numbers mean and how to make a positive impact on the business. The challenge is to change the mind-set of clients from “credence good” to “experience good” regarding what an accountant delivers to them. “Credence good” is the client saying, “I think I receive good value from my CPA. I don't know what they do, but I guess their fee is worth it.”

In comparison, “experience good” is a client's familiarity with the accountant, when the client cannot imagine not having the accountant as a part of their business. They feel that you, as their accountant, are an integral part of their business and provide them with the advice they need when they need it. Clients like this understand the value of what a CPA, an accountant, or a bookkeeper provides. Accountants should make it their goal to become cherished advisors—not just instruments for producing financial data, but rather trusted counselors and partners to their clients.

REACHING FOR THE CLOUD

In essence, cloud technology has really just begun to take hold. The development began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it has been growing steadily ever since. But it was only recently that early adopters in the accounting profession and their clients began to understand its value.

What makes cloud technology such a game changer for the accounting profession is that it has radically altered how information arrives into the firm. Before this, financial information came into the accountant's office from various points and in different formats. The individual client didn't understand the desired end result—instead, he or she dumped a mountain of data onto the accountant's desk and did not really appreciate what it took to get all of it in proper order.

Of course, with much disarray in how financial information was provided—and the extra time needed to organize and manage it—the time frame for presenting financial reports took a while. As a result, it was common for clients not to receive reports up to six to nine months after their financial year ended, because extensions were needed. And often, by the time the client received the financial reporting, it was too late in the next year to make significant changes based on the results.

But with cloud technology, this manual work is no longer necessary. All the information that comes from banks, suppliers, and customers can now be directly fed into one system at one time. From there, it is much easier to interpret data, provide instant analysis, and deliver financial reports that can help clients make changes in their business in real time. With more control over the information, accountants have the opportunity to develop all kinds of analyses to help their clients succeed.

For instance, cloud accounting software programs have taken what was locked in several desktops and created a central place where data can feed in from multiple sources. This creates more of a platform than accounting software alone can provide. The actual accounting is just one piece of the platform. The other components are the various types of information received by the software from multiple data sources—such as banks, vendors, and clients.

From this single platform, we