S P O N S O R E D
Growing an accounting firm's advisory side of the business is a great strategy for increasing revenue. But you can't forget about compliance and bookkeeping services—they work with your CAS practice!
There’s no doubt that advisory services and consulting strengthens an accounting firm’s menu of services. The two services open the door to a wide variety of additional revenue opportunities, build a stronger relationship with clients, and are a way to future-proof your firm. After all, clients hire you for your expertise and insight, which can’t be replaced by technology.
So what does this mean for firms looking to add advisory services to their offering? It comes down to bandwidth. To be more specific, it comes down to increasing bandwidth at your firm. This is where technology becomes an integral part of being able to offer CAS. Having deep tech integrations into your processes allows you to boost your efficiency and create enough bandwidth to deliver the CAS services that will help grow your firm.
Technology Solves the Worst Data Entry Challenges
For starters, all firms are plagued with the challenge of completing data entry efficiently and accurately. But let’s not beat around the bush here: data entry is tedious, time-consuming, and painful.
Technology exists to solve the worst parts of data entry:
- It’s time-consuming
- It’s error-prone
- It’s expensive
The modern, savvy firm uses technology to do the heavy lifting when it comes to data entry and solve these challenges. There are a number of ways to incorporate tech into your data entry processes, and here are some of the easiest options:
- Use accounting software that integrates with your bank
- Use Apps that read invoices
Tech Reduces the Time Between Transaction and Reconciliation
Account reconciliation is another necessary but time-consuming process for accountants, and some clients need it done more frequently than the typical once-a-month schedule. Fortunately, technology can help centralize financial data so you can significantly speed up the reconciliation process and produce accurate results faster for your clients. Software can help improve the reconciliation process through:
- Automatic reports
- Transaction matching
- Transaction classification
- Integration to your current platform
CAS Requires Tech-Driven Predictive Analytics
Having access to the most up-to-date financial data can be what sets you apart from competing advisors. The other aspect of integrating tech into your advisory services is that it helps you deliver financial information in a manner that’s much easier to understand for clients that don’t have a financial background. Said differently, presenting to your clients with easy-to-read charts and graphs is a considerable improvement over a packed spreadsheet full of numbers.
Here are some of the benfits of forecasting software:
- Automatic Updates
- User management and custom dashboards
- Graphic interface
Here are a few forecasting apps for you to consider:
- Xero and QuickBooks
- Workday Adaptive Planning
- Jirav
Example of an Ideal CAS Tech Stack
The key to making your client advisory services successful is a combination of efficiency, access to data, and ease of communication. As a provider of advisory services, your role goes beyond reports. You need to build a strong relationship with your clients.
For this reason, we don’t recommend any firm to operate without an adequate tech stack—it’s just not a viable option for growth! This is especially true if you work with smaller businesses or startups that have a limited budget.
Here are the three pillars of a tech stack that will enable your rm to deliver the best advisory services in the most efficient manner possible.
- Accounting Software
- Forecasting Software
- Bookkeeping Automation
Make Your CAS Offerings Repeatable & Appealing
More and more firms are recognizing the benefit of offering advisory to their clients, and that means the field is getting more competitive. To future-proof your advisory services, you need to be able to differentiate yourself from others and streamline your processes for minimal errors and consistent results.
Having the right tech stack allows you to do this. There’s simply no other way to increase your profitability and do more in less time. And as an advisory service provider, your time is your limiting factor; you must make the most efficient use out of it.
Capitalize on the Opportunity That Comes with Automation
If it wasn’t apparent before, technology is the future of accounting. Automation is already saving firms and businesses countless hours of labor, and it’s only going to get better.
Now’s the time to explore automation and bring it into your firm. In this ebook, we explore the role of technology in building a CAS practice, including 3 main advantages of letting software work for you and what an effective tech stack looks like.
To learn more about how you can capitalize on the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning at your firm, take a look at how Botkeeper works! https://www.botkeeper.com/platform-feature-overview