Insight into 2019: Opportunities on the Horizon

The changes we have seen this year, both big and small, impact the business world on virtually every level. From business hours moving from a traditional 9-5, to 24/7, around the world. Advertisements being able to target a specific demographic or online user. More and more jobs and tasks being automated or outsourced. The opportunities of all of these shifts and changes are endless and the long-term effects are yet to be seen. So what type of opportunities are on the horizon for 2019?

Danetha Doe | Creator of Money & Mimosas and host of the Future of Accounting podcast

My predictions for 2019 is that there will be a HUGE opportunity for accountants to work with freelancers. It’s expected that nearly half of working millennials will be working as freelancers/independent contractors and will be earning a very decent income doing so. They will need support from accountants for tax purposes and cash flow management through out the year. In order to attract clients within this segment, accountants will need to use updated technology, identify a clear niche and proactively market their services.

Emily Hedrick | The Communicator, Best Gurl Inc.

In 2019, marketing will cater even more to a company’s target audience – with more smart advertising based on preferences and personalized digital experiences to promote products and services. Any business or firm will have to adapt to this type of marketing to be able to compete.

Jennifer Warawa | Executive Vice President of Partners, Accountants and Alliances at Sage

For years, accountants have heard that the key to success is providing everything, to everyone — i.e. offering the widest range of services, working with varying clients, staying vertical agnostic. As technology becomes more advanced, and tax policies change, this broad approach is no longer enough to stay competitive. Success in the future will mean homing in on one or two verticals, and becoming the go-to source for expertise in those areas.

Joe Woodard | CEO of Woodard Events

Embrace information technology services – Emerging technologies will increasingly provide accountants with an opportunity to fuse the roles of the accounting and information technology professions. This applies to areas like Office 365 and G-Suite that don’t directly impact the financial reports. It may not happen in a systemic way in 2019, but I see a future where accountants typically service all of their client’s business needs, from the back office to the board room. We call this trend the rise of “The Transformative Advisor.”

Scale bookkeeping services – In the past, tax practices and full-service CPA firms provided bookkeeping as a low margin, non-seasonal cash flow stabilizer and a way to provide a holistic slate of services for clients. However, significant increases in automation – a pattern that will continue throughout 2019 – now provides scalable, profitable business models for bookkeeping practices.

Move beyond the books – I believe accountants and bookkeepers will continue to layer advisory services with compliance and record keeping, leveraging an ever-growing slate of powerful financial reporting and analysis tools. I also predict a significant increase in the deployment of artificial intelligence by the developers of these financial analysis tools during 2019, making the advisory model significantly more compelling, and more achievable.

Liz Mason | CEO of High Rock Accounting & National Xero Ambassador

In 2019, we will see a faster rate of change. I am excited for what that means for firms like High Rock where we surf the wave of the cutting edge. It will become harder for conventional firms to catch up as the technology gap widens, so I believe more firms will push through new tech adoptions and cloud tools for their teams and clients - before they are too far behind. I am ridiculously excited for the automation being introduced through machine learning algorithms by the dynamic software companies. I cannot wait for the robots to take over the basics! I cannot wait to see what my team does with more time to advise clients. The tech-filed future looks amazing!

William ‘Murph’ Murphy | Sr. Editor at Insightful Accountant

I see the biggest opportunities being for those accounting and financial professionals who can transition to a comprehensive understanding of a ‘specific’ environment. E-commerce, Construction, Environmental-technologies and Mass-transportation (including automated transport) and ‘the New Finance (including insurance’) will be the big opportunities I am forecasting. The A/F professional who thoroughly understands the complexities of one of these opportunities will be able to ‘write their own ticket.’

  • E-commerce – everything is moving that direction much faster than anticipated. Even the biggest ‘box stores’ are migrating as fast as possible toward a dominant E-commerce presence.
  • Construction – growing changes in the population characteristics of the younger generations are transitioning from ‘single-family homes’ to more and more urban way of living, this means denser forms of housing and return to inner cities. It carries with it increased infrastructure in the forms of water/sewer/sanitation/highways/parking/electric/natural-gas/steam/etc.
  • Environmental-technologies – the younger generations have a heightened interest in the environment and much more of a commitment to same than older generations… they will demand safer/cleaner forms of energy (wind, solar, natural-gas) but the growing population will also mean that the energy demand will continue to rise. Water and waste-water pollution control including salt-water reclamation and purification will become increasingly important especially in ‘arid regions.’
  • Mass-transportation – the days of the ‘personal automobile’ in big cities are on the way out as the newer generations living in the inner cities are easy to accept ‘ride share’ and ‘driverless transports,’ they also are demanding more forms of mass-transportation including high-speed rails between outlying areas or ‘core cities.’
  • The ‘New Finance’ – the banking industry and traditional finance is going to be the next big wave of overhaul by the ‘new generation,’ they already have minimal involvement with banks if they can help it and they have, for the most part, no idea what a paper check is. Variances in crypto-currency and monetary exchange methods will stress the banking community and challenge the Internal Revenue Service’s traditional form of taxation. Such that ultimately, will force a move to either a VAT or Sales Tax rather than an Income Tax. At the same time the ‘Insurance community’ will change because value will become a much more ‘relative thing.’ Presently most things are valued based either upon cost or multiples of earnings… when monetary exchange changes, then measures of values are relative only to what a person considers something is worth… and that’s a whole new ball-game for the insurance market.