After publishing 10 Keys to Success with Cloud Accounting Services, I received feedback that it was a bit daunting and some did not know where to start. In doing my survey of firms, it was clear that success starts with adopting the Cloud Accounting mindset. After that, systems and processes can be developed. Here’s the core mindset of more successful practices:
1. Must Be Scalable
While an individual accountant can use technology and provide recurring services, Cloud Accounting is about repeatable, scalable practices that can be successfully delivered by multiple staff at the firm across the entire client base. It is not hiring a collection of staff who each have their own ways of doing their jobs and trusting they are doing good work until clients complain. That is a staffing-type business model where success or failure is driven largely by individual staff working on their own trying to figure out how to comply with client requests.
Instead, successful Cloud Accounting firms consistently get the job done for clients regardless of needing to transition work between staff. They have business models that combine great people with a solid technology stack and clear processes understood and followed by all. They have standardized solutions. Accountants take pride in setting up clients so another accountant can step in and continue services without problem. There may be an element of creative consulting from senior people that is hard to standardize, but that is reserved for the 20% or less of client engagement time.
2. Own Client Outcomes
Clients hire Cloud Accounting firms to consistently produce successful outcomes. If they wanted to manage accounting operations themselves, they would hire and manage their own employee or call Accountemps. Instead, small businesses hire a Cloud Accounting firm to know what needs to be done and to execute what needs to be done to produce the desired outcomes. Firms must not view engagements as billing out staff at an hourly rate. Even if a firm prices its services hourly, Cloud Accounting requires a commitment to bundling in and managing technology systems and processes required to produce successful client outcomes over long term client relationships.
Great Cloud Accounting firms think like they are running the client’s accounting department. Businesses hiring a Cloud Accounting firm don’t want another person to manage, they want a solution that achieves agreed-upon outcomes. This sometimes means not letting the client impose operational decisions that get in the way of successful outcomes. The Cloud Accounting firm will be blamed when it fails to deliver agreed-upon outcomes, and the firm cannot blame the client for something the firm was supposed to be managing.
3. Genuinely Believe Clients Benefit from Cloud Accounting
Successful firms truly believe that their standardized, scalable solutions are a great benefit for clients. While some clients might view standardization as inflexible and a downside of Cloud Accounting, firms help them appreciate the benefits of scalable solutions. The successful firm knows that snowflake solutions, where every client has a different set of SOPs and only one person at the firm knows what to do, are a recipe for disaster and helps clients understand that.
The requirements for successful Cloud Accounting are not negotiable. A client could hire another firm that claims to be more flexible, or hire an individual providing the ultimate in flexibility, but the business loses the benefits of Cloud Accounting when it adopts a staffing-type solution. Successful firms help clients appreciate the difference between Cloud Accounting and staffing-type services.
Make sure to join me in my webinar with Insightful Accountant; you can register for "Managing your Quality in Your Client Accounting Services" on May 27 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time here.
Author Bio: Cal Wilder is founder of SmartBooks Genie, an application powering client accounting services practices. Integrated with QuickBooks, Genie automates accrual accounting, monthly close management, custom reporting and dashboards, task management, and scope of service-based pricing. Genie was born out of the challenges of scaling Cal’s original client accounting services business, SmartBooks Services, from zero to forty people in 7 years.