Is it time you turned your spotlight around

One of the most exciting things about our profession today is the wide range of software tools available to us that help us to deliver great services to our clients.

I split them into two broad camps.

There are the internal tools that enable us to deliver our services more effectively. These include our practice management software, CRM systems, workflow software, communication systems and core compliance products that not only enable us to deliver our essential services but also help us to manage our clients and track our delivery more effectively. In theory, at least.

Then we have our external tools, those that encourage us to deliver a wider range of services and more value-added products. This may be tax planning and mitigation, advisory services, outsourced solutions, HR, marketing, app implementation, tech support and the like. The digital revolution is enabling us to deliver better and across a wider spectrum than ever before, if we choose to and if we apply it right.

Such tools enable us to shine a light on how well we manage our clients, how effectively we deliver on our promises and what areas of the clients’ businesses and financial affairs need greater attention. All essential areas to focus on that derive significant benefit from the greater awareness and attention. This is how we deliver better service to our clients and demonstrate greater value.

All well and good…until the conversation moves to the accountant’s own firm.

We have the tools to give us the data we need to help our clients improve their own businesses and financial well-being, but do we have the data that we need to make our own firms better, not from the client delivery perspective but in terms of our own rewards?

An accountant can show me how much profit a particular client is making, virtually in real time, but they cannot tell me whether that same client is a profitable account within their own accounting firm.

They can show their clients which customers, products and services are making them money but don’t have the same information for their own business.

They can help their clients to use their resources more effectively but don’t track how the people and systems within their own accounting firm are performing and being utilised.

They can help clients to foresee and better manage issues coming up but still end up with a reactive approach to the same challenges in their own firm.

We’re getting so much better at working with our clients and supporting our clients but don’t seem to be making the same advances with the management of our own accounting firms at a time when the commercial pressures and demands are getting greater and greater.

Most conversations with Fintechs seem to be about the accountant-client interface, delivering better services and a wider range of services. That’s no bad thing but I do feel that there needs to be greater emphasis on how well our own firms are run, and not just from a delivery perspective.

Ask yourself some basic questions with your focus entirely on your own accounting business:

·     Are you getting the information that you need accurately enough and quickly enough to make the decisions needed for you to be successful?

·     You may know how profitable you are, but do you know where your profits and losses are coming from specifically enough to manage them better?

·     Can you track the performance of your resources close enough to operate a lean business whilst delivering on your promises?

·     Does the management organisation of your firm allow you to focus your actions and improvements in specific, informed terms rather than generic, ‘gutfeel’ terms?

We talk to our clients all the time about working on their businesses rather than in them and about having the necessary data and tracking the right KPIs to allow informed decisions but are we doing this enough in our own firms? When I look at the software that we are using to deliver services to clients, you get a sense that the focus on the clients, whilst important, is almost masking the same necessary level of focus on the accounting firm itself.

I think it’s time we brought our own needs and businesses out of the shadows.