Dear CPA, are you TOO BUSY to be ORGANIZED?

Like me, many of you may have tried to get in touch with CPAs but on most occasions have been unsuccessful in the first few attempts. The genuine plausible reason of not being able to reach them is “They are busy”, honestly!

One would naturally wonder why would a self-employed professional be so tied up?

On a second thought, let us ask the CPAs whether they have utilized their time productively or have been bogged down with non-lucrative tasks which in turn have eaten up the major share of their time. All the answers have one thing in common – they were stuck in non-lucrative tasks for 70% of the time and these are all Non-billable hours.

After much discussion, here is what they had to share,

• I am working long hours but not able to generate more profits.
• Expanding my organization has never been possible due to time constraints.
• The  professional duties have taken a heavy toll on my personal life and family need.

What’s your choice?

Put in all those extra working hours doing clerical paper-work or utilize the time productively to strategize expanding your business, engage with your clients and also spend quality time with your family.

To make things simpler, you need to have in place the complete information of your client’s end-to-end accounting and tax details but that doesn’t compel you to sit and compile every bit of it solely. On a lighter note – you could be a cook who has all the ingredients ready to prepare an awesome dish! Now, it would be your call here to engage yourself in pre-preparations of chopping and assembling all the ingredients yourself or let others do it while you only concentrate on the main process! 

“A true delegation is when you manage the outcomes, not the process steps.”

What differentiates you from those CPAs who tasted success and successfully expanded their business to what they didn’t even dream of? Certainly, there’s no rocket science to it. It’s only the subtle changes that make a lot of difference!

Here’s how you can bring a great deal of change through simple yet essential steps!

• Simply refuse to do things that others can do.
• Understand the real value of your time.
• Inspire your clients to follow more efficient process.
• Control your control-freak person. Let professionals handle the things which are possible.
• Accept the new technologies and understand its use. Integrate an automated process.
• Concentrate on outcomes and not the process.

While discussing new industry norms with a reputed CPA, he was honest to admit that he was stuck and was in need something beneficial which could make him more productive and generate revenue and not be engaged only in non-core activities.  It was then when I suggested him few basics of collaborating with a working partner who could lessen the burden and allow him the time and pace to spearhead his organization. He was delighted in the end, because he had not only found a viable solution but also had reliable helping hands.

The current market industry is so volatile, that everyday one sees a different norm and regulation being introduced or updated. To add to the complexity, norms tend to vary for businesses and individuals. In such a case, paper-work tends to get cumbersome. At this juncture, if you decide to handle the paper-work individually, then you are surely missing out on more important business functions of clientèle development, interaction and successfully managing them. Apparently, you would end up doing only the paper-work with no value-addition done to your venture. And then, a prospect eager to talk with you gets disappointed at the first hurdle he faces to reach you which can make him think, “Will this CPA be available to me when I really need?”

 According to AICPA’s 2015 survey results, getting new clients and retaining existing clients are two of the top 5 challenges for accounting firms of all sizes.

Internet has changed the traditional dynamics of a business. Gone are the days, when clients and professionals would engage in business ties with minimal interactions. Today, effective and timely communication is the key to enhance your business; and customer allegiance is possible only through niche services. Again for these niche services, you would need a well-trained and agile working team.

The same AICPA survey results also prove that Finding and retaining qualified staff has been one of the top 5 challenges of firms of all sizes.

It means YOU are busy hiring, training, reviewing work done by the team, rectifying errors, firing and re-hiring when staff leaves.

OR

You hire a professional accounting organization to do it on your behalf and rest assured about the quality of work. This could also mean you spearhead something more important, thus adding value to your revenue.

 The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) recently conducted a survey which reports the following:

“Over 70% of the top 100 accounting firms in US have used Business Process Outsourcing and Business Transformation services to save millions of Dollars and hundreds of thousands of man-hours to improve their bottom line results. It is estimated that about 35% of large businesses in US use outsource accounting.”

It is time to get WISE!

It is time you delegate work to professional organizations who are competent task-force to work delivering niche quality. Technology offers you the option to move out of your mundane work and instead focus on innovation and creation. Earlier you were collecting bank statements and entering them into software; with technology now you can automatically fetch the bank statements into accounting software. And that’s exactly the same what you can do with Accounting, Payroll and Tax process.

Strategic businesses hire other professional companies, not because they themselves don’t have enough time, but they want to leverage their business resources channelizing the  skills of others who can do the jobs better than themselves.

Because, hiring, training, and re-hiring new when old staff leave, along with spending your precious time in clerical work can cost you $25000 a year. 

And you certainly don’t want that.

Let us solve all your queries and help you in your needs.