bank account balance – Cooper Mann Consulting

March 7, 2013

Global CFOs returning to fundamentals

Accounting professionals in the United States have recognized for some time the value of offering what many refer to as “high level” services to their clients. For the accounting professional and the client business, consulting regarding strategy and growth represented value for both parties – guidance for the business client and profitable service for the accountant. However, as the economy began to decline and businesses tightened their belts, accounting professionals around the world recognized the opportunity and the need to return to focusing more on client operations and not simply on strategy and growth.

A recent article on CFO.com discusses the results of a survey performed by the ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), discussing how accounting professionals around the world are adjusting their approaches to accounting – adjustments at least partially fueled by global economic difficulties.

“There has been a little bit of a shift following the economic crisis. Pre-crisis there was a lot more focus around growth,” says Lyon. As the recession hit, Lyon says, global CFOs began to immediately question “What’s my cash position from day to day? What’s happening to my costs? What’s happening with my controls?”

Such anxieties may have triggered a shift back to the basics. “The CFO is a key adviser to the strategic (decision makers); that’s not in question. But there is a balance to be had in these times. That balance is around cost management and certainly managing risks,” says Lyon. “Finance as a function has been slightly brought back into focus.”

I would suggest that shifts in the approaches by accounting professionals are (at least in part) due to the various impacts of economy, technology, and globalization. There have always been different types of accounting professionals, with some focusing on management issues and others on strategy. Today’s accounting professionals must find a way to find a balance while addressing holistically the needs of the business client. This belief is also in line with the findings of the survey:

The complete finance professional 2013 summarises our thinking on why businesses need finance skills and capabilities across the entire finance value chain. We also recognise that this new environment requires finance professionals to bring a much broader range of finance skills to the table. The challenges faced by finance functions in supporting businesses are not constrained to a particular accounting or finance discipline. To strive to become world class, finance functions must excel in a broad range of capabilities, from supporting businesses to manage risk, developing effective strategies for growth, driving financial insight, continuing to maintain appropriate levels of control across the organisation as well as ensuring its statutory and regulatory responsibilities are met.

There are a lot of US accounting professionals out there who once approached their clients with a “holistic” service offering, focusing both ON and IN the business. Today, competitive pressures are driving professionals to re-engage with their clients in deeper operational roles, combining cost and cash management with guidance on growth and sustainability. It’s kind of like going back to the good old days of the full-service accounting office, and that’s a good thing for businesses.

Make Sense?

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet J

January 14, 2013October 28, 2015

Re-defining the role of the accountant, or going back to the good old days?

I grew up in a small town in Oregon where my parents ran a “business accounting office”. Many of the businesses in and around town were my dad’s clients, and we all got to know each other pretty well. Dad, you see, wasn’t simply the accountant, and the people working for him weren’t just bookkeepers. Dad was the business advisor, purchasing negotiator, collections agent, and anything else the client needed that he could provide. He fought for lower worker’s compensation insurance rates, got better prices on truck tires, and in general helped his clients with just about every aspect of running their businesses, including getting more customers and managing growth.

I had always believed that this approach, a consultative approach where the professional was intimately familiar with the business and proactively worked from inside the organization, was what all accounting professionals did. This proved to not necessarily be the case. Over the years, I have found that many accounting professionals focus primarily on the historic reporting of activities in the business, rather than actively helping to improve client business operations and performance on a daily basis.

According to one source, describing the differences between a CFO and an accountant: “CFOs are focused on working inside the business helping it generate wealth – ensuring proper capitalization, fostering the right banking relationships, addressing compliance issues – focusing on the company as a whole. Often CPAs tend to be more focused on specific tasks. Is the year-end audit done? Is the tax return done? …While both are vital to a business, a distinction we see is that the CPA’s dominant focus is historical – looking back to prepare tax returns and financial statements. The CFO, though, needs to be a forward-looking, integral part of the management team”.

It has become a reality that many accounting professionals are somewhat disconnected from their clients, a result perhaps of removing themselves from daily bookkeeping and other tasks. Recognizing the disconnect, many firms are now taking steps towards rebuilding those intimate client relationships by offering services which address more operational and strategic aspects of the business. These firms are offering “CFO Services” to their clients in addition to the standard offerings of financial statement and tax preparation. They have recognized the need become closer to the client business, delving deeper into the intricacies of the operation in order to find areas where improvements may be made and necessary controls instituted.

Accounting professionals seeking to increase the value of the services offered to clients should give strong consideration to what the client recognizes as valuable. Historic reporting is necessary, but finding ways to fund budgets, controlling expenses, helping to guide cash investments and taking steps to improve profitability are how a consultative accounting professional delivers real value to the client, building up the basis for long-lived and mutually beneficial business relationships like the ones my father once built.

Make Sense?

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet J

Small Business Owner to Accountant: Make Accounting Valuable to ME

December 13, 2012March 26, 2019

Small Business Owner to Accountant: Make Accounting Valuable to ME

Accounting services should be useful to a business owner, providing valuable insight into the business performance and activity. Accounting professionals believe their services have value, but find it difficult to express that value when selling their services to prospective clients.

The problem is that most professional accounting firms believe that what they sell is accounting: accounting services, tax preparation, audits, etc. While this may be the essential list of functions they perform on behalf of business clients, accounting, per se, is not what the professional should be selling – at least, not if they want business owners to buy.

You see, accounting is dumb and boring – a necessary evil of doing business for most business owners. Accounting is what happens to paperwork at the end of the month. Business owners don’t want to know about accounting. They want to be able to sleep at night. Business owners want to be able to know what they need to do to keep the business moving along. They don’t want to have to check the bank account balance every morning. Business owners simply want to know what they need to do to get the results they’re looking to achieve.

Accounting professionals – don’t talk to your clients about how great your accounting is, or about debits and credits. They don’t know and don’t want to know. Good accounting is expected from you; it isn’t a selling feature. Talk to your clients about the picture the data paints about their business, and about how you can help them to meet their needs and help them achieve their goals. That’s a value proposition that says something.

Make Sense?

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet J

*Note: this short article is the result of a recent conversation with my good friend and a consummate professional, Penny Breslin of MoneyPenny LLC. Penny and I both work with a lot of accounting professionals and the “song remains the same” no matter where we look. Accounting pros continue to be challenged in communicating the value of their services to business clients, and it’s all because they continue to talk about accounting (thinking anyone cares). Go figure.

Global CFOs returning to fundamentals

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Re-defining the role of the accountant, or going back to the good old days?

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