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Over the course of the past year or so I have written and spoken many times about the wonderful opportunity for the accounting profession to take the leading role to provide financial planning services to the community. With the exit of most of the big institutions, the accounting profession, which enjoys high community trust, is…

In late July we conducted our popular Young Guns workshop for emerging leaders. It is now clearly the domain of the Millennials (born 1981-1996). How exciting is that! It was wonderful to see this cohort being so engaged in building their careers and taking leadership roles in their firms. The challenge now for the Boomers…

Your Client Relationship Management (CRM) system in an integral part of your firm’s business advisory success. Wikipedia defines a CRM as an approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and potential future clients that tries to analyse data about clients’ history with a company and to improve business relationships with clients, specifically focusing on client retention…

Great client service is an ongoing challenge for accounting firms. I was recently asked, “what are the key things you see in successful accounting firms around the world when it comes to client service?” I have summarised below my top 10 steps to better client service from observations in Australia, New Zealand, UK and Canada;…

Good profitability, strong cash flow, growing return and being client-focused go hand in hand. At practice level, most accountants believe this, but they have a hard time identifying specific actions and communicating the benefits to clients in a manner they can understand and more importantly value. Here are 10 specific things you can consider implementing…

For as long as I have been engaged in the accounting profession, almost every firm I have been involved with or spoken to has acknowledged that there are additional services that they could provide to fulfil unmet client needs. A number like 20% of additional fees could be generated is often cited. Yet many firms…

I was recently asked what were the key observations you have seen in successful accounting firms around the world when it comes to client service. I have summarised below my top 10 steps to better client service from observations in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Canada; You are in business to service client needs…

There has been a mountain of press, blogs and videos predicting that the accounting profession is going to be replaced by silent machines sitting in data centres. Artificial intelligence, big data, data analytics, machine learning etc are all going to play their part. I have read a ton of material and in doing so it…

Getting started with your advisory services and maintaining service momentum is one of the great challenges in our profession. How do we offer ongoing advisory services through dynamic board of advice meetings systematically with clients? These board of advice meetings need structure. This structure should start with an agenda of what is to be covered followed by…

Remember the 1980s? Greed was good. Until Paul Keating killed it – it was the era of the long lunch. Technology’s relentless march gained momentum with computerised tax returns and other marvels changing the accounting industry forever. It was also the end of the 100% loanback superannuation fund. Money needed to be invested. Financial planning was emerging…