CPA_Practice_Advisor_March_2020 - 5

FROM THE TRENCHES
However, a key point from Will was
that the professional should speak
first about their "why" and then
ask the client to describe needs
and issues in their business. After
seeing a demonstration of the Onvio
Advisory platform and receiving
an update on the Practice Forward
engagements from Thomson, it was
clear that the methodology and the
Onvio Advisory solution could make
managing these services easier.
Helping clients obtain financing
is another possible advisory service.
Commercial Loan Success is a
software and education platform
from which you can generate an
up front, one-page pre-underwriting
analysis to provide to lenders about
a client's business financing request.
This is a wonderful product to use
in advisory service work, as it takes
very little effort from the CPA practitioner, but provides real value to
the client in need.
In a discussion with John Matheson, CEO of Global Power Equipment
Group, earlier this week, it was clear
that the software continues to
improve but practitioners are missing this opportunity to serve clients.
Further, the book Commercial Loan
Success by John Matheson and Dan
Crowley (available from Amazon)
explains how to build the practice.
It can be read in a few hours, and you
can be equipped to help clients find
the financing they need to run their
businesses or buy commercial real
estate. Unfortunately, over dinner
last night, discussion of a forty-yearold private family business' demise
because of not having the proper
bank financing was sad to hear. More
important are those ideas for businesses that never get off the ground
because they weren't financed. My
own forty-year-old operation barely
dodged this problem.
Additionally, in the last two
months, the AccountantsWorld
team has provided insight on Client Advisory Services during our

Client Advisory
Services are
forward-looking.
discussions of Client Accounting
Services. Every time I speak with Dr.
Chandra Bhansali, his wife Sharada,
or their son Div, I learn something
new. (Their Accounting Power Client
Accounting Services product, as well
as their Payroll Relief product, are
among my preferred solutions for
proactive, collaborative accounting
and payroll engagements.) Sharada
and her team have designed these
systems, and they provide granular
security control available in few
other products.
Chandra said in our conversation, "Accounting Power allows the
CPA professional to choose the level
of service they provide based on the
client firm's needs and accounting
skills. The professional firm can do
all the work, part of the work or a
small amount of the work. Accounting Power lets the client and the CPA
professional collaborate and choose
how to work together." Few products
in the market have this much flexibility. Regardless of the amount of
work undertaken, the professional
firm always remains in full control
of the accounting engagement.
Most important in our conversation was the idea that a more
descriptive term for the collaborative work to be done would be
CaaS for Client Accounting and
Advisory Services. While Client
Accounting Services are backwardlooking, Client Advisory Services are
forward-looking. The accountant
who controls the accounting will
be the first to see the advisory
opportunity and will have the best
chance of winning the engagement.
Additionally, we discussed the

ethical separation of accounting
and advisory work required in
some jurisdictions. I'm concerned
that some CPA professionals are
stepping over this ethical line and
I'm afraid that more CPAs won't
maintain appropriate independence
in these Advisory engagements as
well as in their audit practices. The
AccountantsWorld team provided
new motivation and ideas for our
Client Accounting Services CPE
courses offered by my K2 Enterprises organization and helped us
to build new Advisory content.
Finally, a discussion with Fujitsu
around the scanner covered in last
month's column uncovered at least
three new Client Accounting and
Advisory Services opportunities. I
can't wait for their new solutions
to be announced!
We would suggest the following
as potential advisory services:
■ Family Office
■ International Services
■ Investments and retirement
º Future Value of Investments
º Investments Needed to
Achieve Goal
º Monthly Investment
Accumulation
Value of an Ordinary
º Present

Annuity
º Years to Become a Millionaire
■ Merger/Acquisition
■ Mortgage
º Mortgage comparison
º Mor tgage loan ref inance
analysis
qualification
º Mortgage

■ Other loan
loan pay ment
º Standard

schedule
º Apartment property
º Commercial property
º Business finance
■ Personal finance
º College savings planner
repayment
º Debt

■ Payroll
to net paycheck
º Gross

º Net to gross paycheck

MARCH 2020 ■

contributions
º 401(k)

■ Valuation
dissolution
º Marital

Business
M&A
º
º Real estate
Use the Level One steps to an
innovative offering development
methodology we have discussed in
prior columns:
■ Discuss client needs with peers at
CPE events
■ P r o ac t i v e l y s c h e du le c l i e nt
discovery meetings to ask about
their needs
■ Determine how many other clients
have similar needs
■ Create a menu of services and a
fee schedule
■ Approach some of the clients with
the new offering
■ Refine the offering after completing
3-5 engagements
■ Market the offering inside your
client base and then externally

CAN YOU SEE THERE ARE
MANY NEW ADVISORY
SERVICES TO CONSIDER
IN 2020?
Consider your clients' needs and the
current offerings in your practice.
Many of you have business and
management services available
today, but you are responding to ad
hoc requests from clients. What if
you could proactively offer engagements that were value priced? Could
these advisory engagements be more
interesting and profitable that your
compliance engagements?
When it's winter and snowy and
icy (snewing as I learned recently
from a friend), it can be hard to see
out of the windshield after a storm.
When conditions are bad, I don't pay
as much attention to what's behind
me as I do to what's in front of me.
Compliance work is looking in the
rear-view mirror, possibly to see
if law enforcement is in pursuit.
Advisory work is looking out the
windshield. What do you want to
help your clients do? ■

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