december2022january2023 - 6

FROM THE TRENCHES
Your Firm
and
Your Providers
THE FALL CONFERENCE season has been enlightening. Perhaps you attended the CCH User
Conference in Tampa, the Thomson Reuters Synergy conference in Washington, DC, Digital CPA
in Austin, QuickBooks Connect, Ensuring Success, the Unique CPA conference, or one of the
K2 conferences in your state. Of course, if you didn't attend, you can look at the innovations
announced in press releases. Still, the benefit of these conferences is only partially what you
learn about product direction. In addition, you benefit from the interaction with your peers.
Unfortunately, these personal interactions were more difficult during the COVID pandemic.
Partners and team members have been starving for innovation despite being exhausted from
the compliance work of PPP, PPP2, ERTC, tough tax deadlines, and more.
When Wolters Kluwer CEO Jason
Marx was asked about his favorite
business insight at the close of the
CCH User Conference, he responded
that it was watching CPAs experience
the augmented reality lab using
Microsoft HoloLens 2. I was fortunate
to experience using Microsoft HoloLens
2 setup myself and to simulate how
augmented reality could help review a
tax return. Wolters Kluwer wanted its
customers to appreciate the potential
of these new technologies. It was a
good use of my time.
One word of caution, the marketing
engines are in full swing. As a result,
the solutions sold aren't necessarily
in the best interest of your team, the
partners, or clients. On the other hand,
we must have software tools, like tax
software, to provide our compliance
services. However, caveat emptor
(buyer beware) is as accurate now as
I've seen at any time in the last four
decades. Between public company
profitability, private equity demands
for performance on their investments,
technology stack recommendations
without independence, automation
opportunities that frequently don't
work as advertised, and staff shortages,
partners and managers may be
in the most challenging (dare I say
interesting) time of managing professional
firms that I have ever observed.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE
TOP IDEAS?
Each major publisher has made
efforts to improve its portfolio, and
I appreciate them. Every practice
area has experienced change:
6 DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 ■ www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
RANDY JOHNSTON
EVP & Partner
K2 Enterprises &
CEO of Network Management Group, Inc.
randy.johnston@cpapracticeadvisor.com
@RPJohnston
practice management, tax, audit,
document management, workflow,
portals, client accounting services,
and advisory. We've written about
these items in prior columns, or
spoken about them in The Technology
Lab podcast series (www.
cpapracticeadvisor.com/podcasts).
One thing that has not changed is
your firm's decision to purchase
most of your products from a single
provider, such as Wolters Kluwer
(CCH) and Thomson Reuters, orto
acquire best-of-breed solutions from
Intuit, IRIS, or smaller competitors.
Be thoughtful about your one suite
or best-of-breed approach.
Also, as presented at the Wolters
Kluwer conference, survey results
suggested the top issues for CPA firms
are: 1) Late or unprepared clients, 2)
Keeping track of new or emerging
regulations, 3) Working with the IRS,
4) Servicing clients effectively, 5) Economic
uncertainty, and 6) Retaining
and attracting top talent.

http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/podcasts http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/podcasts http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

december2022january2023

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