june2021 - 8

FROM THE TRENCHES
CLIENT EXPERIENCE FOR TODAY -
PERSONAL TAX ADVISORY
FINALLY, THREE OF the most unusual years in the profession are behind us. The Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the COVID-19 pandemic July 15th
, 2020 deadline, and the PPP2
May 17th, 2021 deadline have left many firm partners and team members more stressed
and tired than usual. Plus, our efforts for our clients were often reactionary to both the
legislation and relief bills. As we have done in the past, we completed the work and did
the best we could with what we knew.
As we breathe a collective sigh
of relief, it will be nice to have our
practices and our clients' companies
returning to normal. While many
people and businesses will be gone
forever, there will be new businesses
and new opportunities for accounting
firms. However, we will be cleaning
up many situations caused by our
clients, interpretations of the relief
bills, more new laws, and backlog
clean-up from the tax service itself.
Other parts of this month's
issue deal with personal financial
planning. This topic has been an
interesting area for me for over 20
years, particularly after the regulations
permitted practitioners to enter
the business of wealth management.
While I've helped many firms grow
practices in this area, several with
over $1B in assets under management,
quite a few firms have helped
clients protect their personal assets in
well-run, properly focused fiduciary
wealth management.
The technology tools available to
assist in this area led me to prepare
my first estate plan. When I ran my
first personal financial planning
models and estate plans in the
Kettley Publishing and Back Room
Technician, now Advisys solutions
with over 40,000 users, I was hooked.
Further, using the earliest version of
the eMoney Advisor with my wife
helped us understand our personal
money risk tolerances. The Rutgers
Investment Risk Tolerance Quiz,
the Profiles module, a part of the
Naviplan InvestCloud from Advicent,
or one of the risk profiling software
options here still makes sense to me
when used to help people plan based
on their risk tolerance and not as a
sales tool. You can find many more
options by searching on " money risk
tolerance software. "
RANDY JOHNSTON
EVP & Partner
K2 Enterprises &
CEO of Network Management Group, Inc.
randy.johnston@cpapracticeadvisor.com
@RPJohnston
However, with all the efforts to
gather assets under management by
all sorts of organizations, professional
independence and a whole-of-client
approach makes for a trusted advisor.
And the best advisors always
put the client first in their advisory
practice. As the year progresses,
you'll see other coverage on the 30+
advisory services you can offer, and
we'll point you to more true advisory
options instead of the " fake " advisory
commonly promoted. We'll also learn
more about " whole-of-client. "
HOW DO WE CHOOSE
TAX ADVISORY TOOLS?
First, you must decide on your tax
advisory offerings. We suggest that
8 JUNE 2021 ■ www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

june2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of june2021