Featuring Rick Telberg & Chris Frederiksen, CPA

In this installment of the 2020 Audio Series Rick Telberg of CPA Trendlines shares his commentary on key issues impacting small and medium sized accounting firms.

He contends that some firms will become obsolete if they continue to resist change like they have in the past. Whereas the agile, more nimble and observant firms who embrace the challenges of a new competitive landscape are flourishing. Firm owners have bounced back from the economic downturn, however they shouldn't get comfortable as more challenges are on the horizon. 

Some of the challenges ahead include: 

- Fierce competition for quality clients
- Fierce competition for quality staff
- Relentless improvements in technology
- The changing demographics of today's CPAs
- A distinct lack of leadership in small & mid sized firms
- Changing service requirements of clients

One of Rick's key observations is that high achieving firms exhibit similar qualities, particularly in their ability to meet change head-on rather than shy away from it.

Telberg Track 02

Telberg Track 01

Featuring Chris Frederiksen, CPA & Gordon Gilchrist

In Part I, Gordon Gilchrist and Chris Frederiksen discuss the ongoing financial crisis and its impact on the accounting profession and how to best manage your firm during these difficult times. They address key initiatives for firms from evaluating your current client list, billing procedures regarding WIP and billing frequency, engagement letters, "fee planned" services, collection strategies as well as managing receivables from clients dealing with financial difficulties.

In Part II, Gordon and Chris continue their discussion on how to manage your business in tough times. The focus of the discussion is on relationships, opportunities and how to best serve your clients in a recession. For example, one key service you should be providing to your clients is Strategic Planning for the short term- how they are planning to manage in these difficult times and how you can assist them. Other key areas you can help include Cash Flow forecasts, Key Performance Indicators and Cost Analyses to name a few. There are tremendous opportunities for accounting firms despite the dismal outlook. Chris and Gordon will discuss how you can make the most of them.

Gilchrist Track 02

Gilchrist Track 01

Featuring Drew White, MBA & Michael McNeilly with Chris Frederiksen, CPA

Chris is joined by Drew White, MBA and MIchael McNeilly of Sageworks to discuss how accounting firms can successfully add value to their clients with benchmarking services. The benchmarking tool ProfitCents is the largest private database of financial reports with over 1.000 sets of financial statements being added to the database server day.

Accounting firms are able to provide their clients with up to date reports on the performance for their respective businesses compared to the industry, and any other number of variables.

Michael explains that it's more than just providing a report  and gives examples of how to best use the reports that are provided. The most successful firms use the reports to ask pertinent questions. This questioning process along with he ability to offer a third party perspective is what leads you to the higher value engagements.

Whatever financial analysis tool you use, their function is to help business owners take control of their business and make better business decisions.

ProfitCents offers a number of other modules including cash flow and profit forecasting and business valuations that allow you to show what can be achieved with small tweaks of key performance indicators.

2020 Group USA