From Accountant to Business Advisor – Market your Firm in the Cloud.
A very interesting article from the WorkflowMax blog. Quite a detailed look at how the traditional accounting firm can and should make the move to become a “firm of the future” to avoid becoming stale and out of date.
It opens by challenging what the role of the accountant will be if and when automation takes away much of what a traditional accountant does. What is a traditional accountant you ask…..it is one who relies upon the compliance driven model to bring business to their door year after year. What will happen when business owners realise that many of the cloud accounting applications now coming onto the market will allow them to look after this compliance process themselves ?
As I have noted many times before in my articles, the traditional accountant must change and begin to build a true advisory business using the smart technology available and deliver it to these business owners in an efficient and effective manner. This is where they will be able to add value to their clients. This will allow them to use the business advisory skills they have acquired over the years and not simply be data entry clerks, filling out forms and basically being a middle man between businesses and the tax department. This will allow them to run a real business.
The article is actually a road map or action plan that many accounting firms could use to kick start their transformation.
James Solomons 