13 Things to Know Before Selling CAS to Clients/Prospects

When it comes to Client Accounting Services (CAS), 13 is a lucky number!

By the time you read through the end of this edition of The CAS Newsletter, you'll know why.

"I wish I had a way to find clients that are a good fit for my practice."

When yet another small firm owner told me this years ago, I felt this problem is pretty routine in the accounting profession.

Do you too face this challenge? Do you have that nagging feeling that some/many of your clients are not a good fit for your practice? If yes, when you start/grow your CAS practice, this problem can be very challenging.

But there are some proven ways to overcome this recurring problem.

In the previous edition of The CAS Newsletter, we discovered four CAS communication strategies you can practically use. Once you have your CAS communication strategies in place, you'd want to observe if you are getting CAS-fit clients. This edition will uncover some proven ways to identify clients that will be a good fit for your CAS offerings,

Are you planning to start/ already offering CAS?

You can find a proven roadmap, many strategies, and actionable insights to enhance your CAS practice in the best-selling book Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide.

Why is finding CAS-fit clients a problem?

"Accountant" and "Accounting". These two words are deeply associated with a long-established perception i.e. financial statements and tax returns. Small business owners generally think of accountants as "necessary for compliance". In other words, clients look for getting the basic services, on a need-basis. That commoditizes the accounting services market, with great fee pressure.

Even the owners of growing and somewhat larger businesses carry the same foundational perception about what you, the accountant, can do for them. If you just provide what they are looking for from an accounting firm, not what they should be looking for, you will be faced with the challenge of not working with good-fit CAS clients.

And, not every client will be a CAS-fit.

Fortunately, there is a door that you can knock on and open for your CAS offerings. Let me explain.

The hidden CAS needs in the minds of your prospects and clients

If your "small business" clients are already paying you up to 5% of their topline, selling higher-priced CAS offerings to such clients can be an uphill task. Some clients can be an exception to this rule of thumb.

But, as your clients' business grows, the complexity of their businesses can increase. Accounting work, therefore, can become more complex for them. Even more importantly, owners of such businesses find it more challenging to be on top of their numbers, especially from the point of view of making data-driven business decisions.

Therein are the hidden CAS needs in the minds of your prospects and clients that are experiencing growth in their businesses. And you'd want to leverage such needs to ensure you are attracting more CAS-fit clients.

How?

13 Things to Know Before Selling CAS to Clients/Prospects: The CAS-fit Measurements and Discovery

As a professional accountant, you know the key metrics and numbers that are important for business owners to be on top of. Such metrics can help you judge the complexity of business operations of any business. The more the complexity and volume, the more difficult it is for business owners to manage accounting by themselves. And what they (should) need are the insights for making business decisions, not just data and information. As a busy owner of a growing business, neither will the owner have enough time to discover insights from the numbers but also not have your level of expertise to find such insights.

Evaluate your existing clients and prospects for the following:

1. Is there a growth trend over the last 12-24 months?
2. Number of full-time employees
3. The number of vendors from whom the client/prospect buys regularly
4. The number of customers/clients of your prospect/client
5. The number of monthly sales invoices and vendor bills
6. The number of different/separate business softwares your prospect/client routinely uses
7. Cash flow requirements - payables/receivables terms
8. Are there frequent/recurring cash flow challenges?
9. Is a significant amount of money regularly stuck in inventory?
10. Is there in-house bookkeeping/accounting staff?
11. Does the client deal with inaccurate/delayed financial statements?
12. Why is the client/prospect discussing CAS with you (challenges/problems/goals)?
13. Has tax planning been done?

The essence of this evaluation/discovery process is to find out if the client/prospect is actually doing work that is more accounting knowledge-based work or is it mostly performing some business process-related tasks. If you find that some such work requires an accountant’s expertise, that is where you should pitch your CAS offering.

The answers to some/all of these questions from any given client/prospect can help you discover if there is a CAS-fit. Based on the information that emerges when you evaluate the answers to the above-listed questions, you will be able to decide which, and how many types of services will the client/prospect will actually benefit from. In many cases, you will be able to offer more than just after-the-fact write-up services, which will likely double your current revenue from most clients. 

These are just some of the ways to help you identify the CAS-fit clients.

In my CAS book, I have shared more such ways to identify the CAS-fit clients. The book also comes with a free bonus download of an instantly usable, MSExcel-based tool to not only identify CAS-fit clients but also to help you instantly work out the price you should charge to each prospect/client.

What next:

After you have figured out your methodology for identifying CAS-fit clients, you are still a few steps away from making CAS a success for you. And one of the key next steps you'd want to take is to evaluate the technology stack you will need to succeed in CAS. In the next edition (July 2022) of The CAS Newsletter, I will share some new insights on how to quickly know if your current technology stack will be good for CAS or not. Stay tuned......

CAS has enhanced the practice performance of many firms. CAS does turn into more CA$H for accounting firms. Others have done it, and so can you.

• In the subsequent editions of The CAS Newsletter, I will share many more new, practical insights to make it easier for you to achieve greater success in CAS.
• If you have not yet subscribed to this newsletter, please subscribe now, so the new, fresh editions with new, fresh insights get delivered to your email inbox, and you also get notified of it here on LinkedIn.
• Please see Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide if you want to get a head-start in your CAS journey.
•  If you were to ask just one all-important CAS question, what would it be? I will answer that question - just send me your CAS question by clicking here. 
• If you are a professional accountant interested in developing/enhancing your CAS practice, please connect with me on LinkedIn.

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About The CAS Newsletter:

The CAS Newsletter will uncover insights for success in Client Accounting Services (CAS) - the new revenue & growth segment for accounting firms. 

This CAS Newsletter is a monthly publication by Hitendra R. Patil, the author of the best-selling, accounting profession's first-ever book on CAS: Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide. Hitendra has been one of Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for five consecutive years, from 2017 to 2021.