State of Accounting: Why CPAs Must Change

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers analyze the state and future of their industry. Read all the posts here.

We are at a crossroads in the accounting profession: Our clients have already changed the way they are conducting business. Going forward they will seek advice only from those experts who can keep up with their pace. Our employees arrive with an entirely new set of expectations. They aren't content to operate the way we did. The tools we use to do our job become obsolete almost daily. We can barely control the devices or even the applications that are deployed by our staff. Our people want to stay connected while they work, not afterwards. We can dig in our heels and keep doing things the way we have always done them or we can start modifying our behaviors. We can count on change continuing to happen at an increasingly rapid pace.

As a profession, we have a strong history of providing reliable financial information. Certified Public Accountants (CPA) have been instrumental in keeping the wheels of business turning since the first CPA license was issued in New York in 1896. I am proud to be associated with the men and women who have helped create and support successful businesses everywhere. Sure, we have weathered a few storms, but we have managed to maintain an overall reputation of quality - built on a foundation of trust and integrity.

That is no longer enough.

• We need to have a bigger impact, touch more lives, and add even more value. We need to be the leaders who drive economic progress, not the guys with the adding machine at the end of the movement. We need more people like Tom Hood and Gary Boomer who are helping firms learn how to embrace change.
• We need to be providing the kinds of proactive consulting services that our unregulated brethren provide by the droves. But that requires training beyond the courses required to keep our licenses current. It takes an investment in the kind of unique training offered by organizations like MentorPlus or the 2020group.
• We have trained our clients to avoid us at busy times of our year and penalize them (in the form of hourly billing) for calling to catch up or to ask us a question. We need to listen to smart people like Ron Baker at Verasage and finally and forever trash our timesheets.
• We speak a foreign language and expect our clients to make sense of the code sections, regulations, and accounting standards that rule our lives. Or worse, we use our knowledge as a weapon and talk over the heads of our clients. We need to make communication training a mandatory part of professional certification, not an afterthought.
• We need to do a better job of telling our stories. Very few firms in my profession have made the investment in a marketing resource. These firms expect "providing quality work" to be a sufficient marketplace differentiator. Firms who are actually doing things differently need marketing support so they can help dispel the widely-held belief that CPAs only do taxes.
• We need to offer the kinds of work environments that support new staff people, encourage them to be curious, and make them feel valued each and every day. We need to provide them with technology that lets them work on their terms. According to the AICPA, 40,350 accounting graduates were hired by public accounting firms in 2012. I wonder how many of these graduates are still working for those firms.

Accounting remains an incredibly valuable, marketable skill. It is, after all the language of business. Our profession is highly respected by members of the business community for certain types of work. But the boxes are narrowing.

Rather than holding on to history and ignoring the changes that are in the air, we need to create a new future: embrace change, engage our teams, and start taking some risks. We need to listen to the thought leaders in our profession who have been sticking their necks out for years. It's time we work together like the members of the CPAConsultants Alliance and harness our collective abilities in support of the profession we love.

I for one am counting on my profession and its leaders to stay ahead of the curve.

Photo: Natali Glado / shutterstock

Want more insight about this industry? Follow our Accounting channel.

Enjoyed this post? Read what other Influencers had to say:

• Alex Malley on the State of Accounting: A Need to Regain Control
• Tom Hood on the State of Accounting: Can the '3rd Best Career' Survive This Tidal Wave of Change?