How to quickly know if your current technology stack will be good for CAS or not

• Would you believe that there are over 1,200 different technology solutions/products that accounting firms and their clients use?
• Would you believe that most small to mid-sized firms use anywhere between 20 to 70 of these technology solutions depending upon the firm sizes?
• Would you believe that despite the pandemic's effect resulting in work-from-home scenarios, many firms still use desktop solutions (hosted or otherwise)?

Technology "stack" is a huge decision for firms that want to make it big in Client Accounting Services (CAS).

And with so much choice now available in the marketplace, choosing the right technology solutions for your CAS practice can feel more daunting than ever, despite an era of online reviews and testimonials. When it comes to CAS, technology stack decisions need to be made somewhat differently. Fortunately, there are enough proven insights about it in the CAS market.

In the?previous edition of The CAS Newsletter, we discovered?the 13 Things to Know Before Selling CAS to Clients/Prospects. This edition will help you make one of the most important decisions you will make in your CAS practice i.e. how to quickly know if your current technology stack will be good for CAS or not.

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.

Your current tech-stack and processes

Your firm’s current processes/procedures are adapted to your current technology stack or vice versa. Trying to “fit-in” CAS into your existing technology stack may become a challenge for you – not just from a procedural point of view but also from a profitability point of view. If your current technology stack is still more of desktop software, it could be very challenging for you to offer CAS as profitably as potentially possible.

CAS does NOT need a technological transformation

Before you start thinking, “oh gosh, this is going to be a hugely expensive technological overhaul of my firm,” STOP.

CAS does need you to adapt to an optimal technology mix, but it does not mean you just throw away your current technology and bring in entirely new technology.

CAS does NOT need a technological transformation of your firm.

Depending upon your existing technology stack, it may only require some reorganization, integration, and adjustment.

Most likely, your firm’s current technology stack will be similar to one or more of the following.

1. Your firm is already mostly in the cloud: In such a scenario, focus on integrations and automation.
2. Your firm is partly in the cloud: In such s scenario, focus on moving high-volume transaction processing to cloud solutions.
3. Your firm is hardly in the cloud: In such s scenario, immediately focus on moving client reporting and client service to self-service cloud solutions.

How to quickly know if your current technology stack will be good for CAS or not

CAS requires an ability for your firm to be able to best serve the needs of ALL your clients.

In other words, your firm’s technology stack, services, processes, and pricing packages need to cater to businesses of different sizes, turnovers, as well as various levels of tech-savvy-ness of the business owners and their employees. In yet other words, your firm should have the ability to do part of the accounting work or all the work your clients offload to your firm.

A. When clients do part of the work

In such cases, you want the technology stack to be as standardized as possible to avoid the costly, error-prone, and time-consuming need to deal with a variety of software. Top-performing CAS firms limit G/L software to just three. The training required is much lesser and the need to constantly switch between software reduces greatly.

• Action to be taken: Make a list of ALL software solutions that BOTH, your firm and your clients, use. Categorize the software into your service components e.g. bookkeeping, bill payment, accounting, and so on. Then slowly move clients to a select few solutions. Put all new clients onto one of the chosen few.

B. When clients offload all of the accounting work to your firm

Such clients are your ideal CAS clients.?They won't need to process any accounting work themselves but they still need real-time access to and insights from the accounting information. For this purpose, you absolutely need collaborative cloud technologies.?

• Action to be taken: Review and analyze how many emails and which types of emails you send to / receive from clients that contain "information exchange" (not insights/advice delivery). In other words, find out client self-service opportunities for information consumption. That will help you focus your client interactions more on advisory.

The fundamental requirement

The fundamental requirement to select and implement software solutions is simple - “as much as possible, data and information once created should not be required to be re-created” in any other software.

• Action to be taken: Analyze to identify which data/information you input manually into multiple software solutions.

In addition, you must strive to minimize, if not eliminate, the manual effort of “moving the information” between different software, and between your firm and clients. It not only enhances efficiency, av delays and errors but helps significantly reduce your firm’s operating costs – all of which means each of your employees can process work for more clients, thereby improving your firm’s profitability in multiple ways.

• Action to be taken: Find ways to reduce the duplication/replication of data elements. Find integration and automation tools and implement them.

These are just some of the ways to help you know if your current technology stack will be good for your CAS practice or not.

In my?CAS book, I have shared more insights that can help you make better technology decisions.

The book also comes with a list of some technology solutions many CAS firms use.

What next:

After you have figured out your CAS Technology components, your next step will be to leverage those components optimally. But that is an internal and external challenge too. In the next edition (August 2022) of The CAS Newsletter,?I will share some?new insights on how to make your CAS technology stack quickly and optimally work for you.?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.

_________________________________________________________________________

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.