Do You Have a Trusted — or Rusted — Advisor?

In this series, professionals debate the state – and future – of their industry. Read more here, then write your own #MyIndustry post.

Certified Public Accountants are considered trusted advisors* to our clients. Most of the time, we work hard to earn that trust. We pride ourselves on our technical skills and make sure to stay current on the latest rules and regulations that apply to tax or accounting. We get our required hours of "Continuing Professional Education" (CPE) year after year. Some of us even try to stay abreast of industry trends and industry benchmarks.

But there are areas in which some of us are falling behind and keeping our heads in the sand. We aren't keeping up. We are getting rusty. 

How does this happen? 

• Old Dogs, Old Tricks. We have ideas, perceptions and insights that we gather somewhere along our career path, and we hang on for dear life. We extrapolate. We avoid all potential risk. Maybe 10 years ago, a particular application didn't work for one of our clients. We assume it won't work for all of our clients, and we direct them away from a solution that might save them hours of manual calculations.
• Sunk Costs.  Sometimes the investment of time we have made in mastering last year's great technology prevents us from considering an even better solution when it comes along. We grow tired of investing time in doing the research, and we stop paying attention.
• Busy. Or maybe we just don't get around to it. We have every intention of attending that new product demo, but we just can't find the time.  
• The "S" Word. And just watch us accountants at conferences or trade shows. We avoid exhibitor booths. (See my post about my own fear of Sales.) We fear salespeople and will often avoid entering the line of demarcation represented by the rug around the booth. We treat it like a moat full of alligators, and as a result we miss an opportunity to learn. Whatever the reason, we grow rusty. 

Our clients deserve more. If we want to keep our hard-earned position of trust we have to make an effort: 

1. Skills: We must focus on improving our own emotional intelligence so we can better connect with and serve our clients. Yes, we have to work on our "soft skills." (You know: communication, listening, inquiry... those skills that aren't on your required list of CPE credits.) 

2. Tools: We need to learn about the myriad innovations in technology that support client service in a revolutionary way. We need to learn to embrace cloud solutions**, to gain comfort with outsourced applications, hosted databases, and payment options like Google Wallet and Bitcoin. We need to know about accounting applications like SageOne, Xero, and QuickBooks Online and where they fit. We need to find out if our clients are happy with the applications they use. Where are their challenges? I can guarantee that our clients aren't focused on the Trial Balance or even the Financial Statements.  

3. Services: Why are we avoiding sales tax like the plague? Yes, we review the final return and the liability accounts at the end of the year, but how are we making sure our clients are in compliance? Are we educating them about nexus traps? Reviewing their automated solutions? Informing them of applications like Taxify and ShipCompliant that can take the headache out of sales tax collection, reporting and remittance as well as regulatory compliance?

4. Insights: We have to shift our focus. Our clients want insights, not history lessons. We have to learn how to use tools like LivePlan, Sage View and Fathom to help our clients make sense of the numbers. 

5. Efficiencies: We need to help our clients get things done with less hassle. We owe it to them to be knowledgeable about tools like Expensify and TSheets that take the hassle out of tracking, reporting, and approving entries. How much pain and suffering might we eliminate? And what about our own teams? Are we seeking out data extraction tools like Validis to free our audit teams to spend less time gathering client data and more time analyzing it? 

6. Financing: We need to know about alternate sources of funding that are available to today's businesses. We need to talk about solutions like FundBox and Funding Circle that offer alternatives to bank financing and receivables factoring. 

7. Social Media: Those of us who are doing things differently need to get the word out. Our profession is relevant and passionate. We should use tools like Yes.No, Slideshare, and Periscope, Blab, or Twitch to tell our stories. 

At first it sounds overwhelming. But the vendors have tried to make it easy for us. They offer special accountant programs, free software, discounts for our clients, training and some, like Taxify and QuickBooks Online, even offer a multi-client dashboard that shows us where our clients stand.  And we can share the responsibility. Who's in charge of innovation at your firm? 

Yes, it takes vigilance to keep our reputation from tarnishing. But we accountants have never been afraid of hard work. We are talented and passionate about our role, and we care about our clients. We don't belong in the rust heap. We just have to be willing to roll up our sleeves and apply a little bit of elbow grease. We can get rid of that rust if we really want to. No tetanus shot required. 

Full disclosure: Geni Whitehouse is a speaker at accounting and technology conferences around the country and is a frequent content creator and consultant to software companies. She is paid for these services. She has definite product leanings but always tries to call it as she sees it.

* if you only knew how much it pains me to use that phrase "Trusted Advisor" in print. I think it is overused and tired. But I had a point to make and besides, I wanted to use that cool rusted graphic that I made my artist son create for me. 

** don't tell Greg Kyte  I mentioned the cloud.  People (mainly CPA people) are still resisting it y'all. They're probably the same people who still use those little pull out shelves at the grocery store checkout to write their paper checks.