“The services provided by CPAs have become so broad and diverse that the concept of core services is no longer representative of the profession.” – CPA Horizons 2025 Report
To add more profit, most people (wrongly) assume that you must add more clients. To bring in an additional $80,000 in profit, you may have to bring on an extra ten, twenty or even thirty clients and all the additional hours that come with them. What if, instead of working to add 10-30 new accounts, you expanded your service offerings to the clients who already trust you?
An expanding trend in the U.S. is for accounting firms to offer strategic services and consulting engagements to support the growing demand of their clients. As reported in the Horizons 2025 Report, more and more of your clients expect access to proactive counsel in finding solutions to their concerns. In fact, the lack of such services was the number 2 reason for leaving an accounting firm (right behind a failure of the firm to return phone calls), as cited in the Horizons Report.
In general, these engagements follow a specific sequence:
Discovery is conducted to examine the depth and cause of the issue
Research is done on potential solutions
Providers are identified who scope out and price the engagement
Solutions are presented to the client
The client accepts the scope of the work and signs the engagement agreement
Someone oversees the solutions providers to ensure the engagement is completed on time and on budget
The advantage of such a defined process is that it allows the CPA to control issues that often create stress for the client and interfere with other aspects of financial and tax reporting. Such a process allows the CPA to get paid for what they know and the value they bring rather than how long it takes them to do something. By bringing ownership of the issue in-house, the CPA also reduces the risk of a referral gone wrong, jeopardizing the relationship with the client.
The challenge most firms face is that they do not have the internal capacity to add or promote these services, and they don’t have the expertise to properly define or price such engagements. However, the potential profit is great, and demand is growing rapidly. For these reasons, more firms are electing to enter joint ventures, which allow the CPA to maintain oversight of the project and client relationship while outsourcing most of the actual work. Learn more about how a joint venture could help you break into this market and grow your business.