Transforming Client Accounting Services

Over the last few months, we have spent quite a bit of time speaking with many CPA firms using Intacct and and other web-based applications in their client accounting services practices.

The goal was to understand what they have learned and begin to come up with a model to quantify in dollars and cents terms the financial impact to the practice for firms that have switched to the "cloud accounting" model to collaborate with their clients over the Internet.

I've written here before about the motivation for firms to move to the on-line model. It helps with core concerns that just about all firms have - spending less time on mundane tasks, monetizing intellectual capital, becoming better trusted advisors to clients, delivering better service and more easily aligning labor supply with client demand. Just about everyone I've talked with over the last couple of years finds all of this to be kind of like motherhood and apple pie - the words "no brainer" come up a lot. So taking things to the next step seemed important - starting to quantify the value to firms that have actually made the move.

While we need to do much more work and many more interviews, dig in to more details, build out a deeper model and most importantly document lots of case studies, some of the initial findings regarding the business impact of moving client accounting services on-line are compelling.

For the average, small, client accounting services practice we spoke with - defined as two partners and three bookkeepers, with 100 clients - the value of moving on-line was reported as being close to a 50% upside in financial results. The bulk of the benefits seem to come in four main areas:

• Doubling hours in proactive consultation per client from 8 to 16 per year, because the CPA always has on-line access to the client's current financials and can more easily offer timely and immediately relevant advice
  
• Being able to serve 10 more (10% more) clients with the same staff, by reducing travel time, reducing data management issues and leveraging automation and standardization
• Freeing up 50 hours per bookkeeper per quarter, by reducing the time to fix data errors, reconcile books and travel to the client
• Increasing overall billings by 3% to 5% by offering higher-value, trusted trusted advisor services - which is made possible by reducing the amount of lower value added work

Note that this is clearly not a scientific survey - the findings above are based on self-reported results, the sample set is by definition biased - all the firms we have been speaking with are advocates of the on-line model and were excited about the benefits they have seen. But at least it provides some numbers and axes to look at to compare with what you are seeing in your own practice so you can see if this all feels reasonable to you. Going forward I expect to drive more formal and less biased research to thoroughly document all of this in a much more rigorous way.

If you are reading this and you are from a firm that has made the move to "cloud accounting" for your client accounting services practice, do post a comment to let use know if your experiences match what the above firms have told us they have seen.