What's Next For Accounting? - Issue #97
Jason Staats
August 24, 2023
💡 6 Attributes Of An Optimized Firm
It’s easy to get sucked into fleeting bits of advice when core aspects of our firms are fundamentally broken.
So this week on the daily pod I boiled my best advice down to 6 attributes of successful firms that we should all be leaning into, that ought to be prioritized above all else:
Building On The Right Platform
Messy tech stacks stem from not having the right core system in place. If you’re a firm under 100 employees, one of these 17 tools needs to be at the core of your practice.Eliminate AR
Everyone should (1) include a proposed price, or price range up-front with the engagement letter, and (2) at a minimum take payment details up-front.
I want clients agreeing to what they’re paying before we begin work, so money can be pulled, at the latest, upon the completion of the project. It eliminates the entire administrative function of invoicing, and most importantly 95% of the work partners/acct managers spend on billing.Manage Cyclicality
Craft non-negotiables with clients to eliminate high-stakes periods of the year. For accounting practices, relax the required delivery timeframes, or develop a profitable ancillary function your team can do in the latter half of the month. I explored some additional ideas around cyclicality here.Make A Specific Offer To A Specific Person
Generic landing pages are table stakes these days - instead command 2-10x the rates for the same work, by framing it for a more specific individual. I ran through my new favorite offer framework here.Automated Client Requests
The single greatest source of wasted effort in accounting firms today: human-led requests & follow-ups. Upwards of 1/3 of professionals’ time can be wasted on this function. Here’s an overview of my best practices.Diversified Fulfillment
90% of firms are 100% reliant upon traditional hiring to get the work done. The result is exposure to staff exits, and even worse, the business falls apart if something happens to you. We explored how to overcome this in this daily pod.
What did I miss? Anything you’d prioritize over the above? Hit reply and let me know.
💎 This Week's Sponsor
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📅 This Week
Zoom launched Clips - an asynchronous video tool. Zoom’s user experience is still super rough, but I’m glad to see this and love async video
I shared four easy ways to impress clients with AI
NATP recently released their annual tax pro fee study
“Verify your financial statement accuracy with one click” Equility now a $15 lifetime buy on AppSumo
Somebody redesigned Reddit to look like Outlook so you can safely browse at work
Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel
A roundup of all the ways AI is about to make email better
An AI chat assistant that connects to your Notion, Google Workspace, Hubspot, Zendesk and Asana
Meta’s Twitter clone Threads is now rolling out for desktop, was previously mobile-only
I previously shared ChatThing as a way to create chatbots around specific expertise - Pickaxe looks like a more modular, customizable way to build novel chat experiences
I’m at Xerocon today - please say hello if you’re here!
Next week I’m at Bridging the Gap in Chicago - you can still sign up, if you’re local come & hang
This week Salesforce shared more about Einstein GPT - their Copilot-style chat assistant embedded in their products
😍 From The Community
My private peer networking community Realize for firm leaders, now capped at 500 members. We’ll be permanently raising the price for new members in a couple weeks.
08/24 🥸 Role Play - Match Made in Heaven with Nayo Carter-Gray
09/05 💘 Swiping Right - Disengagements - Graceful Endings with Kellie Parks
09/07 💻 Demo Day - QuickFee with Jason Staats
09/22 💻 Demo Day - Instead with Jason Staats
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ 340/500 members