What CAS looks like

July 31, 2023 5:44 PM

Whether you call it client accounting services or client accounting services — or something else entirely — CAS is one of the fastest-growing, most profitable niches in the profession in decades.

It has also varied widely from firm to firm, and as a relatively young niche, its general outlines and best practices are still being codified. To get a sense of the state of CAS today, Accounting Today and the research unit of its parent company, Arizent, conducted a survey of approximately 600 CPA firms in May.

An in-depth report on the results, sponsored by Intuit, is available here: "From Accounting to Advisory: The Evolution of CAS.." Below are some of the key highlights of the survey, which paint a clearer picture of a service that has rapidly become a core offering of the accounting profession.

AT-073123-Firms offering CAS by Firm Size CHART

Just over half of all accounting firms offer some form of CAS, but it is much more common among larger firms, and much less common among the smallest practices.

While experts expect CAS practices to focus more on advisory services in the future, currently the most common elements of CAS bundles are primarily compliance- and transaction-based services.

When CAS first emerged, many firms thought it would be an opportunity to leverage less-occupied staffers outside of busy season, but it's becoming clear that it requires dedicated staff members.

AT-073123-Percent of CPAs in CAS practices CHART

It is also an area that doesn't need to be dominated by CPAs, who make up half or less of the CAS staff at most firms.

Smaller firms are much less likely to focus their CAS practices on industry niches — two-thirds or more of firms under $5 million in revenue are industry-agnostic — but large firms take them very seriously. The most common industries served overall are professional services, real estate, closely held businesses, construction, nonprofits and retail.

AT-073123-Where do you spend your time in CAS

Almost half of time spent on CAS work involves compliance or transaction-based work, with advisory accounting for about a third. The rest of the time is spent on administrative tasks — an area that the firms in our Year Ahead survey said they were aiming to reduce significantly.