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"If you do not know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else," said that great sage Yogi Berra.
Planning is essential in any endeavor, especially in an accounting practice. I wrote about this two weeks ago in this
Neither a business like an accounting practice nor a career grows by accident, haphazardness or chance. Both need determination, resourcefulness, deliberate goals and a plan to achieve those goals.
- Goal: The practice's goal should be to grow, add services, clients and staff. The staff person's goals should be to advance up the ranks, acquire talent and services they could perform, develop specialties, and train and mentor lower-level staff. These goals are not counterproductive but can be attained by joint, though separately directed, efforts.
- Profits: The practice's plan should be to generate added revenues and profits. The staff person's plan should be to earn a higher salary. Neither can be accomplished without providing added value to clients, creating new services to offer clients and growth in their skill levels. The firm's growth will come from the collective growth of its team members. The staff can only grow if they want to make the effort and are creative enough to choose an area that clients need that is not already covered by others in the practice. Firm leaders need to participate in the staff growth by encouraging it, providing support and opportunities. Both need to grow, and that growth will support each other.
- Systems: Procedures and systems need to be established that will make it easy to perform many repetitive processes in a uniform manner by the lowest-level people in the practice. A procedure cannot be retaught every time someone new gets to work on that process. Checklists are a big help. However, firm management must be dedicated to having the systems followed, monitored and improved as necessary, with complete buy-in by the entire management team. Staff members must follow the systems and cannot be permitted to shortcut any steps or become a lone ranger in what they do.
- Training: Firms need to become learning organizations. Training must be deliberate, uniform, relevant and focused. The firm needs to set up the learning curriculum and sessions, set aside the time and make sure staff avail themselves of the opportunities. The staff not only must seek these out within the firm but also outside on their own during nonbusiness hours. The firm should encourage staff to volunteer to teach some sessions, while the staff should grab any such openings for themselves.
- Specialties: The firm should develop niche specialties and build its expertise. The "firm" is not a thing but a configuration of everyone in the organization. Each person needs to contribute with their own efforts gently but firmly coordinated and managed by a practice owner or leader. This goes hand in hand with the section above on profits.
- Client service: Clients do not have to use any specific accounting practice and have many choices. Today's choice or a legacy relationship is not permanent unless there is a high level of continued great service. Meeting due dates and deadlines, promptly returning calls, emails, texts and however else the client chooses to communicate, being available, anticipating problems and client concerns are not just options; they're critical to the maintenance and continuance of the relationship. Everybody in the firm needs to hold themselves accountable for exceptional client service every time and all the time. It is not someone else's job. It is everyone's job.
- Technology: Technology is driving rapid change and affects everything we now do. For effective viability and growth, firms and all their individuals need to embrace the most current technology. Every day this is avoided is another day you will fall behind. Previously it was a gradual process, but that's not so anymore. The acceleration of applications and adoption of technology has made it necessary to grab as much you can as quickly as you can. This means being trained properly. The owners and staff have to approach this as a life-saving measure and its adoption as a triage situation. The critical nature of this will depend on where the practice and each team member places themselves on their life-cycle curve. But it cannot be ignored … unless you are at the stage where you are counting the days until you can just clip coupons and spend your time streaming entertainment programing.
- Administration: Administrative services are not just background activities but client-facing services that are essential to firm function and client value. While admins cannot create deliverables, they make sure they are delivered at the right time in the right manner. Partners and staff need to coordinate with the admin staff, who are professionals just as much as the accountants are in what they do. This partnership can only work if everyone recognizes the collaborative relationship.
- Culture: Every business and individual in that business has a brand and culture. The firm's culture and brand must be supported 24/7/365 in every endeavor or it will not be a positive brand and culture. The culture refers to the people in the practice. The brand refers to how the public sees the practice. But it is much more than that. A low-level staff person running a stop sign creates a negative blot on the firm's brand at that moment to any client, stakeholder or friend of the firm who sees that happening. This is not picayune nonsense but serious stuff. The firm's culture must be recognized, managed and supported by everyone.
- Planning: Planning works. Not planning also works. You can decide which you want. My suggestion is to write out your plan. Regardless of your position, write it out for the entire practice. Be imaginative. Be bold. Be innovative. Put it down and read, review and vet it. Let it percolate for a few days and rereview and vet it. Edit it if necessary and then discuss it with the firm leader. Simultaneously write out your individual plan and goals. Try to do this independently of the practice but then compare the similarities and where there is a divergence. Try to reconcile the two. Then set it aside for a few days and reapproach it. If necessary, use it to make a decision. If it is appropriate and you think it would be productive and helpful, discuss your personal plans with firm management.
Firm leaders and all team members have a stake in the future of the practice, especially as it impacts the future of each person in the practice. The practice and team members need to work in tandem to accomplish the future. The practice and team members have different roles and concerns, but the issues are the same, even though they are looked at with a different lens and lines of sight.
You have a choice to get to where you just happen to end up or to get toward where you want to be.
My Memoirs as a CPA book has been published and is available in Kindle and print editions at amazon.com. Buy it, read it and enjoy it! Do not hesitate to contact me at
