Workshop: Map a CAS Plan for your Practice

Transcription:

Marianne Fisher (00:08):

Welcome everyone. Got to love 8:00 AM sessions right, especially for us that come from the east coast. A little rough, right? Well, welcome. We're really excited about the workshop that we have planned for today. It's a great group. We are going to do some round table discussions. First, we're going to kick off a little bit of topic and conversation. Again, this is how to take a cast practice to the next level. I have to put my legal up for my Avalara team. So just anything we do talk about understand that can change. I'm Marianne. I oversee our accountant program from strategy and operations. So I know my title says, actually it was Change whoever changed it. Thank you. Three weeks ago my title changed, so we just did a quick change of slides. So I am the senior accounting operations and strategy leader at Avalara. I've been working with the profession for about 16 years, 17 years almost.

(01:03):

I have two major passions. One is sales tax, obviously I work at Avalara. Second is client accounting services. As we know, client accounting services is a huge area of growth within the profession and being able to tie those two together is really important. And we're going to talk about and use sales tax today as an example for services of how we can build out that. And we're going to do some roadmap strategy stuff later in the day or in the afternoon or session. But so with that at I did before I was at Avalara, I worked at cpt com, built a two day session. It's a roadmap session on how to build out sales tax services. It was a really exciting two day workshop where we're kind of taking a little bit of what I did there. So my goal after the hour is for you guys to really walk away with kind of a mini business plan using sales tax as an example, but really wrapping it into any type of services that you want to pull into your client accounting services.

(02:04):

So our agenda is cast service expansion. We're going to talk about the different services, dive into sales tax, using that as our example today, why it's a good fit for a CAS practice. And then the workshop part is really delivering those robust sales tax services. Using that as an example to kind of build out what is our go-to market strategy, how are we going to build out those services? How are we going to price those services? How are we then market those services to both new and existing clients? And then we can end with a Q&A. I will tell you, let's leave this open discussion. Feel free to interrupt me if you have questions, whatever that may be. So let's dive into sales tax. So before we do that, raise of hands, how many of you have a client accounting services practice right now within the firm?

(02:52):

Excellent. Great, great. How many of you are evaluating or looking into adding client accounting services? Excellent, excellent. So I hope all of you'll be able to walk away no matter where you're at in your journey with client accounting services, with some new ideas around service expansion. So client advisory services, what do we know? It's disrupting the status quo. We're no longer doing bookkeeping just for tax work. Client accounting services is taking advisory to the next level. We're taking what we're doing from the transactional and being able to deliver a high value advisory level to our client, taking that data and delivering them analysis, data analysis and whatnot. So it's no longer just for a tax return term.

(03:37):

Oh, my slide didn't show up. Why are we seeing this growth? We're seeing growth for three reasons, the power of the data. So I'm sorry that this slide did not show up on here, but there's three reasons that we're seeing growth on here in client accounting services, power of the data. You guys have more data today through technology and through the analysis of that technology and use of that technology and the way you can set it up to see the data and use that data in ways to deliver high value analysis to clients, client demand clients are demanding a certain level or a certain expertise when we're looking at the power of the data, what type of services they want and they're asking for more and more. And then the third piece is the tech stack. The technology that we have today and the ability to build out a robust tech stack allows you to be more efficient, allows you to analyze the data quicker and allows you to get to that data quicker.

(04:35):

It also allows you because of that tech stack to be able to continue to build new services and add new services into your client accounting. So what is the evolution of client accounting services is? So what I've done here is I've really built out what we call our established services and emerging services. So many Can we close the Thank you so much. Sorry. So for many client accounting services, where we started really is our established services. These are services that we've been talking about for quite a long time. When we talk about client accounting services, you've got your accounting, your payroll, your bill payment, expense management, traditional tax services like your 10 90 nines and then any vertical add-ons. So we talk a lot about verticals with client accounting services, what are the different verticals or the different areas that you are penetrating the market with your clients.

(05:38):

And then what we're seeing now is what we call these emerging services and the emerging services is where we're seeing that growth happen. We're seeing additional HR reporting coming into play. Again, power of the tech stack. There's a lot of technology partners that you're going to see here at this conference as well as other conferences that are able to expand and help you expand these services. Budgeting and forecasting, huge conversations right now in client advisory services happening around this and then financial planning. And then the one today that we're going to focus on is sales tax compliance raise of hand. For those of you who have an established cast practice from earlier, how many of you are providing sales tax compliance, sales tax returns, prep as part of that offering? Excellent, excellent.

(06:30):

How many of you are using technology to do that? Raise a hand. One. Anybody else using technology to do sales tax compliance? Awesome. So I think we're going to talk a little bit about the role that the tech stack plays today in that as part of the business model. But the other piece of this that's really important is when we look at the technology, how does the technology then play into these other services that you're offering in your CAS practice? So when we look at salt, the sales tax returns is the power of the data. We're going to talk about the power of the data, but is there integration within your tech stack and other areas that is able to provide or let you quickly add on that service? And that's what we're going to talk through. The other thing I just wanted to mention when we look at this is not every CAS practice has the same services.

(07:23):

So just because we say, Hey, these are established services, I could ask you guys how many of you're doing bill pay and there's going to be raise of hand. How many are doing bill pay? How many of you're doing 10 90 nines? So if you notice not everybody's offering the same services in their CAS practice. And that again is dependent on where you are on your journey and creating your CAS practice and what are the services that are most in demand for your client base that you're working with. And so I wanted to point this out too is, and I always say what's in your bundle? And I use these two surveys as a great example to show that not every CAS practice is alike. This survey on the left is accounting today, survey from 2022 and then the survey on the right is the CAS benchmark survey from CPT com and AICPA 2022.

(08:13):

So same timeframe, but if you notice I highlighted the ones in blue because that's where the overlap is in those surveys. And I highlight sales tax compliance because on the right you have 56% of CAS practices are sales tax compliance and you have 85% on the CAS best CAS benchmark survey offering sales tax compliance. But if you notice, not every single one is the same. One has 10 99 on it, the other doesn't. You've got monthly close whatnot consulting on there. So it's just every practice is different, every practice is set up different and that's okay. There is no right answer when we start building out client accounting or what client accounting looks like. I want to go back to the question of how many of you are doing sales tax returns as part of your compliance practice, part of your CAS practice? I'm going to challenge you because often when I talk to CAS practice leaders, I will ask that question and I get a very low raise of hand.

(09:12):

And then I also come back with, let's go back and ask your preparers how many of them are doing sales tax compliance? You might be surprised they're doing it as a one-off because the clients are often asking for it and they're like, well, we have the data, we'll just do it. And so what we're seeing is this trend around how do we provide, how do we standardize that service? And that's a lot of what CAS is about. Oftentimes clients are telling you, and kind of going back to this, you're doing all of these services for me, you're doing payroll, you're doing expense management, you're doing everything else. You're doing my monthly close, you're doing my bookkeeping, you have all of that data there. Can you just do the sales tax return for me? And oftentimes it's happening and it's just not standardized. There's no pricing around it, there's no go-to market efforts around it.

(10:01):

There's no external or internal marketing to clients around it. There's no technology put in place. So how do we put that all in place? And that's what we're going to kind of workshop out today in this session. So why is sales tax a good fit? And again, I'm using this kind of as our service benchmark for the conversation today, but really we can talk about all different types of services when we look at building out the service plan, but it all starts with the transaction. You guys have availability and visibility to the data every single day in your CAS practice you have so much data at your fingertips and because you have that data, it makes it make sense. So it's an easy add-on when looked at as how do we do it? How do we use the technology? So what are the five steps to managing sales tax end to end?

(10:51):

It really starts with understanding where your clients businesses are, where they must collect and where they must remit sales tax. So helping them understand in a certain jurisdiction you're in a certain state, you now need to collect and remit sales tax. Then registering it if they're not registered in the jurisdiction, helping them to get registered in that calculate, calculate the right sales tax on the transaction. So as the transactions happening in real time, that calculation, I always use Starbucks as an example because I love my coffee. It's 8:00 AM we're still waking up when we go to Starbucks and we go through that, that sales tax is calculated on that transaction the minute we swipe our credit card, we with Starbucks we want in real time, but we want to make sure that the calculation is the accurate calculation. So that from compliance perspective, that's right.

(11:48):

So helping your clients understand what is it that they're calculating and are they using the right rates, tracking any exemption managements, and then lastly, remitting sales tax to the tax authority. So what they collected, we then need to remit that to the taxing jurisdiction. So where does it fit in cas? When you look at the calculate in the track piece of it, that's real time happening in your client setup. So as your clients are getting set up in their point of sale system in their ERP system, they're looking at those transactions, they're looking at the calculation around those transactions and they're making sure that is set up correct along with exemption certificates. I don't see in CAS a lot of practices doing this. Oftentimes they'll lean on somebody if you have lucky enough to have internal expertise there or you'll look to a technology partner to help with that and create that automation.

(12:43):

Where sales tax fits in CAS is in this remit. It's taking the data that your client's collecting and it's remitting that return. That's where it fits in CAS practice. And why is that? Again, I always go back to this, it's the most important part. It's the power of the data compliance is repetitive, monthly, quarterly, and annual. That is one of the key pieces of any CAS service. Is it repetitive monthly revenue? Is it a repetitive monthly service that you're doing? That's what's important. We look at cas. So when you're looking at compliance, those returns need to go every single month. That's work that's being done every single month in the same way that any other type of CAS services may be done. The service is scalable. It can be applied to many clients and many different types of businesses. It's not just one niche, right? Pretty much any client that's selling something, they have sales tax, they have some type of sales tax obligation, and then it can be incorporated to a flat fee or subscription fee based pricing model. How many of you that are doing sales tax compliance today can say it's a profitable service for you one. Yay.

(14:02):

I love it. Great. And oftentimes when I hear that and I see that and it's not very many hand raisers, I'm like, oh man, but it can be profitable. How do we do it? It is volume based. So it does depend how many returns you're doing. If you're doing five or six returns, yeah, you're probably not going to see a lot of profitability there. But if you're able to build volume and really talk to your clients about the importance of the compliance that you guys can take that on. Compliance doesn't, sales tax compliance doesn't make them money per se every day. They have to hire the resources do it, but it can lose a lot of money. If you go through an ugly audit, it can hit them bad and that's where you can say, Hey, I'm doing everything else for you. Let me take that on.

(14:46):

Here's how I do it. And the recommendation I look at when I look at pricing is a fixed return price. On average, firms are charging anywhere on the low end, around 60 to $65 per return on the upper end, anywhere from $200 a return. I would say right in the middle is about a hundred. So if you're getting about a hundred dollars a return and you've got volume and you're using technology and efficiency, that's where you can start creating your engine, your muscle, and you're able to build out what those returns would look like for your clients and then roll that into your other subscription paste pricing. So for instance, in a CAS practice, I'm going to use just basic numbers. Let's say you're offering bookkeeping, bill pay, expense management, whatnot, and you are charging $1,500 a month. Again, just rolling out everybody's different. Everybody's price is different, 1500 a month. Then you add on their returns, their sales tax returns at a hundred dollars a month, or I'm sorry, a hundred dollars return, five returns a month, you're at 500 a month. So that's where you can build that into your 1500 plus your 500. There's your subscription model. So you're still making money on those returns and you're rolling it into that monthly fee. You're getting paid on those returns. Questions on that? Thoughts on that? Makes sense.

(16:12):

It's quiet. None of this can be done without technology. So I use this analogy a lot. I'm from the Detroit area. What is Detroit known for besides the lions and kid rock or the automotive capital, right? So when I look at this, I look back and I'm like, what did Detroit? What made Detroit? It was the assembly line and it happened back in the day. It was a pivotal invention that changed the industrial revolution and how we make cars today. And what did that change result in? It resulted in innovation, standardization, efficiency, profitability and time savings.

(16:53):

Interesting. That's what we all talk about at every single conference we go to, right? Conversation hasn't changed, but instead of talking about the assembly line and the way that we did back in the day, we're talking about it with technology. We're putting technology in place so that we're creating our own internal assembly line that standardizes our processes, creates efficiency, saves us in time savings, all of those things that changed back then we're using today. We're using the same words and the same ability to do it through technology. So what does the sales tax assembly line look like for a CAS practice? This is what it looks like today. You have your calendar set up, so that's when you're initially setting up. And this is using technology. So this is the technology assembly line. Every new client that you put on any type of technology, whether it be Avalara, whether it be a different tax technology, you have to set that client up in the technology.

(17:45):

This is the one time setup. So this is not the reoccurring monthly. This is setting them up, telling them what returns you're processing for them, what returns you're filing, setting up the bank information, all that stuff. So think of kind out the calendar setup. That's one time, one and done client setup. Then you get to data import, data adjustments and approving those liabilities. So for the data import, how do we get the data that we're collecting, the sales tax data that we're collecting out of the ERP system or the point of sale system into the return system, into the return technology. And there's many different ways you can do that. Technology partners will have extractors that they can pull the data from. Depending on the system, you can actually manipulate that data as it's coming through. There's different spreadsheets, whatnot. There's all types of things that technology vendors and partners will put in place so that you can easily get those, that data in there.

(18:47):

If you're using the calculation engine for transaction tax. So I'm going to use the example of Avalara. If your client's on Avalara and Avalara is calculating that tax, the data's going to flow right into your return system in seconds. And there's no manipul manipulation you have to do with that because that's the data's coming directly from Avalara. Avalara is filing that return. So right there, the efficiencies that you're seeing are tremendous. Any data adjustments you have to do, any manipulation, you review those, make those approve the liabilities. And then from there your return prep, your file and pay and your notice management. And I'm sorry that the wording here is a little, I don't know what happened with my PowerPoints, but take the last three return prep file and pay and notice management. Your technology partner is doing that. You guys don't need to prep the return, you don't need to do the file and pay and you don't need to do the notice management.

(19:49):

So what we've taken from six steps from data import to notice management, you have six steps. You have to do repetitively every single month for every single return that you're doing for your clients. I've now taken that down to three because your technology vendor, your technology partner is going to do everything in orange for you. So now we go back to data import and I mentioned if you're using the calculation system of the technology partner that you're using that data import now within seconds because you're using the same platform is done. So now take it down to two steps. So every month you have a six step process you have to do for every return and every client, we now are down to two steps. Look at that data, make any adjustments or manipulation to the data, approve it. Once approved, your technology vendor goes and does the rest.

(20:38):

So what is now a six step process is a two step process if you're using the technology partner all the way through. If not, you're still at three steps. So if your client's calculating, using their own system calculation system or whatnot, there's still ways to get the data into the system. So you're still at three steps and this is how you create the reoccurring work every single month. This is how you standardize it, this is how you create time savings, this is how you create efficiency because the power of the technology is doing that for you. Questions on this? Thoughts? Yes.

Audience Member 1 (21:15):

I feel like this takes out the easy part of the process. It's 10 99. That's the easy part. Preparing the horn that the data adjustment and the actual technical acumen that we're all finding hard to find still required here. So I guess how would you respond to that?

Marianne Fisher (21:36):

This is a great topic. I'm glad you brought it. I appreciate that question. So there is technical acumen that you need with sales tax, right? But I want to think about whether your client is using the right rate or in the right jurisdiction or registered in the right jurisdiction. At the end of the day, they are collecting sales tax. They have to report what they collected. So if your client is collecting and reporting sales tax, they have to report that. So take that, even if it's wrong, even if it's the wrong rate, if they collected a hundred dollars, they have to report and file that a hundred dollars. That's where you as a CAS team can come in. Then you can use resources for acumen. So if we need to go back and say, alright, let's evaluate, are we using the right rate?

(22:26):

Let's go back and evaluate. Do we need to do a Nexus study to figure out are you guys, is there exposure anywhere? Because you might be doing business in California, but we're not registered in California, we're not collecting in California. So from a CAS practice alone, it goes back to the power of the data. If they're collecting sales tax, they have to file sales tax, they have to report it. If we want to go back into are we doing the next level of CAS, which is advisory, the advisory piece of it of do you need the Nexus study? Do we need to go back and really evaluate what are the rates you're using, whatnot. So think of the transactional, if you're collecting, I have to report, that's this. And then the advisory is getting into the nitty gritty of are we doing this right? Are we using the right rates and technology can't even help with the right rates. Figuring out Nexus, doing nexus studies or in a community like you guys have here, I'm sure there's experts everywhere, whether they're in your firm or within communities like these that you can kind of turn to and partner with. Yes,.

Audience Member 1 (23:32):

Just a little follow up. So I think the one concern is when we start to process now we're absorbing risk. Even if we're not doing, even if we're still just saying we're the middle man, that's advisory, we're not going to call that compliant. And I think that makes us in the accounting profession nervous.

Marianne Fisher (23:51):

Yeah, no, a hundred percent.

Audience Member 1 (23:54):

And so how can we do this really well and efficient but not observe the risks that comes along with it if we're not going to layer in that higher level service to keep the pricing at a place or ease?

Marianne Fisher (24:06):

Yep. Great question. So risk. Risk is a huge concern for pretty much every single practice I talk to across the board. A hundred percent. I agree with you. How do we combat risk? It comes down to engagement. Letter rules and responsibilities. Make sure you're very clear in your engagement letter about what service you're providing and what service you're not providing. Meaning if you are literally taking what's collected and filing what's collected, and that's all you're doing in that engagement letter, that the firm responsibility is to take the sales tax collected and file the sales tax collected. The firm is not doing an exit study. The firm is not going through and doing a technology evaluation very clearly define what you're doing and what you're not doing. Same with client responsibility. It is the client's responsibility to get the data to you by X, Y, z.

(24:57):

These are all really important steps in the engagement letter because that's where you can help mitigate your own risk because you're communicating what you're doing, what you're not doing. It also provides a huge opportunity for upsell. So I've worked with a lot of CAS practices who do have a sales tax, sales tax expertise in the firm, a sales tax practice, an indirect tax practice, and the CAS and the sales tax practice work together to be able to kind of figure out like, okay, the sales tax guys don't want to quote just do the returns. They want that advisory. So how do we work together to say, okay, we're going to do the returns in CAS because it makes sense. We have the volume, we're in front of the client, we see the data every single day. You guys know your data better than anybody. But then when it comes to the questions around Nexus, when it comes to registrations, when it comes to any of those things, kind of funnel it back. So within the firm and using that expertise, does that help? Does that make sense? I mean I know it's a little bit more complicated that, but all I can tell you is your engagement letters are everything when it comes to, and it's every service. It's not just sales tax, right? Really defining what those look like.

Audience Member 2 (26:08):

But isn't Avalara also helping with the notice management scenario where they get audited or notices.

Marianne Fisher (26:16):

Yep, I saw a hand back in the back.

Audience Member 3 (26:21):

What does the relationship look like from the perspective of changing regulations? Is that something that's on your side or the provider?

Marianne Fisher (26:29):

So it depends on what type of technology you're using with your technology partner. So for instance, if you are using the transaction text calculation engine where in real time you're looking for rates and all that, and you're at Starbucks, you bought a coffee, it's adding that sales tax's right on there, that calculation engine, the vendor is keeping up with all of those rates. So those rates are happening in real time as rates happen. On average, there's about 600 to 900 rate changes per year across the United States and across all jurisdictions. That's hard to keep up with manually for anybody, whether you're CPA, whether you're a client, whoever that is, right? So that's the power of the technology on that for the returns. Also, everything is kept up to date through the vendor. So that's again one of the reasons why using a technology vendor and a partner with the technology helps you keep up to that versus doing it manually and keeping up with any of those rate changes.

Audience Member 3 (27:27):

The perspective of changing rules related to what's exempt, what's not.

Marianne Fisher (27:30):

Yes, that's all managed. Some of it your exemption certificates, you're working with your client and you're managing them, keeping that. But other than that, if it's a product exemption, anything like that, then your technology vendor will be keeping that up. Any other questions? So here, just kind of highlighting again the different steps and where that step comes into play taking, excuse me, six steps down to three, what does this do? It provides comprehensive compliance. Our processes are designed to deliver consistent reoccurring services. Every month you do this, it's going to get easier and easier because you're pulling the data, your client's data, you're seeing that data so that even the data adjustment and manipulation every month is getting easier to do that. And then transfer, filing liability. So we talked about risk mitigation just a minute ago, and I think this is really important. What if we miss a filing date that has implications to it, right?

(28:39):

That's not great. We're transferring that risk of you guys missing a date to now the vendor. Because here I am using Avalara as an example. Avalara, we now have the risk of making sure that return is filed and that money movement is done on time. That risk is no longer your risk. It's our risk. So that helps with this process in those last three steps around filing. I've talked to a few CAAs partners who they're literally, when I tell them what two services kind of keep them up at night. It's payroll and sales tax because there are so many implications when you miss a deadline or miss a date, right?

(29:20):

All right, so now we're going to dive into the workshop part of it and it's going to be discussion based. So I know we talked a lot about sales tax and I use sales tax today as an example of how to expand in your CAS practice. If you already have one to a new service offering, we can use this with any service offering. When we look at it, how do we put the services together? How do we build it? How do we go to market with it? What does the service look like? What are the responsibilities that we need to communicate to our clients around what we're doing through engagement letters? So we're just going to kind of have some breakout sessions here going through the different ways of building service lines within your CAS practice. You can use the same example I did with sales tax.

(30:02):

You can take a different service like payroll within your group, whatever it may be. But my idea here in the document that we have, and I don't, Nancy, can you do me a favor and hold up the document please? The workshop? Yep. So that workshop, if you don't mind, I'm steal this for a second. This one right here. Does everybody have one? So the idea of this is to go home with kind of a mini business plan. So think of a service, talk through a service, and then in your groups kind of make some notes of what are some things you want to think about as you're building out a service line, whether it be salt service line, whether it be payroll, whatnot, in all of these different areas. So first we're going to start off with services. So for the mini business plan in your round table, kind of determine what is the service and then how are we clearly communicating that service.

(30:53):

So one of the examples we can think of is what I just talked about with sales tax. You don't want to just blanket say I'm doing sales tax because then you can cause confusion. What is it that you're doing? We're only filing returns, we're not doing nexus studies. So basically pick your service line, clearly identify what that is, and then how would you communicate? What are the things that you would do as you're kind of thinking through your marketing plan and putting your business plan together, that would help you define what that service looks like so that you can clearly communicate that whether both internal or external to partners and whatnot and clients. So each table, we're going to do about five minutes, and then I'm going to do call some people out at the end and we're going to put together some notes so you guys can go home with a mini little business plan questions. Does it make sense? Cool. All right. So five minutes kind determine what is the service and then how are we communicating that services to your clients? What are some key takeaways to do? So you can also spin this a little bit in terms of convincing a partner to add a new service line.

(32:48):

Is it going okay? All right, I'm going to pull us back together. All right, let's talk through services. All right, I am going to keep us going. We have till. Can you hear me? Okay? All right, we're going to pull us back together. Okay? We're going to do I know. Are you trying to get him? Just went out. There we go. All right, I'm going to pull everybody back. All right. Right. So let's talk through services. So when we look at adding a new service, what are some key notes that you guys discussed in your round group? Round table? Anybody? I can't go table to table. I don't have time, but does anybody have any?

(35:52):

Anybody have any? Whoop. Thank you. Thank you. My mic is not loud enough. So I thought we had till the top of the hour. We don't. And I want to make sure you guys get to your next session. So I got to kind of speed along a little bit of these breakouts, but anybody have any ideas or key ideas that you guys want to share with the group when you're looking at services? Thinking about adding on new services and determining how you want. Any thoughts, any ideas? Evaluating new services? Oh, I'm sorry, I not your hand. These lights are bright. Go ahead.

Audience Member 1 (36:25):

Doing the Nexus study ourselves and determining what states, what cities, all of that. And sales tax.

Marianne Fisher (36:40):

So really determining what is that service that you're building out or you're giving. Are you doing the Nexus study? Are you not leaning on that or are you leaning on somebody else in the firm to do that? And kind of communicating what that service is going to look like. Great. Excellent. Any other thoughts? All right. So the next piece kind of building the service line is the technology. So we're going to have, again, I apologize, I thought we had full hour. We don't. So I'm going to kind of go through this a little bit as a group. But when we look at technology, what are some key things that we are part of the evaluation process that are important in the evaluation process that are important in the implementation and the establishing those processes and standardization? So I'm going to give you guys a quick two, three minutes as a group to kind of talk through what is the importance of the technology evaluation look like in your firm, and how do you guys, when you're looking at a new service, what does that technology evaluation look like? Two or three minutes. And then we're going to pull the group back together quickly,

(39:01):

Quick, we're going to pull back group back together. Any ideas? Anyone want to share anything on technology evaluation? We're pulling the group back together. Anybody want to share anything on importance of technology evaluation? Mike Whistle. Thank you. All right. Technology evaluation. Anybody have anything they want to share? What's important when you're evaluating technology, starting a new service line? Anybody have any thoughts? Yes.

Audience Member 4 (39:35):

Your use actually going to do what you want.

Marianne Fisher (39:38):

Yes, functionality. So the functionality of the software is really important. I would add to that, and I think this is a key thing you'll want to write down is does the software integrate into the tech stack and everything else you guys are using within the CAS practice? I saw your hand up. I'm sorry.

Audience Member 4 (39:57):

Forecasting.

Marianne Fisher (39:59):

I'm sorry. Say that. Forecasting. Forecasting. So how do you use that software to build that? Absolutely. All right. Next one. I know we're flying through these quickly. Staffing. When we look at a new service offering, what do we have to think about with staffing? And for sake of time, I'm going to kind of go through this a little bit quicker. Education. I love it. So when we look at staffing, what education does the staff member have? Do they need to be a CPA? I'm just throwing it out there. What do you guys think? No, I love it. Okay. What type of role do they play? Can you have somebody that comes in that's maybe has never, and again, we're using sales tax as an example. They have not done sales tax per se, but they're eager. They're willing to learn and they want to dive in.

(40:43):

Say what? Good attitude. Hiring. Yes. Good attitude. Absolutely. Any other ideas on staffing? Outsourcing. Outsourcing. Love it. Yep. I also say when I look at staffing, especially in CAS because of the role the tech stack plays, how quickly and how adaptive can that individual be to new technology, helping to evaluate new technology and implementing that technology into the play. So I think that's a big piece of it. Any other thoughts real quick before we move on? They need to be critical thinkers. Critical thinkers. I love it. Absolutely. All right. Our go to market. So the go to market includes client onboarding, engagement letters. We talked a little bit about some of the engagement letters, pricing and the management of scope creep. So again, this goes back to what is the service offering? How are we going to price it out? I gave you some ideas on pricing for sales tax and rolling that into your flat fee, fixed subscription based pricing model.

(41:46):

Engagement letters clearly define roles and responsibility. Another thing I will add with engagement letters is technology partners as a whole require the data by the 10th of the month. That is not an Avalara rule. That is as a whole, that's technology partners. So how do we clearly articulate the client's responsibility to get the data to us by the 10th of the month through your engagement letter? It's their responsibility to have that there. So that's one of the pieces is making sure that your client knows what they're responsible for as part of the service, and then what the firm is doing and what they're responsible for. The firm is then responsible for taking that data, filing the return by the due date. Right?

(42:27):

Pricing. We talked about management of scope creep. I think this goes back to what we were kind of talking about earlier. Are you doing nexus studies? Are you not? Are there certain jurisdictions? And a great example of scope creep with a Nexus study is you can say, I'm going to do five states. If you say I'm going to do five states and they're in Colorado, you've now could potentially open yourself up to a lot of jurisdictions in Colorado. So making sure that you're communicating, we're doing five jurisdictions, anything past those five jurisdictions would be another five, whatnot. So just making sure that you're managing that scope creep. Any other things throw out on go to market? And then lastly, marketing. So we talked a little bit about cross-sell, new sell website. Do most of you put all your services for your CAS on your website? What do you guys, what's best practice? Yeah.

Audience Member 1 (43:34):

I do a lot of Google ads too.

Marianne Fisher (43:35):

Oh, I like it. Google ads. Yeah. Any other ideas on marketing collaboration internally within the firm? Like communicating, Hey, we're adding on a new service. This is what we're doing. How are you guys doing that? Collaboration. Yeah.

Audience Member 1 (43:54):

Collaborating with other partners, like things like that.

Marianne Fisher (44:02):

I love it. So the collaboration with others and the partner attorneys, bankers, whatnot, kind of communicating that you've added on a new service and that you're providing this. Any other thoughts? Yes.

Audience Member 5 (44:13):

You make from his newsletter too?

Marianne Fisher (44:15):

Newsletter. Newsletter, yes. Great. I love it. Client newsletters, anything like that? Great idea in terms of getting that service offering out there.

(44:27):

So these are really the main five items you think through. And one thing to point out your go to market is how do we go to market? How do we get the service out there? The marketing is ongoing. So the marketing is constant communication and oftentimes it can be from clients within the firm making. I love the idea of the newsletter. How do you get clients that you're currently in the firm working with, communicating to them that we have a new service offering. Here's what that looks like. So tips and tricks for success. Bring up sales tax with every client. I always say that if this is the new service offering and your CAS practice and you kind of like what we've put together here, bring it up with every client. Every client pretty much is impacted by sales techs in some way. Say yes to the work.

(45:17):

Leverage technology to do it. Even if you don't have the service fully baked today, if you have a client that needs help, you can refer a client over to a technology partner. They will help you. We have expertise here at Avalara to help you guys. So your disservice doesn't have to be fully baked, but you don't want to right now say no to a client, right? When we say yes, and we can leverage that technology to do so. Set expectations with your clients regarding the services you're providing and those you're not providing. Go back to we're just filing your returns. We're taking the data you're collecting, we're filing it. We're not doing an Nexus study, we're not analyzing your data, we're not analyzing your rates, we're just doing this. Making sure you're clearly defining what is it that you're doing and what services managed scope creep, defined firm and client responsibilities bill for your service.

(46:05):

Sales tax is valuable and I love that you raised your hand, said you're getting profitability on it. Love it. Love it. Great example. We can make money on it. Don't give it away for free. I've talked to too many people that are like, oh yeah, we're just doing it. Please don't give it away for free. There's valuable work in that and that you don't have to be a tax expert because you can leverage the tax experts around you, whether that be internally at your firm, whether that be through a technology partner, whether that be through an association, organization, conferences like you're at today. There's a lot of people that can help with your clients and anything like that. So lastly, I just wanted, I don't want to do a sales pitch. That's not me. But I also don't want you to walk away and think, Hey, how does Avalara help me?

(46:49):

So we're here all week. We do have a brand new partner accountant partners program that we've put together, just launched earlier this year in Q1. We're really excited about it. It helps you drive growth and profitability by helping you build out these services. Just like we've done today. Makes it easier to do business with Avalara because we have an accountant channel and then Craig create peace of mind. So how do we support you? We support you in three ways. I call it the OG, the refer. We've been doing it forever. If you want to be more hands off or you just want your clients to work directly with us, you can refer your clients over to us. You'll get incentives back for doing so. Implement if you do have a technology team that you guys want to actually implement the software on behalf of your clients, we do offer certified implementation for accounting partners so that they can take on those implementations and create a profit center around implementations in the firm.

(47:48):

And then lastly, we have tools. And these tools are designed specifically for the firm. You guys license these tools and you provide the services on behalf of your clients. So think of a trend of a true outsource type model where you guys are using the technology internally and delivering the services and creating profitability through that. So those are the three ways we support you as you support your clients. And then we have technology designed specifically for client accounting. I'll throw that up there. And with that, I want to give everybody 10 minutes for coffee refills, bathroom breaks before the kickoff. So I hope you found this helpful. I'm here all week. Feel free to stop by if we want to dig in any further. Thank you.