The accountancy industry, like every other, is going through a rapid period of change. When I read posts like this, I feel a little despondent.
It gives me that awkward feeling that I get when people ask me what I do at dinner parties or networking events? I stumble between:
- “I’m an accountant”
- “I’m a tax advisor”
- “I work in finance”
- “I’m a tax partner”
- “I’m a creative accountant”….mmmh , perhaps not!
It all feels a little apologetic and understates the value we can provide. I think that as an industry we’re a misunderstood bunch, yet we’ve only really got ourselves to blame.
I believe that there is a common misconception amongst business owners between accounting or bookkeeping on the one hand and business advice on the other. The former relates to data capture and entry (which is important yet mundane) and the latter is what can make entrepreneurs healthier and wealthier.
John O’Nolan makes some great suggestions on how we can embrace the ‘uninterestingness’of many aspects of accounting work and turn it to our advantage – some ideas which are already being embraced by new firms in similar ways – but I believe he misses the mark in relation to business advisory services. Dealing with the bookkeeping aspect first, I believe that we are getting closer to creating a solution with the emergence of cloud based accounting software e.g. Xero and Freeagent, which is intuitive and provides realtime data access.
Yet business advisory services covers the whole gambit of a business lifecycle from initial advice on structuring the business on startup, to raising finance, growing the business and making acquisitions and disposals. It involves treating the business and business owner(s) as one, providing all-round tax and strategic advice. Sometimes its just a shoulder to lean or being a sounding board when an entrepreneur has some tricky seas to navigate and is perhaps feeling a little isolated at the helm of the ship.
But there’s far more as an industry that we can do.
For me the real killer move for accountancy professional service firms will be the shift from a position of information or intellectual property protection to information flow management. We’ve spent decades building huge barricades around our knowledge in professional firms to ensure that we get maximum value on consultancy services yet the waste and cost to our economies of this information not getting into the right hands (in time) must be astronomical. Let’s turn it on its head and set the information free to get to the right people as and when they need it.
Tomorrow’s accountancy firm winners will be those that can get relevant information in the hands of business owners first – business advisory information that gives entrepreneurs that “Aha” moment right when they need it – perhaps John O’Nolan and those of a similar ilk would then change their perception from HA! to LA! (Love Accounting!)?
Moving from a mindset of information or idea protection to idea release will be difficult (perhaps more difficult than identifying the tools available to achieve it) but it is the critical next step in my mind if business advisors are to be able to demonstrate their expertise and relevance in an increasingly noisy market.
Back to my dinner party “what do you do?” question: how about this response?
“I help entrepreneurs turn great ideas into great businesses”
Any takers?
