The Financial Automation Imperative research was conducted in November and December 2019 and will be released in January 2020. The report is based on online survey answers from 459finance and accounting professionals in the United States. It discovered, first and foremost:
- Cash flow automation systems (Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable) have the most significant adoption rates, with 49 and 47 percent, respectively.
- When it comes to acquiring financial automation technology, integrating with other systems is recognized as the most crucial decision factor.
- The top automation priorities are reporting/forecasting and account receivable, with 45 percent and 44 percent of respondents rating those areas as a high or very high priority, respectively.
Invoices,Payroll services,inventory management, and an accounts receivable financial automation platform, released new data this week on where the accounting and finance profession embraces financial automation technologies. Based on the findings, below are a few pieces of advice for Professional Bookkeepers and CPAs.
CPAs will be able to provide more strategic consulting services to clients.
Clients will want their CPAs to devote part of their time to provide a more strategic and consultative level of service since they realize that automation may offload mundane work and theoretically cut billable hours. Of course, the option is to charge less for the same job.
Example
By looking at how the travel agency business has been influenced by digitalization, one may get a sense of how the function of the public accountant will likely alter. Travel agents (those that remain) deliver more customized service, quicker service, and using the freshly recovered capacity to serve more customers in better ways.
So, how should the core character of being a CPA evolve?
The most effective CPAs will push themselves to spend less time on basic accounting and data entry and more time on data analysis and creating more operational suggestions for their customers.
CPAs will face more pressure to become tech “Choreographers.”
Every CPA has offered advice or direct implementation and management help accounting technology on behalf of a client at some point. According to a recent study, the capacity to interface with other systems is the most critical factor to consider (51 percent) when using financial automation technologies.
Synchronized system
Businesses want systems to be closely synced today more than ever, minimizing data input effort/error and allowing one hand of the company to know what the other hand is doing. As different systems become essential components of client engagements, CPAs will be required to coordinate how they all operate to offer outcomes, insights, and efficiency to clients.
You may be wondering, “Wait, I’m expected to become a CTO overnight?” No, not always. While many technologies have gotten more complex and powerful, software suppliers are increasingly investing in user experience to make their products more intuitive, making them easier to use for businesses and easier to support the software provider.
Cloud-Based Technologies
Many of the most recent cloud technologies now allow you to immediately join up for a free trial account and connect to other systems with a few clicks. It implies that inventive CPAs may test and learn with very little direct expense, and they don’t have to wait for a customer with an urgent need. The most forward-thinking CPAs are already getting their hands dirty in this manner.
CPAs’ difficulties and opportunities are intimately connected.
These top takeaways may imply nothing but the difficulty and additional work for CPAs taking a step back. Make more out of trim. It would be best if you only were not my CFO but also my CTO. And you may charge me less for it. However, there are some significant possibilities embedded in these changing customer expectations:
Distinction:
If you acquire the capacity to guide your clients through the inevitable digital transition, you will have a strong point of differentiation among your colleagues and rivals. Acquiring the knowledge required to advise and serve customers using the automation properly will undoubtedly set you apart from the competition, but there is a short window of opportunity.
Indispensability:
If you can serve as an automation specialist for your clients, you will not only strengthen your connection with them, but you will also make it more difficult for them to live without you. And the longer you maintain and build customer connections, the stronger your own business will be.
Income:
While this is not always the case, several companies provide referral and reseller programs for CPAs. While it is critical to match the right clients with the proper technological offerings, the right referral and reseller partnerships may generate potentially profitable passive income streams for your business.
