(A lot more than just taxes!)
Last week I met a successful businessman at a small group lunch meeting in Glassboro. When our introducer said that I was a small business CPA, he asked “How do you get away from your office at this time of year?” I said that I manage my time well to allow for this type of community event. His follow-up comment made it clear that he held an outdated stereotype image of a CPA chained to a desk during tax season. To emphasize my point and with a little bit of attitude, I added: “It’s not as if sit around filling out government forms all day!”. Later in our conversation he said that he understood what I meant from our earlier conversation. He mentioned briefly that the things we discussed were different than he expected: “I didn’t know you did all that”.
This experience made me wonder how many others hold an outdated image and really do not know what a CPA does in today’s work environment. If people don’t even know what we do as small business CPAs, then how can I expect to be effective in growing my young firm?
I spent time this weekend thinking about the things I do that actually take up my time, and the things I do that actually bring the most value to clients. Sure enough, filling out government forms did not make the top five in either list.
The top five things that I really do, ranked in terms of the hours spent with or on behalf of clients:
5. Documentation – building complete client files of their important records, investment proposals, results, and business projects
4. Public Education – giving webinars, live teaching, and podcasts, writing blogs
3. Strategizing – through regularly scheduled coaching and review/update meetings for financial and tax planning with clients to increase income, reduce expenses, and minimize risks
2 Learning – mostly about evolving technology through reading and webinars
1 Fielding questions from clients – by far the most demanding task I face daily, including addressing the large amount of misinformation and scams that clients are exposed to on a daily basis, mostly through text messaging and phone calls
The top five things that I really do, ranked in terms of the dollar value added for clients:
5 . Getting unstuck – talking through business challenges to find clarity in thinking about increasing income and wealth while reducing expenses and risk through the use of of proven coaching strategies
4 . Improving the use of technology – including accounting, banking, taxes, and client management systems to safely and securely handle manual financial management tasks
3. Custom designed investments to meet specific goals – mostly for real estate investors, contractors, and small business partnerships
2. Avoiding taxes – almost always an important and productive issue for clients, including representation before IRS, state and sometimes administrative law authorities
1 . Avoid financial losses – this is by far the largest benefit I from scams, family squabbles, legal risks, fines, fraud prevention, for clients and their estates, and especially in the senior years