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Curious about what a personal financial specialist designation means for accountants? We’ve got a day in the life to peek behind the curtain, plus some tips to reduce firm-wide headaches before audit season ramps up.
But first, check out the biggest time wasters for accounting firms. Don’t worry, reading a newsletter isn’t on the list, so you can keep perusing for more growth and marketing tips—like the best trust signals to add to your website.
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Bookkeepers Binge
The big three: How responsiveness, customer experience and the right services can lead to long-term sustainability
See the future: AI vision technology is reaching new capabilities to modernize outdated client ledgers in a fraction of the time (start at 6:30)
Marketing playbook: Tracking the right client data can help improve profitability and cross-selling
Searchable site: Update your website with trust signals, detailed service pages and pricing models
Playing the long game: The best business development strategy may not be lead gen, but consistently building relationships over time
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Jumping between tax software, email and spreadsheets to track returns slows your firm down. Canopy’s Tax Workflow Automation brings your tasks, client documents and status updates into one place. Stop chasing clients for documents, eliminate manual tracking and get total visibility into your firm's work so no return slips through the cracks.
Upward Trajectory
What PFS services look like in practice
Adding a PFS credential can help you expand your firm’s accounting services, but what do those client relationships look like in real life? Alexandra Demosthenes, CPA/PFS, shared a typical day on the job. She offers integrated support for retirement planning, including both portfolio management and tax advice for clients. She also coordinates with estate attorneys to balance the legal and tax sides of long-term planning.
Why this matters: For many clients, it feels natural to trust their financial plan with the same professional who manages their taxes. (Journal of Accountancy)
Industry Shares
Fix your intake for a smoother audit season
Most audit slowdowns stem from late and incomplete client data, according to Justin Pulgrano, CPA. Instead of trying to work around these root causes with quick fixes like hiring temporary staff, he argues that firms are better off rethinking their intake design. Implementing automated data extraction tools can help create cleaner, standardized data at the beginning of the process that can reduce your firm’s struggle during audit season.
Why this matters: A smoother audit season starts well before the work piles up. Improving your intake process now can reduce cleanup times and bottlenecks next year. (Inside Public Accounting)
The News
The Bottom Line
When your firm’s tech needs to talk
As your firm builds workflows across different technologies, consider how these systems work together. Interoperability can make workflows more efficient, but firms also need to understand who has access to that data, according to Cathy Rowe, executive vice president at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. From there, you can establish governance guidelines for how your systems share data and interact.
I believe the future of AI in accounting may ultimately depend not only on innovation, but on trusted interoperability.”
Why this matters: Understanding how your systems connect and where data flows between them can help your firm get more value from its tech stack without creating new risks. (Wolters Kluwer)
Poll
How well do your firm's tech tools talk to each other?
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The Net Gains is written and curated by Lauren Ward and edited by Bianca Prieto.
