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| 2.7. Potential Value Added Services |
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The following is a list of potential value added services that you could add to your offering.
The choice of any number of these is completely yours. When deciding, take into account
your personal skill set, willingness to learn, and possible legislative or regulatory restrictions
in your jurisdiction. |
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| Cash Flow |
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Generating significant cash flow budgets. These can then be used to recommend many
other services. |
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| Financing Packages |
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Help your clients create financing packages for their banks. Be careful with this as specific
rules are enforced when preparing information for banks. Do not offer this service unless
you are certain you know the requirements. |
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| Quarterly Reports and Updates |
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Generating reports that shows the strengths and weakness of your clients financial numbers.
Sit down and review these quarterly with your clients. This is also a great way to charge
some additional fees and identify more services you could potentially be offering. |
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| Mentoring |
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Accounts, by nature, see the inner workings of a lot more businesses than the average
business owner. They may have only ever seen inside their own company. |
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There are many resources available to you that would allow you to provide business
mentoring or at the very least webinars training clients on business basics, record keeping
and deductibility of expenses. |
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| Wealth Management |
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This is a fast growing sector that should only be entered with the assistance of qualified
people. You could however offer your eyes as a second set to review what your clients
current wealth manager is reporting to them. This way you can help protect your clients
best interests. |
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| Succession Planning |
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There is a pretty good chance that every business will need a transition plan and the sooner
they put one in place the better. Businesses can either be passed down the family line, sold
to staff, sold to external parties, or simply shut down. These are the only four options
available and for some reason most clients do not realize it. |
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This can be a service that you offer or simply a conversation that guides them to a local
expert. Either way your clients will be thankful you had the conversation with them. |
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| Business Brokerage |
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Has many complex rules that vary depending on the jurisdiction. Do your due diligence and
find out at least the basic information. You yourself can become a business broker or build
relationships with local ones. This may provide income in the form of a referral fee. Please
note that some accounting designations do not allow you to receive referral fees. |
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| Data Management |
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During your clients transitions there will be unique needs for data management. This is
because of the support that they need to provide for due diligence in the transaction. |
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You can offer your clients a service of organizing this information, which can become rather
lucrative if they have several interested parties. |
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| Project Management |
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By nature Accounting Professionals are more organized that the average business owner.
You can use this natural gift to provide project management services for your clients. |
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| Payments |
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Processes accounts payable and staying on top of payments for your clients. This alleviates
a task that business owners may find mundane. |
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| Accounts Receivable |
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| Assist your clients with invoicing and collections. |
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| Reporting |
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| Generating special reports to help management make better decisions. |
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| Paperless Consultant |
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Assist your clients with the transition to a paperless office. Provide checklists and project
management services to make the transition as easy as possible for your clients. |
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| Software |
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With the overwhelming number of software, and cloud solutions available today, clients are
finding it difficult to make decisions. You can work directly with the client to determine exactly
what they need and the best options for them. You can also be of assistance with the
implementation of the software or transition to the cloud. |
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| Controller |
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Offering a variety of above options will allow you to act as an external control for your clients.
The high level assistance you provide not only helps your clients business it also helps to
solidify the relationship you have. |
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Most of the time account firms are already acting as an external controller. However using
the title of Controller gives clients the perception of higher value. Making the switch to calling
yourself a controller will not only increase your perceived value it will also differentiate you in
crowded markets. |
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| Kort Mehrle |
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Majored in Management Information Systems and has put his schooling to
work in various tech and software companies. His passion for technology
really shines when aiding others to understand the benefits of a new
software or technology. |
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