Accountants are being asked to take a more central role in their clients’ Whole of Financial Life!

Business

The pandemic has galvanised the role of accountants as trusted advisers for Australian SMEs. There is a strong new demand for accountants to position themselves at the centre of their clients’ whole of financial life.

Promoted by Xenium • 02 September 2022 • 5 minute read

With a growing demand from SME businesses needing a larger range of financial advice, a growing number of accountants have started moving beyond delivering just standard tax returns and tax planning towards a full advisory service model.

BUT this doesn’t have to mean monthly or quarterly board meetings with clients.

Clients may not understand the term ‘advisory’, but perhaps they are not aware that they could need help.

Some of the services that businesses are seeking from their accountant are cash flow forecasting, reviewing operating costs, tapping into savings on their finances, establishing an SMSF, ensuring their assets are protected and Estate Plans have been completed in line with their current intentions.

However this can be a tall order for those happy to stick with what they know.

Not every accounting firm is set up to take on the role of a business adviser. In fact, most accountants are already flat out servicing the current needs of their clients, never mind adding additional services. Others have the humility to accept they can’t be all things to all people.

A project management focus

The good news is accountants don’t need to personally take care of every part of their clients’ financial needs to have a central role. There is a whole host of finance professionals who specialise in areas where your clients need help.

Accountants can consider a project management approach

Picture yourself as a project manager. You build and maintain four or five solid relationships that take care of 80% of people regardless of whether they are PAYG or self-employed. Your SME clients are people (perhaps a family) in business who most likely own a house, perhaps an investment property, superannuation, two or more cars and have or need a range of life and business insurance. This is in addition to their commercial premises, business assets, equipment, staff and stock.

An accountant should be the first port of call when an SME client has a big business or financial decision on the horizon – provided they have the right team of professionals around them to meet that client’s needs.

Whole of financial life

The new approach adopted by accountants is considering their clients through a ‘whole of financial life’ perspective. Who are they? What are they going to do throughout their life – personal and in business?

Then at what stage of their life or business can YOUR business be of service to them? Much of the information you need for these conversations to be able to deliver (or outsource) additional services will already be included within your existing database. The key is figuring out how to synthesise this data and target the right clients – and at the right time.

What holds most accounting firms back from moving forward to an advisory space is the difficulty in finding those related financial services firms that you trust to build referral relationships together that work in the best interests of YOUR clients, YOUR business and not THEIR bottom line.

So how can you connect with your database and drive more revenue from existing clients by looking after their financial services, property investment and wealth planning needs?

Xenium Group specialises in helping professional accounting firms do exactly this.

We can help you not only harness the data you have on hand, but we can put it to work. We can assist with building your professional network to deliver the services your clients are seeking. All project managed by you while you retain the client.

Xenium also helps your practice or firm implement industry leading software, tools and products to improve business efficiencies and productivity to save you time and money. Our support is significant in increasing profitability and an additional capacity to spend more quality time with your clients to deliver a more whole of financial life solution.

You have been told year upon year that you need to do this for your clients. The problem is that it often takes more time and resources than you have available.

By having other professionals do this day-to-day work for you, it frees up time so you can sit down and have proper discussions that will ultimately benefit your clients, their retention of your services and YOUR bottom line.

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