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Focus on a particular service that will help a client — such as an internal controls audit — and it starts to make sense, says Damien Greathead of Intuit.
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Where accountants go wrong with advisory
18 October 2022
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“Advisory” has become the go-to answer for accountants, but to make it work you need to define what it really means, says Damien Greathead, marketing leader for accounting and advisory at Intuit.
Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Greathead said many accountants were already delivering advice services but getting underpaid for it — or not getting paid at all.
“Everyone's saying you've got to get into advisory, but nobody's really defining what advisory is,” he said. “At the end of the day, accountants are already doing it for their clients but they're probably not getting paid for it or they're probably not getting paid the right amount for it.”
“Anything that's not ‘tax, compliance, auditing’ just gets thrown into advisory now. And I think that's where the real challenge is for a small practitioner sitting here thinking, ‘What does advisory mean to me? What are the actual services?’
He said examples included cash flow planning, tax planning and internal checklists, but accountants should start by identifying particular problems.
He cited the case of one West Australian firm that was struggling with the advisory concept.
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“I asked, ‘What are some of the biggest challenges for your clients?’ We settled on internal controls and back office automation.
“I said, ‘Well, why don't you just start up an advisory service that talks specifically to something as simple as internal controls. You and I think it's simple, but a small business owner … probably wouldn't know what you're talking about.”
He said the firm defined the internal controls audit process with a series of 30 questions.
“I said, it's a bit like that 21-point check from Midas when you take the car in for a service. That's the analogy they now use, when they're out there talking to talking to clients. They literally give them the checklist to say, we've done this, we've done this.”
“What comes from that checklist audit is a whole host of other consulting other engagements.
“So as you can imagine I'm sitting with the client, and I'm saying, ‘Well, we've gone through the audit and basically we've given ourselves a B+.
“But given that it’s internal controls, given that we're all about protecting the business, protecting the finances of the company, I think we've got to get to an A+. So here are three areas that we want you to focus on. We can lead or alternatively you can do it yourself.’
“That's just changed the whole advisory conversation. So rather than trying to sell everything under the sun or trying to talk about everything under the sun, they lead with internal controls and that opens up a whole host of other opportunities.”
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