Spend management: A growing advisory opportunity for accounting firms

BY JAYSON BRANNON, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES & PARTNER SUCCESS, CPA.COM

Your clients are desperate to get a better handle on their spending.

In CPA.com’s recent survey (bit.ly/CPAcomreport) of more than 1,100 small and medium-sized businesses and accounting firms, more than half (53%) of SMBs said their company is reducing costs and 69% said they want new options to help control costs.

Additionally, three out of four (72%) of businesses said they’re interested in a more proactive approach to managing their spend, including matching anticipated expenses to budgets before the money is actually spent.

This is where your firm has an opportunity to deepen your trusted advisor role. How? By providing advisory services around an emerging service offering called spend management.

WHAT IS SPEND MANAGEMENT?

Spend management is the ability to view, control, and manage a business’s cash flow (including expenses) in real time within a single, centralized location. It is typically driven by technology to capture the expense at the time of transaction. With spend management, budgets are pre-set and controls are in place so every dollar is accounted for prior to being spent — no surprises at month end. Since both historical and future spend is accounted for, advisors, such as yourself, are able to deliver more accurate forecast reports as well as key insights on spend to help your client make more proactive business decisions.

Traditional expense management, on the other hand, focuses on analyzing spend after it has occurred. Since there are no controls on budgets, advisors don’t know the business’s total spend until expense reports or vendor invoices come in weeks or even months later. Many businesses that have evolved to modern expense and spend management have relied on Divvy, from BIL, to help bring all company spending into one place for smarter decision making.

The Spend Management Opportunity For Your Firm And Your Clients

Many accounting firms are realizing the benefits of adding spend management to their client advisory services (CAS) offerings and adoption of the service area is rapidly growing. According to CPA.com’s spend and expense management survey report, there are many benefits to offering spend management:

• Higher profits. Sixty-three percent of firms said card-based spend management technology makes them more efficient and profitable.

• More fees per client. Forty percent of firms that offer spend management services earn up to $3,000 per month per client.

• Higher client retention. Seventy-four percent of accounting firms say spend management services help them attract and retain clients.

• More cross selling and referrals. Seventy-two percent of SMBs who outsource spend management say they are interested in exploring additional services with their accounting firm. Additionally, 71% of this same group are actively referring their accounting firm to other colleagues.

And here are some of the benefits your clients will experience by utilizing outsourced spend management advisory services:

• More adherence to budgets. Ninetyseven percent of SMBs that use cardbased spend management technology say their new spend management policies have helped to control spend and keep the company within budget.

• Decrease in administrative tasks. Sixtyfour percent of businesses reported a decrease in hours spent managing in-house expense management tasks.

• Better internal controls. Forty-seven percent of businesses say that new spend management policies and internal controls have reduced expense abuses and fraud.

BEGIN YOUR FIRM’S SPEND MANAGEMENT JOURNEY

The Divvy Accountant Advisor Program (bit.ly/DivvyAAP) allows firms to stop chasing clients for receipts, to step out of tactical expense-management operations and to introduce proactive advisory services. The program is free and benefits include a dedicated partner manager, CAS 2.0 training from CPA.com co-marketing opportunities and enhanced client rewards.

Learn more about how Divvy’s card-based technology platform can help grow your firm’s spend management and CAS practice.

• Download the CPA.com spend management survey report at bit.ly/ CPAcomreport

• Explore Divvy with an on-demand demo at bit.ly/DivvyDemonstration Jayson Brannon is vice president of sales and partner success at CPA.com.