What the Client wants
In the first of a series of articles, we look at why it is important to understand what the client wants. Only when we do that, can we truly help clients fulfil their personal and business ambitions. This article is
O
ur profession has been going through change, but never more so than the last decade. It’s fair to say that the Pandemic has probably accelerated that change, with the move to the cloud being made even more relevant. The story that underlies everything we do is that “Accountants Change Lives, but not by producing a set of accounts”
As the son of entrepreneurs who benefited from an accountant who understood this over 40 years ago, I know that he made a difference to my future. Having worked on markets when I was 7/8 years old to help my parents, I went on to University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser, going on to work for 2 of the largest accountancy firms on the planet.
@AdvanceTrack
Vipul Sheth ACA CTA, Founder and Managing Director, AdvanceTrack Outsourcing Vipul is a UK based ICAEW Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Vipul trained with a regional UK firm before moving to Ernst & Young and KPMG. AdvanceTrack is a UK Headquartered Accountancy Outsourcing Company with offshore operational centres, delivering services around the globe. AdvanceTrack demonstrates compliance with international security laws including GDPR through certification to ISO27001:2013 and BS10012 audited by BSI. Quality is certified to ISO9001:2015 and Business Continuity certified to ISO22301:2019.
Why do I talk about this? My parents’ ambitions were not necessarily for themselves, but the futures they could afford their children. I talk about this because we need to understand what is important to the client. To the left is the result (see fig. 1) of some research which shows that client meetings and strategic implementation and advisory is more valued than the compliance, yet professional firms spend a disproportionate amount of time delivering compliance.
Fig. 1 (Credit: Aaron Dunn)
The key therefore is to reduce the cost of the compliance element, whilst allowing the accountant/ bookkeeper to focus on the client relationship. We’ll talk more in the next feature about how you do this. In this issue, let’s focus on the client needs. In order to serve the client, they need to deliver value and then demonstrate this. Let’s discuss this a little further.
66 / Issue 28
XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.
