Episode 35
How Accountants Can Use Data to Offer More Value to Clients
Andrew Jordon is Director of UK Business Development for Fathom Analysis and Reporting. A qualified accountant in his own right, he likes the language of numbers but knows that numbers on their own are fairly uninteresting.
When working as an accountant, he was frustrated with the volume of data the firm collected for tax purposes, which was never used to inform business strategy. Working in-house in finance, he saw how inefficient and ineffective the firm were at Management and Board Reporting. So he joined Fathom and spent 6 months in Australia, the US and the UK with accountants and business owners listening to their experiences to try and best understand the problem and shape the solution.
Fathom’s highly visual, automated and customisable reporting and analysis tool brings the numbers to life. They specialise in business insights, analytics, reporting and behavioural change in accounting firms. Takeaways include…
- Software companies supplying the accounting profession have a big vision of how the world should look, but there’s a reality too
- Fathom give SMES business analytics and management information to allow better insights for accountants
- How the cloud is opening up so many opportunities for accountants, and this is not just in efficiencies
- Are modern day accountants scared and challenged by the technology or excited by it?
- Accountants now don’t need 30 years of experience to be a leader because of the technology available
- The older generation of accountants were primarily auditors, but the new generation are primarily analysts, which presents huge opportunities
- Change management in accounting firms has to start with the vision, then it’s about how you get there
- Why ‘process’ is absolutely vital in an accounting firm that wants to be profitable
- Why processes rather than technology or humans are what really differentiate one accounting firm from another
- What is your process for upscaling from statutory reporting to management reporting?
- Documenting accounting firm processes is the difference between profitable or not – listen for the reasons why
- Software like Fathom has a dashboard tool which gives accountants visualisations of their client’s performance
- The major driver of mere information to analysis is client demand
- UK accounting firms have a different attitude to risk compared to accountants in other countries
- What is your process for upselling your clients from compliance to advisory?
- Can robots do advisory – if you have the right questions and the right data, who needs an accountant?
- Accountants like to think they know more than they do – true or false?
- There are better metrics than chargeable hours – listen here for a few great metrics accountants should measure
- Tips for advisory focused accountants to have better ‘additional opportunity’ conversations with clients
- What DO clients want from an accountant these days and what does it look like?
- What offenders and prisoners can teach accountants about how human behaviour, psychology and how to really change
- A lot of young accountants think they need a career plan, but there is actually a better way to run your professional life
- Why accountants should focus on personal relationships
- Accountants should review what metrics they use for success, and learn from sales people and BD professionals
- The overcrowded SME space is now a playground for top 20 accounting firms who see potential revenues, so it’s becoming harder for
- all firms to differentiate
- Does your accounting firm have a framework for failure?
- Negative churn – an excellent metric for accountants to signpost what your clients are going to do with you and your services.
Andrew is passionate about restorative justice and has delivered over 50 group victim awareness sessions in prisons in Australia and the UK. To contact Andrew: 07703 832 571
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