The third part of our Accountancy Revolution definition found on the first post was summarized this way:
“…forcing the profession of accountancy to be redefined towards enhancing and developing internal business processes…”
Since it’s been a couple of months since we addressed the first two changes in the “Accountancy Revolution,” let’s summarize:
First, we are seeing very rapid technological brand new ways to actually create accounting data. Note: we as the profession are not creating the data anymore.
Second, we learned that the first point means that the manual handling of accounting data is disappearing. Paper is going away. And that is good – paper is killing our businesses. We use human capital to shuffle paper through companies, and that is the worst use of human capital I can think of. We ain’t gonna do what we did before. The manual manipulation of data is going away.
Here is the full Accountancy Revolution again:
Rapid technological means of data creation and production are allowing the former manual manipulation of raw accounting data to disappear, forcing the profession of accountancy to be redefined towards enhancing and developing internal business processes which will ultimately become digital conduits of paperless productions of varied financial reporting.
But this all leads to my third point in this awesome “Accountancy Revolution”: it is going to force us as a profession to redefine what it means to deliver our service. And, as I stated above, I believe it is going to lead us to two things (among many other things):
Enhance Internal Business Processes
We are doing some fun work taking our clients through what we call a Value Process Design Session (see our flyer above we send to clients). When you dive deep into your client’s processes, you will find your customers are delivering huge amounts of value to their customers but not getting paid for it. You can help them enhance the importance of their processes… and make sure they get paid for it! But you have to create the session, give it a name and then sell it. Your customers want to buy it! They just don’t know it yet. And they won’t know until you sell it to them. You are doing a disservice to your customer base when you don’t give them what they need (…that they don’t even know to ask for).
Develop Internal Business Processes
When we take our clients through the Value Process Design Session, we are seeking to enhance their current business processes. But we can often identify brand new business processes that will bring great value to their customers, and for which they can add revenue. So if you can’t enhance what they have, seek to develop new processes based upon the beautiful absence of paper in your customer’s processes. They’ll thank you for it.
Your customer’s internal business processes can be found in every aspect of their business – from getting paid to delivering service, from taking calls to shipping packages. And specialized indistries you might serve like manufacturing or the medical industries will have many more processes deeply embedded in their systems that you can dig through and enhance for your customers. It’s like looking for big money in the couch cushions. But this time you’ll find some big dough, not just stale Cheetos.
I love it! Things are changing and it’s allowing us to deliver brand new valuable services to our customers. I freakin’ love my job!! Do you? Leave it in the comments.
XCM Solutions, Inc. (a robust workflow product we use in our firm) conducted a research project last year to identify the differentiating factors between high and low performing firms. Some of the findings are amazing and support the things THRIVEal firms have been doing all along. We’ll check them out over the next 7 posts. Click the image to the left to download a copy of the full report.
Technology choices are such an integral part of your business ecosystem. It’s like the foundation that wraps around the process by which you get business done. Most clients of accounting firms choose technology with very limited views towards what that technology will do. In choosing technology, keep a broad view of what your ecosystem looks like so you can choose collaborative systems that work together to meet the needs of your business process.
And when deploying cloud systems to clients, help them not to pick technology too quickly. Research is required to make sure you are using the proper products for the right purposes.
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