Cultural change away from a compliance focus is the key for accountants who want to successfully incorporate advisory services into their practices, according to a senior professional trainer.
However, the process was not an easy one as the existing business could be an impediment to the successful provision of financial advice to clients, Business Aptitude managing director Dale Crosby said.
“The change culture doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve got processes and systems and reporting mechanisms in our traditional compliance-based practices that actually work against taking on an advisory role,” Crosby told the latest Bacon Super and Eggs seminar hosted by Townsends Business and Corporate Lawyers in Sydney.
“One of the most significant of those is the focus on productivity and production and time cost.”
He said the accounting profession had regularly discussed how it could move away from the productivity model to one that concentrated more on the value accountants could add to their clients, but had yet to find a definitive solution, the reason being the profession was still trying to find out what it might mean.
“From my point of view a lot of the answers revolve around focusing on efficiency rather than productivity, and that really means looking at throughput, looking at turnaround, and trying to make sure whatever we do internally within the practice is really giving us the time and opportunity to service clients,” he said.
He identified developing more appropriate communications skills as another key factor in the cultural change process.
“I’m working with firms now who are really interested in helping their staff develop the skills to ask the clients the right questions,” he said.
“Questions about what’s really going on in the client’s life, what their needs and issues are, and what they want out of their life.
“And they’re pretty difficult questions when as accountants we’re just used to providing solutions. But once we see our accountants start to understand the importance of engagement with their clients, it makes such a huge difference.”
