Accounting practices would need to determine whether their clients wanted more than just tax and compliance work as many were favouring an advisory-style relationship, according to a business futurist.
“We need to understand that any business operates on a continuum – there will be some clients who will only have statutory requirements and will only want paperwork done, so we need to be mindful if we’re offering just that service and not beyond,” Eye on the Future business futurist Morris Miselowski told the Institute of Public Accountants 2015 National Congress on the Gold Coast last Friday.
“But there are others who do want the advisory [element] and they are increasing in number.”
Miselowski’s comments came in response to a delegate’s concerns about whether in the future clients would leave their long-term, ongoing, trusted accountant for a new accountant relationship if their real needs and wants were not being met.
According to statistics on generations X, Y and Z, advice and conversation-based relationships were highly sought after, he said.
“Increasingly, people will make the decision that what they want is that insight – they want somebody who is meaningful and purposeful, and these clients will show loyalty for that and remain,” he said.
“But where clients don’t get that, they will move very, very quickly.
“They will not put up with that for very long, so know your client.
“If they want transactional-only [service], offer it to them, but increasingly I can tell you that they will want advice.”
