The Future-Ready Firm Makes Every Client Feel Known

Welcome to the Growthminded Accountant podcast where our experts will share best practices on running your firm in the digital age. This podcast is brought to you by CountingWorks Pro. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of The Growthminded Accountant. My name is Lee Reams.

I'm the founder and CEO of CountingWorks and I am your host today. I'm joined by or with Rebekah Barton, our chief visibility officer. So, Rebekah, you survived the storms. I know I was giving you Yeah, I was giving you like live radar and live storm tracking coverage. We We were We were on it.

yeah, we had some pretty bad storms roll through Indiana the other night, but we are safe. We are here. My house is 150 years old, and it it's going to last another year, it looks like. So, that's Well, if it's lasted 150, it's going it's it's not in the track. No, I feel like we're good.

All right. All right. Well, very good. So, today's topic is I think something that's really important to kind of just visualize and then I'm going to give you some takeaways on how to actually do this in your practice. so, not only things that perhaps you need some technology to do, but there's ways that you could just start utilizing some of these processes very quickly.

So, the thought of the day is every client wants to feel like they're your only client. and you're probably sitting there going, "Yeah, right. That's impossible. I have 500 clients. I have a thousand clients.

I have 2,000 clients." you know, there's no way this can humanly be possible. And we know that clients aren't your only client. They know that they're not their your only client. But, if you do some things that make them feel that way, you're going to get a lot of really positive results. So, you know, I'll give you some examples real quick.

Like the doctor who remembers your name, the adviser, and why is that actually Rebekah, why is that so astonishing that the doctor actually remembers you? Because you feel like everything's in a hamster wheel and you're just going through life. And that's that's why what we're talking about is so important. Yeah. So, I think when you're in a situation like a doctor's office, a lot of times it can kind of come across as impersonal, right?

They see a lot of patients, they have a lot of people coming through. So then when someone does remember your name or remembers a personal detail or something of that nature, it kind of stops you in your tracks in a positive way. And the same thing happens with a tax and accounting professional, right? Like Lee mentioned, people know that they're not your only client. However, when you do something like remember that maybe their kid was going to college at a particular school or that they had a new baby last year or different things like that, it can go a long way toward establishing a relationship that goes beyond just a once a year transaction.

It can make them trust you, make them feel more comfortable with you for all of the other things that they need throughout the course of a year. Yeah, I know it's just astonishing that we're talking about this. It seems so common sense, but it really matters. And right now the response to this is one of the number one things that we hear in the complaints. So think of this, you know, an accountant who actually calls a client before they call you about an issue.

you know that restaurant that that remembers the drink when you walk in. That's you know maybe that's a good or bad thing. I have one of those and I love it. My guest is on the bar before I get to it. Yeah.

There you go. Right. That that hotel that remembers your room preference or you come back year after year they remember your name. Right. So, you know, I would argue none of these experience are really about memory.

they're about feeling known. Okay? And people say will pay a premium to feel known. You'll continue going back that hotel that remembers you, that you know that concierge that treats you well. You remember that and you go back, you trust them, right?

And you know, this is what a future ready firm is really all about. So, it's not necessarily about software, you know, buying a bunch more software. It's not about automation. That things that can make things even less personal, even cold. Okay?

It's not about more communication. We're not trying to interrupt people more than we already are. It's about making clients feel someone understands them. More importantly, remembers them and is looking out for them. I think that is a key item and that's the exciting part.

You know, 10 years ago this was pipe dream. today it is not and we're going to talk about this. So technology is finally reaching a point where we can create personalized experiences of scale. So kind of explain a little bit, you know, why that is so important, kind of the the emotional side of why that's so important to clients. Absolutely.

So oftentimes when clients or people talk about businesses they love, they're not talking about the technical service. They're not talking about, oh, this doctor drew my blood so much better than every other doctor, right? They're talking about how they felt. if they felt valued, if they felt remembered, if they felt like they were understood, if they felt like they were a VIP, if they felt important in that space. And you know, I have to bring a Disney example in here.

but they do an excellent job of this. So, we go to Disney World 10 times a year and every time we walk in our hotel room, there's special things often times remembered from our past stay, right? Our name is on the TV. It says, "Welcome, you know, to our family with our names. there will be special little treats for my kids sometimes based on their favorite characters.

We go to the bar. They know who we are. They remember that my daughter likes crinkle fries, you know, as opposed to the normal steak fries." But it's little things like that that do bring people back to a brand, whether it's a resort brand or a clothing brand or a professional services provider. time and time again, people want that personal touch, and that is what creates loyalty, referrals, trust, all of the things that build your business over time. So, I'm going to like counterbalance this from the accountant's point of view, and you're going to say, you know, my clients are just not responsive.

And, you know, so if I'm personalizing things more, do you think that's going to get faster responses? they're actually going to know perhaps what they're supposed to do. You know, why is that such a big, you know, a big issue and kind of the, you know, that's from it's like both sides don't think that either side is responsive enough. So, kind of explain how that works. Yeah, it's kind of a vicious cycle a little bit until you get to the root of the problem.

In reality, responsiveness is typically a symptom, not the problem itself. So tax season, for example, let's say a client receives a document request. They plan to respond. Maybe they see it while they're on their way to work. They're at lunch.

They're dealing with kids in the morning. But then things get busy. Their kids need them. Their job needs them. If you're a business owner, maybe you get pulled into some urgent problem that has to be dealt with, right?

Then then a week's gone by before you know it. Then another reminder arrives, another one, another week goes by, you get busy, and eventually the person is not avoiding the accountant or the tax preparer. They're avoiding the stress of having to sit down and send the documents and add yet another thing to their plate. So, typically people aren't trying to be unresponsive, but we all know that life gets in the way and things happen and that can kind of lead to this snowball effect. Yeah.

But it also leads to the, you know, the oneshot requests with no here is where we are right now. Here's the stage we're in. there's no communication here. Hey, we received seven of your documents. We're missing three of them.

So, you know, you think about it from a taxpayers's point of view that maybe they're not necessarily worrying about paying their taxes. They're worried because no one was telling them what was happening. Like, you know, what are we doing? and the tax bill itself isn't maybe necessarily the source of stress. The uncertainty was you know did are there documents missing?

You know what is you know why are you not finishing things? I hear it more than ever accountants, CPAs, EAs, their biggest gripe from the client's point of view is they're not communicated with. The clients do not know what's going on. And an accountant might say well hey I'm on top of this. I got it handled but the anxiety sitting inside the client not knowing you know when a deadline's coming up did we make the deadline did we not you know that is kind of the problem.

So you know as a firm owner you see missing documents and the client experiences what stress right the firm sees you know this this organizer isn't complete the client is saying you know I have this overwhelming to-do list on top of taking my kids to school or sporting events etc. you know, the firm says, "Hey, this client isn't responsive." Meanwhile, the client is experiencing a ton of anxiety, right? So, that's why more reminders don't always solve the problem. because the issue isn't necessarily communication volume. The issue is uncertainty.

So, let's you let's talk about this and I'm going to give you some things kind of a checklist at the end that kind of tells you these are some things you should be doing. But let's walk through a typical tax return and listen to how differently this sounds depending on who's experiencing from the firm perspective. We send out an organizer or an intake form. You know, we're waiting on documents. The documents are received.

You know, the return is prepared, the return is reviewed, the return is delivered, it's filed, everything looks organized, everything looks efficient. everything looks under control. But what does the client experience? Rebekah, so kind of go through your, you know, the the point of view of the client there. Yeah.

So, from a client's perspective, things are going to look very different. So, they don't understand the tax process necessarily the way that that the firm does or the firm's process behind the scenes. So, they're experiencing so many questions. Did I upload everything? Did they get it?

Am I missing something? Are they working on it? How long is this going to take? am I going to owe money? How much am I going to owe?

Did I forget anything? Why haven't I heard anything? And I actually have a great example from a recent client that we onboarded who said that one thing they do at the end of every tax season or when a when a person's return is filed, they get an email that says, "You're done. Do a dance." And it has a little gift of like a person dancing on it. And she said they've done it for years and it just kind of started as a funny little thing.

And now people will call them and say, "When is my dance email coming?" And it's because well they're not done yet, right? But it's a great little people know to wait on that dance email. Like they're excited for that email. So little things like that that are a little bit quirky or have a little bit of personality can go a long way toward letting people know that like hey you can expect this communication from us at these points in the process so that you don't feel the level of stress. So it doesn't have to be something huge.

You don't have to be sitting on the phone calling every single person to let them know where they are. Just little pieces of communication to keep the client looped in can go so far toward making them feel more comfortable and making them feel like they're in the loop. Well, and that's the beauty of technology and some of the things we'll talk about is technology can do a lot of this chasing for you. Can you know even in your portal give updates you know if the client logs in to see exactly where things are. So the idea is, you know, we want to create as little anxiety as possible for the client and get that dancing, you know, meme at the end.

I love that. so I think one of the bigger issues that people are starting to understand and experience from feedback from clients is I call it the Amazon effect, right? So, consumer expectations have changed dramatically. And Rebekah, just kind of go through this real quick. you know, obviously if people are seeing this type of service from other brands that they're dealing with, they kind of it kind of creeps into every relationship and it's kind of like I expect things on demand.

I can expect I can get groceries in an hour from Amazon now, right? So, kind of how how does that affect the tax and accounting space? Instant gratification is real and personalization is real, right? Both of those things have kind of become the norm across industries. So when clients choose you, they're not comparing you to a different accounting firm.

They're probably not using a different accounting firm. They compare you to all of the other experiences they have with brands on a daily basis. So that's Amazon, that's Disney, like I mentioned, it's Uber, it's Netflix, it's Apple, it's all of these different services that they're interacting with every day that are so personalized and so on demand. People don't love Amazon because the package got there. They expect the package to get there.

They love it because they knew where the package was the entire time. They knew they could go to Amazon, order it on Prime, and it would be there sometimes that afternoon, sometimes the next day, but it's going to be there really fast. in the storms the other night, my like couch cover on my back deck blew off and ripped and it was just a whole disaster. immediately went to Amazon, found where I had ordered it a couple years ago, reordered it, and it came yesterday, you know, and that was just my immediate reaction. I didn't even think about where to shop.

I just knew they would get it here, and I knew it would be here really fast, and I knew that I could find the exact thing I needed in about 30 seconds. So, I think it creeps into all of our lives and it's very important to create that value and visibility and trust because that's how you get repeat customers. That's how you get referrals. That's how you build relationships with your clients that last over a period of years. Yeah.

And I think every accountant should think about this. You know, how often are my clients wondering what's happening? Because that's the gap and that's where the uncertainty lives. And as you just mentioned, confidence creates trust, right? So that visibility creates that confidence.

It's like I know what stage I'm in. I know we're going to meet the deadline. I know where I am in the process. It takes all that ability out of my head. Right?

So, you know, back in the old days, those of us that had to wait 10, 15 days for a package to arrive, it was a totally different mindset. But the genie's out of the bottle. We are set in kind of the new expectations. And I think tax and accounting firms really need to adapt as well. So, we did create a a little bit of what a future ready firm client experience should look like.

I'm going to give you a chance, Rebekah. We like to talk about these things. These are the five layers. And then I'm going to give you a checklist of things you should be doing now that can really help move the needle as far as your own responsiveness, getting rid of that uncertainty, getting rid of that anxiety, and really improving your client experience. But Rebekah, the the five layer dip or layers, whatever you want to call it, it's it's yours.

I was just thinking that I don't know where we must have ESP. so the first layer here is going to be visibility. So this is kind of obvious, but clients need to know where things stand. They need to see it. so examples could be an email that said we received your document or your return is currently being prepared.

your bookkeeping review for the month is complete. Your estimated payment has been submitted for this quarter. Little updates, this is kind of what I was saying before, little updates can go a long way. These can be automated emails that go out very easily. just insert their name, let them know where they are in the process.

So, it can just be a very simple message that can eliminate days and days of uncertainty. Something like your return is currently moving toward through internal review. No action is needed from you. That gives people peace of mind because sometimes subconsciously even clients are wondering, wait, do I need to do something? Did I miss something?

Is there some action I should be taking? and just reading the words no action is required from you can give them a lot of peace of mind. Layer two, expectations. Clients want to know what's happening next. They don't want to be asking themselves, who are we waiting for?

What's the next step? How long should I expect to wait? When should I expect an update? Most firms answer those questions once somebody asks them. But that's putting effort on the client's plate.

You can very easily eliminate these issues by simply providing the updates proactively. And that's not a hard thing to do. Again, most of this can be automated with little updates like those we just talked about. Hey, here's when you should expect to hear from us again. You know, your return will be processed through our internal review in 5 to seven business days.

Boom. That sets an expectation for the approximate time frame when they should expect an update. And you've eliminated a lot of of friction that that person might be feeling throughout that week. Three, personalization. Instead of saying something like, "We still need your documents." and having that be the entire email or text, saying something like, "Hey, Mike, we're still waiting on your W2 and your brokerage statement.

Once we receive those, we'll move your return to preparation." It's just more personal. It makes the person feel seen. It makes them feel like they're not just another number being kind of rolled through your machine. So, that can go a long way as well. totally different client experience with those two messages, yet they accomplish the same purpose in the long run.

And one is not marketkedly harder to put together than the other. The personalized message is still, you know, simple to throw together. but it creates a much better overall client experience. Yeah. But Rebekah too, like that's the beauty of technology.

Technology can now surmise what's missing based on previous tax returns. and it can automatically do that. And obviously if there's anything else that we you know life changes lifestyle whatever you sold a business etc you know you have to let us know but that is where these personalization can happen at automation you can still have a human in loop review them but it's a completely different experience one is extremely generic right and one feels highly personal and that's why I keep going to automation and everyone's like you know on this bandwagon but in some respects you could have the coldest client experience you ever, you know, you've ever thought of creating. It's like they truly will feel like there's a bunch of bots and at that point they're going to say, "Well, why do I need the human at all? you know, you you want to be relevant." But keep going.

I know I know you love layer 4. I do love layer 4. and this is really important actually. It ties in really well to what you just said actually. So, it's proactive guidance.

You were talking about things like selling a business, buying a business, things of that nature. This is where advisory work really starts. It's not by selling. And we've done a whole podcast on this, but it's really by noticing the changes in someone's life and staying top of mind throughout the year. So, imagine, you know, reaching out to a client and just saying something like, "Hey, we noticed your income is significantly higher than it was last year, or we noticed you recently formed an LLC.

We noticed a large capital gain transaction. we noticed your withholding seems like compared to your projected income." That information is valuable and it's valuable to the client as well as to your team because this is where you can start forming those higherend advisory relationships with people who really need your help and who are going to appreciate the value that your firm can provide. But you have to be offering the proactive guidance and noticing these things about their financial lives. They're not necessarily going to come and tell you even if they should. A lot of times people don't think about it.

So, the more on top of it you are, whether you're using AI to help comb through things, like you just mentioned, Lee, the key here is really using technology to help you create a more personal experience rather than relying on the technology alone to kind of create that cold anti- anti-personal experience, which can happen. So, there is a fine line there, but technology can also assist you in creating a more personalized client layer. And then number five here is predictive relationships. So this is really where we kind of see the tax and accounting profession heading from our standpoint at Accounting Works. Most firms are still reactive.

the client asks, the firm responds, that's kind of the end of the transaction. Whether it's an email, whether it's tax preparation, there's not a lot of predictive or proactive guidance necessarily. Future ready firms are going to reach out first. They're going to identify opportunities first. they're going to guide first.

That is a totally different relationship than a commodity-based professional who's just preparing at 1040 once a year and saying, "See you next March." Like, it's a totally different experience. So, that's really where we kind of see things headed. The five layer dip of of your client client experience and client personalization is all pretty easy to put together when you do it intentionally. none of this is stuff that has to be hard or take a ton of time, but it can completely transform how your clients perceive and interact with your firm, right? So, let's just give an example of how we're tackling some of these items.

So, inside our platform now, we're scraping client data. We're tracking context and we're building basically a story about every single client. So if they're if they've uploaded a let's say we have last year's tax return or we have our financial statements or they've uploaded bank statements whatever that information now is context to help flag or at least AI to flag opportunities and perhaps in a discussion in an inbound message you know someone talks about oh we're really excited we're having twins that could be now a predictive kickoff that we would then proactively say hey let's talk about planning for college savings let's talk about planning, creating future millionaires, let's hit up grandparents, let's hit up fiduciary accounts, whatever, right? So that is what we mean by being predictive. You're able now, no one thinks an accountant is sitting there combing through everyone's client data and going, "Oh, we should do this." I mean, if you're doing highlevel tax planning, you are you actually source that during your tax interview, though.

This is now working 24/7 behind the scenes for you and really monitoring what are these conversations? What are your clients saying? If you have transcripts of the appointments, what what are some things that you may have missed through that 60-minute interview? The transcripts there, AI can comb through it obviously in in seconds and be able to come up with some predictive stuff. So, I think this is really important to understand.

This is where the future is going. This is what AI is really good at and this is where those that are still doubting it and scared of it and they think of it as just like writing an email, this is where the real differentiation is. So I think there's a couple things I wanted to go before we go into kind of how to audit your own client experience. I think there's some more takeaways. So I think a really good one and Rebekah I think you have some clients that are doing this is kind of the standard what to expect this tax season message.

So this is something that can AI can create it. It can be personalized per client, but really setting the journey and like explaining it. It's almost like an itinerary, right? Why is that so important again to a client to experience that and at least know what is going on versus again the uncertainty? And think of this as how many clients have asked you questions that you are like why are they asking me this just because they don't know and they they're not patient enough.

Yeah. So I think it goes back to a lot of what we've been talking about, right? Just setting those expectations, letting people know what's happening, letting people know when it's happening, it creates a sense of calm and a sense of peace of mind surrounding working with your firm that doesn't exist without that itinerary or that kind of, hey, here's our tax season roadmap for clients this year. and basically what this could be is just a document that says kind of something like, hey, from the day we receive your forms, you can expect this amount of time until your return is prepared, this amount of time for it to be reviewed, this amount of time for it to be filed, and just kind of give basic guidelines for how long people should expect between communications, between action items. It's a really helpful way to keep people in the loop about how your firm operates.

And I think it's important to remember, one thing I tell people all the time is that the internet doesn't know what we don't tell it. I say that to clients probably 50 times a week. we have to tell the internet things, right? They don't know that you love fly fishing or that you love pepperoni pizza or that in your spare time you like gardening. The internet doesn't know that unless we put it on your website.

The same kind of principle goes here. The client doesn't know what you don't tell them. So, if you're answering the same question constantly about how long is it from the time we send our documents to the time our return is filed, put it on your tax season itinerary and answer those questions for people right off the bat. And it's not a hard thing to do. And frankly, not only does it improve the client experience, but it makes life easier for your entire staff because they're not fielding the same question 400 times during tax season now because it's in front of every single client from day one.

Yeah, and I'm going to go just kind of continuing on with this. The this podcast is about making every client feel like they're the only one. So, when you bring on a new client, have some sort of welcome sequence for them. If you know what profession they're in or they own a restaurant, in include language about restaurants, right? Start making it personalized.

AI can do this and AI can do this automatically. Okay? create different onboarding paths for different clients. So even if you just do it at the high level, I'm doing one for individuals, I'm doing one for businesses, I'm doing nonprofits, I have an advisory client on board, I have bookkeeping clients, that at least is semi-personalizing, but the beauty of AI, you can make every single one of those onboarding experiences onetoone, right? And that's where AI is really good at summarizing context and giving you ideas.

is I mean even before you talk to a client AI can summarize you know what are the questions I should be asking you might not remember year to year AI can already have that set up before you have that interview these are the things that start making the client feel much more valued okay and if you're using these client specific talking points you know before meetings and they feel like hey they know I am a movie producer for example I'm using language they're going to feel more and more valued they're going to pay a premium for that Okay. you know, and start using you know, when you deliver the tax return, give an AI summary of what's in that tax return in language they can understand. You know, what is the best action? What are some perhaps strategies we should have done or could do next year. Okay, that is really, really solid and it kind of moves things across.

So, and you can even add personal notes on your client profiles. When you do that now and you're using an AI tool, those notes can be incorporated into the outbound messages, right? So, if we know they own, you know, a a vacation house in Montana, they they like fly fishing, they like horseback riding, whatever. These are things now that could be used context to even personalize things even more. So, let's talk about how to make this a practical thing and how you can audit your own experience.

So the first question I would ask in in audit is does every client know what happens next? That's kind of an ongoing theme that we've talked about most firms it's kind of like it's a you know it's a black hole. the client is sitting there going you know are we good? Are we good? Are we good?

And you may know they're good but if they don't know what's happening next again that creates anxiety right. So does every client know where they stand? you know are you communicating? Are you proactively communicating? you know, are we waiting for documents?

Are we waiting for an e signature? You know, there's all kinds of things. And that's what And then that kind of leads into does every client know what you're waiting on? Right? And if you're saying, "Oh, I'm just waiting on missing documents, but you're not telling them what you're you're missing, there's another blockade, right?" No.

Does every client know when they'll hear from you again? That's the whole idea. If you if someone uploads a document or sends you a message, even having an autorely that's personalized to send, "Hey, I did get this. Please allow during busy season, please allow 48 to 72 hours for response, right? You know, and does every client feel like someone is actually watching out for them?

That's where this predictive versus reactive stuff. So, you know, Rebekah, kind of where do you think most firms fail in this audit? And, you know, it kind of comes down to again this whole responsiveness. Who who's the responsiveness hole? Is it the client or is it actually the tax pro?

Yeah, it's hard because a lot of times it is the tax pro. A lot of times it's kind of that lack of proactive communication. So if you answered no to any of the questions that Lee just asked, whether it was the first question or the third question, that is probably where your responsiveness problem is starting in your office. And it's easily fixable. It's something that using a lot of the tips and takes takeaways we've given today, you can easily repair these responsiveness problems and probably see a big difference u moving forward into next tax season.

But clients respond better when they feel connected to you and clients disengage when they feel forgotten or alternatively when they're receiving cold impersonal messaging that makes them feel like they're not a priority. you're just sending a mass email to everyone. That doesn't make anyone feel good or feel valued or feel like you really care if they actually get the documents to you or not. So, I think there's kind of a lot of layers to all of this to why personalization matters. And I think we've hit on a lot of them, but just answering no to any of these is a problem.

these are all things that your clients should know and that you should be able to say yes. every single one of my clients knows where they stand, knows what happens next, knows what I need from them, and knows when they'll hear from me again. That should be no-brainers. Well, I mean, another way to think of is measure client experience by the anxiety that you actually remove, not necessarily how many emails you've sent. So, you know, I would say ask, you know, does this make the client feel more confident?

you know, would this client know what happens next without us calling or without them calling us, right? And going, "Oh, what's, you know, what's next?" You know, where are we making clients guess? where could AI help us notice faster? You know, where could automation make us feel more human, not less? I I keep going back to this race to automation.

And I think you're going to end up with a lot of really cold firms. And I think the big issue here is if that's what happens, your relationship is going to be I think in peril. And if people are listening to this and they're thinking, well, some firms are again what some firms are reactive, some are responsive, some are proactive, and I believe the future is predictive. Okay? And that's a really simple way to think about it.

Not because accountants are changing. I think it's because the technology is making a different level of relationship possible than ever before. You can service clients on a whole another level and not investing in this and not utilizing I think really takes away from your overall client experience and more importantly the financial outcomes your clients are going to see. so let's talk about bookkeeping for a second. So a client receives reports every month.

the reports arrive, the works gets, you know, it gets completed. technically everything is done. But Rebekah, kind of, you know, let's apply to what we've been talking about. How could things change? Yeah.

So, if nobody explains to the client what changed, what matters, what action items they might have, what they could be doing differently to see a better outcome next month or next quarter, what opportunities exist for them. Bookkeeping then eventually just becomes another commodity service. There's no real value added there if you're not providing that proactive or even predictive information to the client. The report isn't the value. The interpretation, the guidance, the confidence and their relationship with you, that's where the value comes into play.

And that's the same thing in the tax world, right? The the tax return itself is not the value. They could get that done anywhere, right? At any commodity firm, any H&R block. The the layer here that's valuable is the confidence.

The feeling that you are looking out for them, the feeling that they have someone in their corner who is making sure that their best interests are taken to heart. That's where value comes into play. And it's not just during tax season. It's throughout the year. That's where advisory happens.

That's where all of these highv value services occur. And we've talked a lot about this on the podcast about how to get into advisory work and things like that. But honestly, a lot of it starts with this proactive predictive service. That's what leads into these better, more valuable relationships for everyone. Yeah.

And we went over this with the CFO project and kind of the you you might have three type of opportunities. And let's just go back to the bookkeeping example. Number one is red alert, medium, and then lowhanging fruit, not as worried about it. But now, if I'm using technology and AI to help me present that income statement for the month, I can now identify and articulate and it can compare previous income statements. It can show trends.

It can show you to the client, hey, this is what's changed. This is these are some action items you should work on the next quarter. These are things we want. We need, you know, your your your data and getting paid has increased five days. That's a warning sign, right?

Cash flow might become a problem here in the future. What steps can we take to get paid quicker? Can we invoice faster? Can we make it easier to get paid? I'm just giving examples, but what happens is AI can surface this.

And this is where again, you're not just delivering an income statement and saying here's your income statement and it is what it is. You're interpreting that that data and you're giving judgment. You're giving solutions. you're giving advice on how to manage this and how to improve things. And I think that's where this whole idea of making your client feel they're your only client really shines through.

So in the old days, here's your income statement, send the invoice, you're done. The new ways, perhaps you now get move these people into some sort of CFO advisory andor you're using AI technology to make a a much better deliverable than you did previously. so if there's one takeaway from today's conversation, it's this. Your task list is not your client experience. Again, what you're doing in the back end, the clients have no no idea, right?

Your workflow board is not your client experience. They're not seeing any of this. Your internal processes are not your client experience. And again, this is where accountants think, right? Clients experience confidence.

Clients experience certainty. Clients experience trust. Those are things they can feel. So if you're not properly communicating it, then their client experience is filled with anxiety, right? And that's what we're trying to kind of get rid of.

So the firms that win over the next decade won't simply just complete work more efficiently using AI, okay? They'll make clients feel more understood. because clients aren't going to remember your workflow tool. They'll remember how easy you made things feel. And I think this is really important.

So a lot of the ideas we discussed today are concepts we're actively thinking about and actually building into our accounting works pro platform and more importantly max our AI tool and I I think this is a really big thing it's not because you need more software we believe technology should run the task list so professionals can deliver the experience so again the technology is automating a lot of things we talk about technology should do those repetitive tasks technology should help you provide more visib ability. Okay, technology should be servicing these opportunities for your clients. And more importantly, technology should be strengthening your relationships, not make them colder. Okay, so accountants can spend more time doing what humans do best. And that's your moat.

Okay, you want to build trust. You want to be able to give advice and you want to create confidence that these financial decisions these clients are making are going to work. Okay? because clients don't hire you for your reminder system and the to-do list, right? They hire you to gain confidence.

and I don't believe the future is going to be in automated relationships. And I think that is the rate. I've seen some clients kind of run that direction. And if they think that is the way the path, then they're they might as well just hand their clients off to an AI agent. I think the human in the loop, the relationship is your mode.

So hopefully this has resonated with you. we're having fun with some of these. I mean, I guess the summer has just started, but we're just getting going on some of the the topics that we're going to talk about. We're going to start talking about how to interconnect systems on our next podcast and actually understanding how AI works when it goes in and starts scanning your data. how a CRM actually should work in the future.

So, those are the topics we're going to be focusing on. again, we're trying to move the needle each podcast, give you a couple more ideas that you can use in your practice right away. so hopefully you'll continue being a listener of the Growthminded Accountant. until next time, have a safe summer and Rebekah, obviously stay safe during all these storms. But again, thank you for being a listener to the Growth Minded Accountant

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