The marketplace is changing so rapidly lately, that it is really easy to be left behind and not even know it. In my own experience, I have had a tax practice for almost 30 years. I have a ton of education (a masters degree), years of experience, have been a CPA for almost 40 years, but when I came up for air when my daughter left for college, I felt like I was emerging from a cave I did not even realize I was in. The industry had left me behind and I was flabbergasted, frustrated, excited, overwhelmed and mostly motivated to jump in and work with all the new stuff I discovered.
I started off realizing that my practice as it was running, was simply not what I wanted it to be. I had been complacent for years, it had run itself and made decent money, but I suddenly realized it did not bring me joy. So I signed up for an industry conference and man was the light shown in my eyes: glaring, strong, blinding. There had been so many changes and improvements in my industry that I had been completely unaware of. Accounting software had dramatically changed, technologies had been designed to solve just about every possible problem. Accounting firms were using these technologies to offer a really high level product to their business clients and used the byproduct of being able to solve client accounting issues to sell more value based services which these businesses really needed to propel forward and achieve success much more rapidly.
It was so exciting! I had so much to learn and I could see that my practice could be redesigned to offer a service I was really good at, truly enjoyed and get back to loving what I do.
This problem of being complacent, not knowing advancements in technologies, processes, mobility: not changing your approach to the operational areas of your business, or maybe not realizing that marketing, reaching your customers has completely changed is probably common place in all industries and for all business, small and large.
If you are not working with a qualified, progressive, experienced and current accountant, then you have probably been left behind. More than likely there are solutions to problems, daily frustrations, repetitive tasks, workflow management, communication, etc. that you could be taking advantage of and saving tons of time and money in the process. If you accountant has not suggested at least a few technology based solutions like Slack, Zapier, Asana/Trello/Karbon, Sharefile, TSheets, HubDoc/Receipt Bank, HubSpot, I could go on and on….then you are not even close to using what is available to allow you to spend time, energy, money on jump starting the success and potential of your business.
Do your research: See what conferences you can attend for your industry, google the top apps for your industry, search for an accounting firm that indicates that are ahead of the game and ready to do so much more than enter transactions into your accounting registers. It is a whole new world and you are missing out if you have not come out of your cave in awhile to see what is new and improved.
