For accounting giants like Deloitte, putting all their eggs in one basket simply won’t suffice. Industry leaders in accounting have branched out to fields like IT management, legal advisory, and consulting — and smaller-scale CPA firms have followed suit.
As the need for research-based financial accounting solutions has arisen, many CPA firms have specifically started offering advisory services to help different practices in navigating and managing the possible financial risks they could be facing.
This movement seen among CPA firms — their branching out to providing accounting advisory services — collectively keep their clients’ firms in the black, and ultimately push the needle forward in and beyond accounting.
Accounting Advisory vs Consulting: Know the Difference
While accounting advisory and consultancy are used interchangeably sometimes, there are key differences between them. Generally, consulting mostly offers immediate solutions for accounting firms, while accounting advisory services are more for long-term decision-making and profitability.
What also makes accounting advisory distinct from consulting is its focus on risk management: accounting advisory provides your firm with protocolised methods and guidance that shield your firm from both anticipated and unseen losses. Accounting advisory services are especially tailored to the needs and goals of your practice, helping your team make better-informed financial decisions (and business decisions in general).
Meanwhile, consulting is focused on the improvement of your firm’s business practices. Accounting consulting involves keeping your firm’s everyday accounting practices efficient, interpreting your firm’s financial data correctly, and providing accurate, research-based advice on crucial areas like regulation compliance or the sustainability of your business model.
Top Financial Accounting Advisory Services from CPA Firms
CPA advisory services can provide firms of all types and scales with a safety net from economic uncertainties, negative market forecasts, and unnecessary or unintended cash bleeding. Below are the top financial accounting advisory services offered by CPA firms.
1. Budgeting
One of the top advisory services offered by CPA firms is budgeting. The allocation of funds within your firm must be practical, strategic, and foolproof. Budgeting requires critical thinking against impulsive company purchases or investments that are not well thought out.
Crucial to their consistent success rates through the years, industry titans like EY and KMPG take their budgeting strategies seriously. Budgeting decisions aren’t a matter of chance — you would need a team with years of industry expertise under their belt to plan and calculate your firm’s budget allotment strategies.
2. Tax Planning
A good accounting advisory firm allows your practice to structure its transactions in a tax-efficient way, prepare your employees for tax-related tasks regardless of season, and overall give your firm a leg up in the constantly changing landscape of taxation.
When you tap an accounting advisory firm for tax-related strategies, they should be able to provide a tax plan that’s best suited to your firm’s needs and goals. Advisory services also teach you the ways (and workarounds) to comply with otherwise complicated tax regulations, helping your firm to avoid tax liabilities.
3. Business Modeling and Planning
4. Financial Reporting
Advisory services offered by CPA firms also include thorough, rational, and precise financial analyses. These financial reports must accurately predict potential outcomes from consistent market trends and research-backed insights from seasoned industry experts.
Good financial reporting allows your firm to assess the feasibility of your practice’s strategies, identify the possible risks involved in your action plan, and optimise your firm’s overall financial performance.
5. Cash Flow Forecasting
While there’s no cash flow crystal ball that your firm can peek into, your firm can still rely on previous trends to make reasonable and realistic financial forecasts. Studying the patterns in your company’s inflows and outflows ultimately keeps it in the black – you prevent overlooked miscalculations, wrong budget allotments, and most importantly, bleeding out money.
6. Cybersecurity
Since accounting advisory services are involved in risk management, they would also likely recommend good cybersecurity practices for your firm, such as audit trails, password security protocols, multifactor authentication — and most importantly, cybersecurity software that’s tailored for accounting.
For cybersecurity solutions, there are certain platforms that most accounting advisory services recommend for CPA firms. These tools ensure industry-grade protection for your firm and your clients’ most sensitive data. Some accounting cybersecurity tools include Practice Protect.
7. Accounting Tech Stack
An unsafe, outdated, and disorganised tech stack negatively impacts your firm’s productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Thankfully, advisory services can guide your practice to build its tech stack that’s streamlined, technologically up-to-date, and most of all, secure.
Whether your firm needs technological assistance with journal entry and tax statement automation, keeping personal information under payroll secure, or end-to-end encrypting its team communications, accounting advisory services can step up to the plate and provide your practice with highly secure, top-quality tech tools.
8. Outsourcing
Finally, there’s also the option of outsourcing accounting advisory services for your practice. CPA firms have been switching to outsourced accounting because of the many benefits it brings, like scalability, cost-effectiveness, and sensitivity to time differences. It can significantly slash costs and increase your firm’s capacity without compromising work quality.
Outsourced accounting advisory services have been proven to work for years, with client testimonials from Australian practices that demonstrate its continuous success — firms like Ashfords Accountants and Advisory and Nexia Sydney, who are affiliated with international accounting firms AGN International and Nexia International, with both practices reaping the benefits of outsourcing their advisory services.
How Financial Accounting Advisory Services Can Benefit Your Firm
Advisory services can give your practice the best possible risk management techniques, especially with sensitive client data, internal systems, and major financial decisions. Accounting advisory services also help make sure you’re not underspending or overspending, build necessary bridges to avoid any legal liabilities like taxation issues, and overall make better strategies that protect and secure your practice in every aspect.
When you tap CPA firms that offer advisory services with a proven track record, you invest in the future of your practice — with its reputation on the line, you must bolster your firm and its good track record to keep the trust of your current clients and attract more leads and prospects as well.
Why You Should Choose Trusted Outsourced Accounting Advisory Services
To know if the advisory services offered to your firm are top-quality, you should factor in uncertainties like site accidents or incoming economic recessions, your choice of company purchases like cybersecurity software or accounting-related software for daily operations, as well as the unique nuances that come with your firm’s scale, brand, and current client pool.
Outsourced accounting advisory services are the best way to go for your practice — as mentioned above, the firms who provide these services consider the current and projected scale of your firm. You’ll be benefitting from the significant cost reduction brought about by lower labour costs and less capacity space occupied by employees. On top of this, you won’t have to worry about time differences, because your outsourced employees will do the adjusting for you.
Access Outsourced Experts in Accounting Advisory Services with TOA Global
TOA Global is your partner when it comes to top-quality accounting advisory services, complete with research-backed financial insights, up-to-date cybersecurity protocols, and most of all, seasoned industry experts trained to be globally competent with accounting advisory tasks such as budgeting, tax planning, and cash flow forecasting, among many others.
Start outsourcing the advisory services that your practice needs. Book a free, no-obligation call with us today.
