How to steer away from the operational rut and integrate CAS into your offerings

Modern-day accounting firm owners have evolved. They are more aware,  want to do more, and utilize the right tools and technology to leverage their capabilities and make the most of them. However, a quiet frustration is building among firm owners now: they are stuck in the everyday operational to-dos and compliance work. And they know if they’ll  play the long game, this is not a solution.

Shifting to Client Advisory Services (CAS) seems more difficult than ever, making you feel stuck. 

CAS practices have reported a median growth rate of 16%, and firms are optimistic about the opportunities that keep opening up in the field. In a survey by AICPA, 72% of all respondents and 81% of the top performing firms have expressed confidence that their pipeline has scope for continued growth in CAS. 

Despite the growing opportunities and positivity among firm owners, why do some owners fail to move forward? Is it because your teams are drawing in recurring tasks and you can barely make it through the busy season? Or you are so busy cleaning up the books you hardly have time to think, let alone renovate or strategize? 

If you think you are “not motivated” or you are “not going out of your comfort zone enough”, here’s the thing – it is not a “YOU” problem. You can fix the challenges and reap the benefits of CAS. Let’s understand how.

CAS is not just another service – it is a shift in the mindset

Firms aren’t struggling to understand what CAS is. They know it is about providing proactive insights, real-time financial guidance, and strategic decision-making that makes clients’ lives easy and sets them up for success. The struggle, however, lies in execution. 

Here’s a typical scenario – you want to introduce CAS, but end up spending more than half of your time in bookkeeping, cleanups, reconciliation, payroll processing. Basically just ensuring that your checklist for the day is complete.

CAS requires you to let go of the operational burden. It requires you to operate from a higher vantage point. There needs to be room for advisory conversations, thinking of clients as more than the check at the end of the month, as someone who needs your help. And this requires you to shift your mindset.

So where do you start?

The first step, here, is to clear the operational backlog. The harsh truth? You can’t build an advisory pipeline on an operationally broken framework. If you (in the case of a solopreneur) or your internal team (in the case of an accounting or CPA firm) is at full capacity, adding more work to the plate will only make things worse.

What you need is to create a structure that clears the runway. What you might be looking at is offshoring. The way you should treat this is that your in-house team needs time and focus. Offshoring gives you both.

What are the tasks that you can offshore?

If you are offshoring for the first time, it might be difficult for you to let go. You might feel overwhelmed with the thought of giving someone else control of your business. But that is far from the truth. Your offshore teams have as much access as you give them. Your offshore team is not a threat; they are an extension of your team.

Here’s what firms are offshoring to create room for CAS: 

• Bookkeeping & reconciliations
  

• Cleanups & catchups
  

• Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable management
  

• Payroll processing
  

• Management reporting prep
  

• CAS documentation and templates

These tasks are not advisory – they help deliver data and consistency that creates the foundation for CAS. With a reliable offshore team, you can ensure that your operations are constantly running smoothly, so you can focus on high-value conversations without delays and distractions. 

How to leverage offshoring to strengthen your CAS practice?

• Audit Your Current Workload:
  
  The first step to adopting a new strategy is acknowledging that you need help. And that begins when you assess the current workload. When you list out all the tasks you have on your plate, you can get answers to questions like,

• Which of these are repetitive but critical?
• Which of these needs to be kept in-house?

          Interestingly, you will find that about 40-60% of your work can be offshored without impacting your client experience. 

• Pilot offshoring for recurring tasks:

Start small, especially if you are offshoring for the first time. You can start by hiring just one resource for handling cleanups and reconciliations. Monitor quality, draft SOPs, make changes in processes to make it as seamless as possible. It is not necessary to start CAS before offshoring. You need to make space for it.

• Train your in-house team: 

As capacity opens up, make sure your in-house team is continuously involved in learning and development. Some of the common areas that teams can be upskilled in include advisory communication, storytelling with numbers, client interviewing, and goal setting.

If you want to build a team of ace advisors, remember that it can never happen overnight. But if they are no longer in survival mode, chances are that they will step up. 

• Design and price Your CAS packages

No matter what you are told, you do not need over-customizations, especially if you are at the initial stage of your offering. Standardize your offerings – forecasting, dashboards, KPI reviews, and more. Seek support from your offshore team when it comes to prep work so you can focus on strategizing it.

• Build a feedback mechanism

Your early CAS clients are your learning bed. This is the time when you experiment with different clients to understand what they like, what they want, what the gaps and challenges are, and which areas you can tap into. The goal is to refine, test, and repeat. 

Today, clients look at their accounting firms for scalable solutions. But you cannot do so if you are constantly firefighting on your own. CAS is not just about providing another service; it is about making a shift in how you run your firm. Offshoring makes that shift easy. It is a business strategy that aims at removing the weight of operational work by giving your team the clarity needed to operate like true advisors. If CAS is in your goal for 2025, it is time to stop trying to add more chaos into your existing systems. Instead, re-engineer your delivery model with the right support and build CAS into the core of your firm’s future.

Need to offload your operational tasks? Book a free consultation: https://finsmartaccounting.com/free-consultation/