Overview
This book is more than a guide to building a sustainable accounting firm; it's an invitation to rediscover why you became an accounting professional. It's a roadmap for stepping off the transactional treadmill and into the transformation economy, where relationships thrive, lives change, and legacies are built. Professions aren't transformed by sweeping mandates or top-down reform decreed by professional bodies. They are remade by bold individuals who dare to reimagine what's possible. As you read this book, I encourage you to embrace the challenge. Be the change you seek for your firm and your profession. Because the future of accounting isn't something to observe-it's something to build. Building a Sustainable Accounting Firm illuminates the path forward. You'll meet some of the pioneers who are blazing the trail of new business models that challenge the fossilized status quo, while leaving behind maps for the curious. Whatever the design, the bold leap into the unknown is yours to create. One day, posterity will thank you. CONTENTS Foreword....................................................................................................... III Introduction: Why I Wrote This Book........................................................ 1 About the Author......................................................................................... 17 My Personal Story........................................................................................ 19 Section 1: Revenue....................................................................................... 31 Section 1.1 Changing the Revenue Model for Accounting Firms........ 33 Section 1.2 How Modern Accounting Firms Set Prices........................ 51 Section 1.3 Systematize Your Marketing .............................................. 59 Section 2: Staffing ........................................................................................ 81 Section 2.1 Motivating People and Aligning Compensation with Billing............................................................................................. 83 Section 2.2 What It's Like to Work at a Virtual CFO Firm.................. 89 Section 2.3 Franchise Model: Alternative to the Partnership Model.... 95 Section 2.4 How to Incentivize People Beyond Hours ......................101 Section 2.5 Give Employees Flexibility About How Much, Where and When to Work..................................................................105 Section 2.6 Offshoring.........................................................................111 Section 2.7 Managing Remote Teams.................................................117 Section 3: OpEx .........................................................................................125 Section 3.1 Building and Upgrading Your Tech Stack........................127 Section 3.2 How Niching Simplifies Operations................................145 Section 3.3 New Client Onboarding...................................................155 Section 3.4 Quality Control and Quality Management.....................167 Section 3.5 Marketing as CapEx vs. Operating Expense....................179 Section 4: Profit.................................................................189 Section 4.1 Building Services and Systems So You Can Have a Life..191 Section 4.2 Measuring Capacity: Bigger Isn't Necessarily Better.........205 Section 4.3 How to Maximize the Value of Your Firm.......................209 Section 4.4 Selling Your Firm ..............................................................219 Conclusion................................................................................................... 235
Reviews
""This book is more than a guide to building a sustainable accounting firm; it's an invitation to rediscover why you became an accounting professional. It's a roadmap for stepping off the transactional treadmill and into the transformation economy, where relationships thrive, lives change, and legacies are built."" - Ronald J. Baker, best-selling author, radio show host and co-founder of Threshold ""Blake has used his work experiences inside and outside accounting firms and combined them with hundreds of podcast interviews with successful firm owners to crack the code on real firm transformation. Then, he turned into a playbook for building and running a successful and highly profitable accounting practice. From choosing your billing model to building your team and tech stack to selling your firm, Blake provides a path to creating a successful firm that still allows you to get home at a reasonable time every night--no more killing yourself with 50, 60, or 70-hour work weeks. If I was starting an accounting firm today, I would buy this book first. And if I already had an accounting firm, I would buy this book, too."" - David Leary, Co-host of The Accounting Podcast and recovering QuickBooks evangelist
Author Information
Blake Oliver, CPA, is the founder and CEO of Earmark, an app that offers National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA)-approved continuing professional education (CPE) for listening to your favorite accounting and tax podcasts. Additionally, Blake co-hosts The Accounting Podcast, a Top 25 Business News show on the Apple charts and the most popular podcast for accountants and bookkeepers worldwide. He has been named one of Accounting Today's Top 100 most influential people and recognized as one of CPA Practice Advisor's ""40 Under 40"" in the accounting profession. Blake lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he enjoys hiking in the Sonoran Preserve and playing his cello. Blake has experience working in public accounting, running his own small firm, and leading marketing at technology companies. He built a cloudbased, subscription-based bookkeeping practice and sold it in five years with zero prior experience in public accounting. That's how appealing subscripBUILDING A SUSTAINABLE ACCOUNTING FIRM 18 tion-based pricing and service delivery are for clients. They like it so much that they'll trade your years of experience for a guy with none! Now, imagine what you could do by combining your professional expertise with the best way to run a professional services firm.) After selling his practice, Blake spent years working in multiple SaaS startups, where he learned the best business practices for subscription-based businesses. There's a reason these technology companies are typically valued at 10-20 times their annual revenue (and sometimes more). Now, he is sharing the secrets of these technology companies with you so you can rewire your firm to benefit from recurring revenue generated by productized services and make more money while working less.
