Client Advisory Services: What Top Accounting Firms Offer

Accounting firms that offer client advisory services (CAS) transform their practices from number-crunching tax return preparation and bookkeeping centers to hubs for high-value professional guidance. Many different types of CAS exist, so accountants and tax professionals have ample opportunities to expand on the ways they serve their clientele.

The Benefits of Client Advisory Services

CAS are mutually advantageous for accounting firms and their clients. If you’re on the fence about whether or not they’ll be worth adding to your practice, consider the significant benefits to you and your clients.

Client advisory services help accounting firms by:

• Strengthening client relationships – Providing CAS establishes your firm as a strategic partner who can help your clients with a full range of needs. With the convenience of having one reliable source to turn to, clients are impelled to engage with you for multiple services and become more loyal and reliant on your expertise and capabilities.
• Increasing profitability – By integrating value-added services that naturally fit into your existing infrastructure and areas of expertise, you can generate more income while minimizing costs. The additional revenue from most CAS comes without incurring substantial additional overhead expenses.
• Improving your financial stability – While tax time is an accounting firm’s high-income season, client advisory services provide a more constant cash flow. That builds a stronger bottom line month to month and quarter to quarter.
• Giving you a competitive edge – Potential clients have many accounting firms to choose from. When you offer CAS, you position your business to stand out from your competition and attract new customers. It’s also easier to retain existing clients because the more knowledgeable and versatile your firm, the more credible and indispensable it becomes to business owners who want a resource that can assist them with their varied needs.

Client advisory services help clients by:

• Providing a deeper understanding about the health of their business – Your advisory services can provide your clients with critical insights about what products and services are most profitable for them, which areas of the company have operational inefficiencies, whether they’re using resources effectively, and more. Armed with unbiased, factual information, they can more quickly assess and address problems that are hurting their cash flow and profitability.
• Enabling them to plan proactively – When your firm offers advisory services, your clients can count on you for the business intel they need to pursue their short- and long-term goals. Whether they have their sights set on expanding into a new market, launching a new product line, bringing on new hires, franchising, or selling their company, your expertise and guidance will help them evaluate risks and opportunities and map out a plan for moving forward.
• Providing convenience and cost savings – Your clients will avoid the hassle and wasted time of bouncing back and forth from one firm to another for services. Chances are, it’s not only annoying but also expensive to engage multiple professional services providers.
• Delivering peace of mind – With your expertise close at hand, your clients can feel confident in their business decisions. Because they have vetted their ideas and opportunities with someone who thoroughly understands their company’s financial strengths and weaknesses, they can zero in on the most

Client Advisory Services Accounting Firms Offer

Accounting firms can offer a wide variety of business advisory services into their practices, which can cover financial-focused value-added services to business formation and compliance.

Tax Planning

• Description – Developing strategies to help businesses maximize their financial outcomes by minimizing their tax liability while maintaining compliance with all federal, state, and local tax laws.
• Client benefits – Helps companies increase their after-tax income, decrease business owners’ personal tax obligations, and reduce the risks of interest and penalties
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Generally, a certified public accountant (CPA) or chartered accountant (CA) designation is preferred, but usually no specialized credentials or licensing are required.

Budgeting

• Description – Preparing financial plans to help companies estimate their future income and expenses; involves setting reasonable goals, tracking performance, and identifying variances between budget and actual results.
• Client benefits – Sets realistic expectations and financial targets; enables better resource allocation and cost control.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Generally, a certified public accountant (CPA) or chartered accountant (CA) designation is preferred, but usually no specialized credentials or licensing are required.

Cash Flow Forecasting

• Description – Reviewing a company’s historical financial data and business cycles to predict future cash inflows and outflows and assess if the business has the liquidity to consistently cover its financial obligations.
• Client benefits – Improves decision-making to avoid cash shortages; makes it easier to plan for investments in staffing, equipment, property, and other assets.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Generally, a certified public accountant (CPA) or chartered accountant (CA) designation is preferred, but usually no specific legal credentials or licensing are required.

Key Performance Indicator Reporting

• Description – Providing and tracking tailored metrics (KPIs)—based on what matters most for a company to succeed—to evaluate business performance.
• Client benefits – Enables a business to identify strengths and weaknesses within its operations, allows for informed decision-making to drive changes that improve performance, and enables faster response to industry and market trends.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Generally, a certified public accountant (CPA) or chartered accountant (CA) designation is preferred, but usually no specific legal credentials or licensing are required.

Business Valuations

• Description – Appraising the value of a company for acquiring loans or funds from investors and for sales, mergers, acquisitions, or legal purposes.
• Client benefits – Helps meet the requirements for securing funding or financing to grow a company; provides information business owners can use when negotiating a sale, merger, or acquisition; allows for more informed estate planning and succession; provides court-required information for legal proceedings (e.g., bankruptcy, divorce, shareholder or partner disputes, damage lawsuits, etc.)
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV), Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA), or Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) may be required.

Wealth Management

• Description – Advising business owners on financial strategies to grow and protect assets and educating them on viable options for investments, retirement planning, and estate planning.
• Client benefits – Reduces financial risks and helps them make decisions that can lead to a more financially secure future; keeps them informed about investment opportunities and threats, so they can adjust their portfolios to maximize financial health.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Financial advisor licensing—such as Registered Investment Advisor (RIA)—is required. Other potential requirements include Series 7/65 certifications. CPAs with a Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) designation qualify to provide wealth management services.

Financial Software Training

• Description – Assisting clients learn how to use accounting and payroll software platforms (e.g., QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Gusto, Patriot, ADP, etc.)
• Client benefits – Empowers them to reduce costs by handling some bookkeeping, payroll, and reporting tasks independently; improves awareness of their financial performance, enabling them to identify and resolve revenue gaps and rampant costs.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – Generally, no specific credentialing is required, but joining a software platform’s partner program and achieving their certifications can be helpful to build in-depth knowledge and credibility.

Business Formation and Compliance Filings

• Description – Completing federal, state, and local forms and applications on behalf of clients for starting their businesses and keeping them compliant.
• Client benefits – Saves business owners time, provides peace of mind that filings are completed accurately and on time; the consultative element to those services better enables business owners to select the right business entity for their companies and identify when it might be advantageous from a tax perspective to change from one business structure to another.
• Credentials and certifications typically required – No laws exist that require an attorney to complete and submit federal, state, and local business formation and compliance forms—nor are there specific credentials an individual or firm needs. Accounting and tax professionals may perform those services on behalf of their clients. While the legal aspects of choosing an entity type fall in the wheelhouse of an attorney, accounting professionals (provided they have the necessary licensing and credentials) may advise entrepreneurs on the most beneficial entity based on potential tax outcomes and other financial implications.

Here’s a list of various types of formation and compliance filings that can be prepared and submitted on behalf of clients:

• Incorporation and LLC filings – Filings that legally register a business entity as a domestic entity in a state (e.g., Articles of Incorporation and Articles of Organization).
• Non-Profit (501c3) filings – Handling forms to obtain tax-exempt status.
• DBAs or fictitious business names – State and county filings that authorize a business entity to use a name other than its legally registered name.
• State sales tax registrations and reseller permits – Setting up a company to collect and remit sales tax to the state where it’s transacting business.
• State payroll tax registrations – Establishes the necessary payroll-related accounts for state income tax withholdings and state unemployment insurance.
• Business license research and filings – Identifying the required licenses and permits a client needs from the federal government, state, and local municipality and helping them apply for them.
• Foreign qualification filings – Authorization for a Corporation or LLC to conduct business in states beyond its home state where it’s registered as a domestic entity.
• Annual compliance monitoring and filings – Tracking and completing ongoing filing requirements (such as annual reports and business permit renewals) to ensure a company meets the federal, state, and local legal requirements to continue to conduct business.
• Amendments – Notifying the state of any significant entity changes (such as a new principal business address; name change; and adding or removing members, managers, or officers) to keep the state’s records of a business’s vital information current.
• Name checks and reservations – Verifying if a desired business name is available (and completing a reservation form if a business owner isn’t immediately ready to launch their company).
• Certificates of Good Standing – Securing official documentation from the state that a business entity is active and has stayed current with its ongoing compliance requirements (e.g., filing annual reports, reporting and paying taxes, etc.).
• Dissolutions and withdrawals – Filing the necessary state forms for dissolving a domestic business entity or withdrawing an entity’s foreign qualification.
• Conversions – Completing the necessary paperwork to change a company from its current business entity to another business structure.
• Reinstatements – Helping entities restore good standing with the state, returning them to active status so that they may legally conduct business.
• EIN applications (Tax ID Form SS-4) – Obtaining an Employer Identification Number for the client.
• S Corporation tax election (Form 2553) – Getting authorization from the IRS for the client’s LLC or C Corporation to be taxed as an S Corporation.
• C Corporation tax election (Form 8832) – Getting authorization from the IRS for a client’s LLC to be taxed as a C Corporation.
• Registered agent services – Designating a registered agent to receive service of process and other official notifications for the client. All registered business entities are required to have a registered agent in their state of formation and in any state where they are foreign qualified.
• IRS notifications and change letters – Preparing the required communications to notify the IRS about entity updates (such as a change in the entity’s responsible party, name, address, business structure, or state of registration) to ensure proper tax classification and confirm tax filing information is sent to the correct individual and address.

Offer CAS Without Adding Costly Overhead Expenses

Because many client advisory services are a natural fit with accountants’ education, credentials, training, and existing offerings, they can likely be easily transitioned into a firm’s workflows. Firm owners and managers should carefully assess their team’s strengths and existing workload to identify which staff members have the necessary knowledge, skills, and capacity to provide CAS successfully.

An accounting firm can integrate formation and compliance filings into its service menu in one of three ways:

1. Seek a resale partner program that enables a firm to resell (and brand as its own) an online filings company’s services. The firm receives a wholesale rate for the provider’s services and can then charge whatever rates it chooses to collect from its clients.
2. Seek a referral partner program that gives the firm commissions for referring business to them.
3. Research all relevant federal, state, and local forms and requirements and set up an infrastructure for fulfilling orders.

The first two options minimize the amount of effort and cost associated with introducing new services to a firm’s offering. Ideally, look for a partner program provider that assigns a dedicated account manager to help your firm with questions and issues, offers comprehensive training resources to educate your staff, provides turn-key marketing materials to help you promote your services, and has a user-friendly portal that centralizes and simplifies all ordering and monitoring activities.

The CorpNet Partner Program Is a Win-Win

CorpNet’s Partner Program is here to help your accounting firm boost your revenue by providing high-value formation and compliance filing services to your clients. By assisting clients with some of their most pressing questions, important decisions, and critical tasks, you can transform transactional relationships into collaborative strategic partnerships that grow stronger and expand over time.