The CPA profession has played a critical role in helping small businesses achieve forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program by leveraging new tools and capabilities. In this session, leaders from CPA.com and fintech company Biz2Credit will share how thousands of firms expanded their advisory services via the CPA Business Funding Portal to provide business relief for clients during economic recovery efforts.  CPA firm owner Andrea Parness  will share how she and her team leveraged the platform to create a successful application and forgiveness process. You'll hear from these experts exactly what steps firms have taken to make fintech a central part of their services for clients through PPP and loan forgiveness. They’ll also share best practices and insights on how your firm can expand into business financing advisory services to deliver greater value to clients beyond PPP.

Most CAS practices begin with offering BPO (business process outsourcing) services. This allows them to streamline procedures that foster collaboration between our staff and the clients, and have access to trust worthy data. Once this level of service is functioning well, it can be challenging to figure out how to make the next step up in value by selling virtual controller and virtual CFO engagements. These virtual advisory services seem more customized, creating the perception it cannot be systematized which prevents scalability. In part 1 of this 2 part session, we will discuss how to differentiate BPO from CFO services for staff and clients, how to develop CFO packages and pricing, and methods for creating a repeatable process for delivering virtual CFO services.

The onboarding process can set the path for a successful relationship and reassure new clients they made the right choice in partnering with your firm. CAS teams are challenged with standardizing and systemizing the process to improve efficiency and profitability while simultaneously making it feel personalized to each client. In this session, we will discuss best practices in client onboarding. Providing a high quality, organized onboarding experience for clients starts the relationship on the right foot and sets your team up for success.

Over the last 2 years, we saw an increased demand and growth of advisory services, yet not every accounting professional is ready to lead with advisory instead of compliance. Many hold back offering high value advisory services over concerns of inadequacy or failure. Those with a growth mindset, welcome opportunities to grow and learn and don’t see failure as a condemnation of themselves, but as a learning opportunity. Our mindset influences our ability to see opportunities, offer a fresh perspective, earn trust, and problem solve, all of which we need to build a new advisory services and bring value to clients. In this session, we will discuss the various types of mindsets and how to intentionally make a shift so we can offer clients the services they need most.

Join this Special Edition AICPA Town Hall, Live from Digital CPA.

The AICPA Town Hall is the profession’s resource for timely and critical information which includes real-time interpretation and analysis, along with a broader discussion on strategies and capabilities to drive long-term success. It is a high-impact news broadcast series that delivers accounting and finance professionals with the latest news, analysis, insights, and practical guidance to help them understand and respond to the most pressing issues facing the profession. Town Hall contributors include practitioners, thought leaders, regulators and lawmakers, and a range of experts from across the profession, government, and business.

In a CAS practice the technology, processes and roles are different than other service lines in the firm. Though technical training can be organized as crossover trainings, the exact skills to be successful in the various roles of a CAS department needs it's own curriculum. In this session we will discuss ways to train your CAS team from entry level to virtual controller and CFOs. Communicating career path options is important for employee engagement and firm growth. This includes developing additional skill sets and knowledge on tools that are key to the productivity and profitability of the services.

Virtual connections will continue to be important even after the pandemic ends. Clients and staff get the experience you intentionally and unintentionally give them. In this session, we will explore how you can apply customer experience design practices to ensure you raise the bar at every client touchpoint (e.g. Disney). It is time to get creative in your methods of building and strengthening relationships with clients and employees in a hybrid, virtual and on-premise, environment

What are the new roles we need in firms? Implementation specialists, onboarding specialists? IT is a different animal in a virtual cloud practice. We need new positions that include technologists that can integrate cloud solutions and train AI databases. The profession needs more financial and data analysts. With the growth of advisory we are looking for professionals with consulting and advisory skills. It is time to write some new job descriptions and expand the skillsets on our teams. In this session, we will discuss the roles and skills needed now and in the future. We will discuss how we will train existing team members and incorporate professionals from other fields of study.

To successfully elevate your CAS practice from BPO services with the occasional virtual CFO offering to one where you lead with the higher-level services, you need more staff participating. Many firms get stuck by not having enough capacity at the partner level to offer virtual CFO. In part 2 of this session, we will discuss how to leverage more of the team to participate in the higher value services, the skills to develop in your team, and ideas for structuring your team to systematize delivering virtual CFO services to clients.

At the 2019 AICPA and CPA.com Executive Roundtable a technology expert pointed out to the executives of 50 top cloud based accounting solutions that AI (artificial intelligence) had the maturity of an 8 year old. But he also noted the exponential rate at which it will grow and mature. Now, nearly 2 years since that observation, the impact of AI in our daily work and personal lives is undeniable. Join this panel to hear about innovations taking place and hear them share their vision for more potential. Are you ready to capitalize on AI? Have you begun to formulate your vision? Consider the Chinese Proverb, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.