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Boomer’s Blueprint: Transformation: Shared vision or shared services?

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Professional service firms can succeed financially as either “shared services” or “shared vision” firms, although shared service firms have limitations. Your question may be, “What is the difference?”

One of the biggest differences is the ability to sustain success and stay future-ready, especially in today’s disruptive environment. Developing a shared vision (exponential future) is not that difficult, but many firms fail to take the time to define what they want to be, do, have, create and experience in the future. Many choose to avoid conflict or disagreement, which often results in conflict and talent leaving the firm. It is more productive to define your vision and build your team, rather than build your team and then define your vision.

In either case, firms are best served through visioning and strategic planning. We recommend looking at a five-year window for visioning and one to two years for strategic planning, with accountability at all levels. Conducting an honest assessment of your firm is the first step that should be taken.

Next, develop a strategic plan. Shared services firms can grow and prosper financially, while shared vision firms can provide more than just financial results. Shared vision firms can also provide exponential growth as well as a differentiating culture where individuals are rewarded for their significance in support of the firm’s strategic objectives. Shared vision provides direction, growth and integration with personal goals and a differentiating culture.

The following questions will assist you in determining where your firm is today. Most shared services firms are limited to incremental improvement and growth, while shared vision firms can achieve firm improvement, exponential growth, and a differentiating culture. This requires leadership, talent, technology and processes with a growth strategy, resulting in a differentiating culture.

1. Has your firm completed a visioning session? (What you want to be, do, create, have and experience.)
2. Does your firm have a strategic plan with buy-in from the owners and team members?
3. Does your firm have a technology roadmap that integrates with the firm’s strategic plan?
4. Is your firm managed by a CEO and a professional management team?
5. Are owners compensated for objectives other than financial (charge hours and book of business), such as firm and office management?
6. Are they compensated for development of talent and other owners?
7. Are they compensated for the management of talent and other owners?
8. Are they compensated for client development and satisfaction?
9. Are they compensated for process improvement and innovation?
10. Does your firm have succession and retirement plans in place?
11. Does your firm view technology as a strategic asset (the accelerator)?
12. Does your firm have written standards, policies and procedures?

If you said “Yes,” to 10 or more questions, you’re well on your way to a shared vision firm. If you said “Yes” to six to nine of them, you are in transition. And if you said “Yes” to five or fewer of the questions, you are a shared services firm.

While the benefits of being a shared vision firm are great and the dangers associated with a shared services firm are significant, both can have financial success. The problem with shared services firms is they tend to be about the owners, rather than the firm. It is difficult to sustain growth — especially exponential growth — in a shared services firm. Lack of succession and continuity is also a risk of a shared services firm.

It requires planning, processes, and the right people to be a shared vision firm. The firm must come first to sustain success and be future-ready (remain relevant). Once you have determined where you are today and where you want to be in three years, you can then begin implementing the appropriate strategies.

The accompanying table shows some of the differences between the two types of firms. There are multiple levels, and many firms are striving to transform. Incremental change is not enough.

You can and should transform your firm; however, it requires great leadership, planning, technology, processes and talent. As Jim Collins says, get the right people in the right seats on the firm bus. These people will have skills other than accounting, e.g. project management, technology, data analytics, marketing and sales.

Think — plan — grow!

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Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

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Accounting

Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

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President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

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Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

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