Accounting
Speakers urge emphasis on wellness for both clients and staff at Xerocon
The accounting profession must address the persistent image problem that, increasingly, is making young people hesitant to enter it in the first place, according to Ben Richmond, managing director for North America for small business accounting platform Xero.
Speaking during the company’s annual Xerocon event this week in Nashville, Richmond noted that accountants don’t really deserve the image that much of the public carries about them, but acknowledged the unfortunate strength of this perception nonetheless.
“We need to address this perception challenge that we’re monotone, that we’re dull, that we’re going to be automated out of existence, because that perception is wrong. You don’t deserve it. The trust our small business clients offer us, the jobs we do, means we don’t deserve it. I am proud of my profession,” said Richmond.
He felt the general public was not aware of all the changes the profession has undergone in the last few years, notably its increasingly tech-driven nature as well as the decline of mundane compliance-based tasks in firms in favor of higher value advisory engagements. While he, himself, is “excited about what the profession has become and where it is going,” many others are not because they’re not aware of either.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a high school student who doesn’t know what it looks like inside this crazy room [at the conference] as they think about what they are inspired to study. Are they really thinking accounting sounds exciting?” he said.
Meeting this challenge means embracing the modern accounting practice and all the ways the profession has evolved over the years. A key part of this is truly defining one’s value as an advisor, capitalizing on the trust clients give to their accountants, something that had been difficult before as professionals were often burdened with “the compliance workload or the never-ending tax season.”
With technology automating many routine tasks today, much more focus can be spent on what he said was the real reason why people hire accountants: peace of mind and wellbeing for clients. He talked about helping his sister find an advisor for her business. They talked to two others before settling on a third, not because of their technical acumen but because they were the ones who truly took time to understand not just her business but herself as a person, including both her aspirations and anxieties. By creating this connection, he said, she let herself be vulnerable, which allowed the advisor to see not just the numbers but the reasoning behind it. More practitioners would benefit from such an approach, he said.
“Too many firms tell me still they’re just number crunchers. But you are a key lever to supporting your client’s wellbeing. You probably don’t wake up and think I’m the supporter of mental health for my small business clients, but think about the impact when you help them understand where they’re going. When clients know they’re talking to someone who relates, who speaks their language, that will make it easier to work with them and make them open and trusting about their fears and their concerns,” he said.
He said emotional intelligence is highly underrated in the profession, but it’s vital if one wants to run a successful firm. There is no amount of technology, he said, that can replace it. Instead, let emotional intelligence be your differentiator, your competitive advantage in order to deepen client relationships.
Demonstrating this kind of commitment is especially important in light of the profession’s persistent talent shortage. Speaking at another panel later in the day, Jeff Phillips, co-founder of recruiting company AccountingFly, noted that the unemployment rate for accountants and auditors in the US is just 1.8%, much lower than the
“So, what does this tell us? Everyone who wants a job has a job. There isn’t a pocket of people where you can just post a job and find them. So what can you do? You have to compete for talent and you have to go out there,” he said.
Beyond higher pay and more support for remote work, however, Phillips noted that there is also the matter of addressing the profession’s culture. While the idea that accounting is monotonous repetitive work with no higher purpose is largely a matter of perception, it is all too true that many firms promote a punishing work schedule with little work life balance or mental health support, at least in North America.
“We work in a profession of very hard workers who are spending so much time at work, and there isn’t much time for physical or mental health and taking care of themselves. I have a friend who owned a firm who, last year, he did not want to tell his clients he was taking vacation because he was worried about how they would feel about him being off. I thought, you’re probably not going to be really on vacation, you’ll hate your vacation with that attitude. That is a problem that needs to be addressed,” he said.
Shayne Dueck, national leader of accounting and bookkeeping services with Canadian firm MNP raised a similar point, noting that while much is said about work life balance today, it is undermined by a certain pride leaders have in working such a schedule, an attitude which then trickles down to the staff.
“The badge of honor is how many hours did I work and how much can I pack into a week or a season. That needs to be outright questioned. … Sometimes it’s about calling it out. I don’t want that job. Who wants that job? We have people leaving the profession because they are overworked and burnt out. We have people not wanting to go into the profession because that’s what they hear,” he said, urging accountants to not be afraid to call out this attitude and provide a better example. “You can model that you can be successful, you can have balance, you can have mental health.”
Kayur Patel, a PwC tax partner and another panelist, said it is largely about taking the same advice they give to their clients all the time.
“For anyone who has had clients like a family business, you’ve probably been in a situation where you advise the client they’re doing alright and they can take the foot off the gas and spend more time with family. But as an industry we don’t do that ourselves. I think we should take some of our own advice in how we run our own practice because sometimes we know what the right answer is for our clients, but we’re not doing it ourselves,” he said.
One example to look towards might be accountants in Australia. Heather Smith, the head of Australian firm Anise Consulting, noted that the work culture is quite different not just in accounting firms but the entire country. Saying Australians are “lifestyle first people” she pointed out that workers in general get four to five weeks holiday every year, plus 10-13 public holidays annually, and a standard 37.5 hour work week. On top of that, Australia allows up to 10% of an accountant’s continuing professional education be about mental health awareness, giving credibility to the topic.
“Australians aren’t perfect, but we are having the conversation, we are actively in communities looking out for each other,” she said.
When she critiqued a UK accounting body she was a member of for only talking the talk about mental health, she noted that they proceeded to roll out an educational platform on the topic as well as put on more events and activities to support the profession; she noted that mental health and wellness doesn’t have to be just rest and relaxation but also nutrition and spirituality and social connectivity that lets people feel stimulated.
Emma Reid, a partner in the UK’s Cotton Group, raised a similar point, noting that it’s okay to take an expansive view on wellness. What is important is not to make some perfunctory measure and call it a day but, rather, find what actually works for people. She noted that, at her own firm, there was little response to things like mental health apps or gym memberships. While certain firms might be tempted to call it a day regardless, her own firm continued experimenting to find something people would actually respond to, which ultimately was fun activities they can take part in.
“It’s finding those things that actually make a difference versus offering something just because it looks good,” she said.
President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican party clarified one aspect of the uncertainty surrounding taxes with a resounding victory in the election.
That means that the many expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 — which Trump signed into law in his first term — are much more likely to remain in force after their potential sunset date at the end of next year. Financial advisors and tax professionals can act without worrying that the rules will shift underneath them to favor much higher income duties.
However, the result also presents Trump and incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana with a series of thorny tax policy questions that have tricky, time-sensitive implications, according to Anna Taylor,
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Considering the fact that
“They’re going to have to pick their budget number on the front end,” Taylor said. “They’re going to have to pick that number and put it in the budget resolution, and then they’ll kind of back into their policy so that their policies will fit within their budget constraints. And once you get into that process, you can do a lot in the tax base, but there are still limits. I mean, you can’t do anything that affects the Social Security program. So they won’t be able to do the president’s proposal on getting rid of taxes on Social Security benefits.”
Individual House GOP members will exercise their strength in the negotiations as well, and the current limit on
The president-elect and his Congressional allies will have to find the balance amid the “real tension” between members from New York and California and those from low-tax states such as Florida or Texas who will view any increases to the limit as “too much of a giveaway for the wealthy New Yorkers and Californians,” he said.
“You will need almost perfect unity — more so in the House than the Senate,” Traub said. “This really gives a lot of power, I think, to any small group of House members who decide that they will lie down on the train tracks to block a bill they don’t like or to enforce the inclusion of a provision that they really want. I think the place we’ll watch the most closely at the get-go is over the SALT cap.”
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Estimates of
The Treasury Department could “use their extraordinary measures to get them through a few more months before they actually have to deal with the limit,” she said.
“But they’re going to have to make a decision,” Taylor continued. “Are they going to try to do the debt limit first, maybe roll it into some sort of appropriations deal early in the year? Or are they going to try to do the debt limit with taxes, and then that’s going to really force them to move really quickly on taxes? So, I don’t know. I don’t know that they have an answer to that yet. I’ll be really interested to see what they say in terms of how they’re going to move that limit, because they’re going to have to do that at some point — rather soon, too.”
Looking further into the future at the end of next year with
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Both parties have used reconciliation in the wake of the last two presidential elections. A continuing resolution-style patch on a temporary basis would have been more likely with divided government, he said.
“Had that been what the voters called for last Tuesday, I think that the odds of a short-term extension into 2025 would have been a lot higher,” Traub said. “I don’t think that anybody in the GOP majority right now is thinking about a short-term extension. They are thinking about, ‘We have an unusual ability now to use reconciliation to affect major policy changes.'”
The deal will grow Aprio’s geographic footprint while enabling it to expand into new local markets and industries. Financial terms were not disclosed. Aprio ranked No. 25 on Accounting Today’s 2024 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $420.79 million in annual revenue, 210 partners and 1,851 professionals. The deal will add five partners and 31 professionals to Aprio.
In July,
KKB has been operating for six decades offering accounting, tax, and business advisory services to industries including construction, real estate, professional services, retail, and manufacturing. “There is tremendous synergy between Aprio and KKB, which enables us to further elevate our tax, accounting and advisory capabilities and deepen our roots across California,” said Aprio CEO Richard Kopelman in a statement. “Continuing to build out our presence across the West Coast is an important part of our growth strategy and KKB is the right partner to launch our first location in Southern California. Together, we will bring even more robust insights, perspectives and solutions to our clients to help them propel forward.”
The Woodland Hills office will become Aprio’s third in California, in addition to its locations further north in San Francisco and Walnut Creek. Joe Tarasco of Accountants Advisory served as the advisor to Aprio on the transaction.
“We are thrilled to become part of Aprio’s vision for the future,” said KKB managing partner Carisa Ferrer in a statement. “Over the past 60 years, KKB has grown from the ground up to suit the unique and complex challenges of our clients. As we move forward with our combined knowledge, we will accelerate our ability to leverage innovative talent, business processes, cutting-edge technologies, and advanced solutions to help our clients with even greater precision and care.”
Aprio has completed over 20 mergers and acquisitions since 2017, adding
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Donald Trump’s plan to end income tax on tips would have to be paid for, injecting a note of caution into one of the president-elect’s key campaign pledges.
“This is one of the promises that he wants to deliver on,” Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “We’re going to try to make that happen in the Congress. You’ve got to do the math.”
Johnson paired his comment with pledges to swiftly advance Trump’s economic agenda once the newly elected Congress is in place with Republican majorities in the House and Senate. The former president rolled out a series of tax-cut proposals during his successful bid to return to the White House, including rescinding taxes on overtime, Social Security checks and tips.
Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg
“You have got to make sure that these new savings for the American people can be paid for and make sure the economy is a pro-growth economy,” said Johnson, who was among
Congress faces a tax marathon next year as many of the provisions from the Republicans’ 2017 tax bill expire at the end of 2025. Trump’s declared goal is to extend all of the personal income tax cuts and further reduce the corporate tax rate.
A more immediate challenge may be ahead as Trump seeks to install loyalists as cabinet members for his second term starting in January, including former Representative Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services and former Representative Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence.
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which he has denied. RFK Jr. is a vaccine skeptic and has endorsed misleading
Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s son who has been a key player in the cabinet picks, said he expects many of the choices will face pushback.
“Some of them are going to be controversial,” Trump Jr. said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “They’re controversial because they’ll actually get things done.”
‘Because of my father’
Trump Jr. suggested the transition team has options if any candidate fails to pass Senate muster.
“We’re showing him lists of 10 or 12 people for every position,” he said. “So we do have backup plans, but I think we’re obviously going with the strongest candidates first.”
Trump Jr. said incoming Senate Majority leader John Thune owes his post to the president-elect.
“I think we have control of the Senate because of my father,” he said. “John Thune’s able to be the majority leader because of my father, because he got a bunch of other people over the line.”
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