By Execupay 

PRESSURE.  

We’re sure that’s something you, as a CPA firm, deal with often.  

After all, it’s competitive out there—for your business, for recruiting and retention, and for innovation. You might even think Billy Joel wrote a song about it called Pressure. He didn’t, but even so you cannot avoid … PRESSURE. 

PRESSURE No. 1: Business  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 1.5 million accountants and auditors in the U.S. in 2023. And, while there are roughly 33 million small businesses in the United States, just 30% use external accountants. Overall, 34% of Americans use an accountant to file their personal taxes.  

Besides the competitive landscape to retain clients and win new business, pressure can also mount to keep up with the workload, stay up to date on tax laws and keep clients happy.  

Unfortunately, a recent Gartner survey found that over half of accountants say they make several errors per week because of capacity constraints.  

In a written statement, Mallory Barg Bulman, senior director of research at Gartner Finance practice, explained: “While capacity issues aren’t new to accounting, demands on accounting staff capacity continue to rise. In the past three years, 73% of accountants report that their workload has increased because of new regulations, and 82% say economic volatility has increased demands for their work.”  

Under PRESSURE? Sure sounds like it. 

Keeping clients long term is obviously the goal, so being able to build a deeper relationship with them by offering additional services can go a long way toward strengthening that bond without adding additional PRESSURE. 

PRESSURE No. 2: Recruiting  

Part of business continuity concerns that accountants face today revolve around recruitment, retention and, ultimately, succession planning.   

Accountants have historically worked long hours, especially during tax season, to help clients get their taxes done correctly and promptly to make IRS deadlines. However, while baby boomers and Gen Xers have become accustomed to working longer hours, the younger generations (Gen Z and millennials) in the workforce tend to be more focused on work-life balance.  

So the ways of yesteryear might not work as well with today’s generation of accounting professionals. 

The pool of candidates is getting smaller, too. In 2021-22 the number of people in the U.S. who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting was 47,000, which was down almost 8% from the previous year. The number of students who earned a master’s degree in accounting was down as well (by 6%) in that timeframe, according to the 2023 Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) trends report, the most recent report available. 

One Wisconsin-based CPA firm tackled that problem head on by prioritizing who they work with. Bruce Berndt, a partner at Berndt CPA, told the Wisconsin State Journal that his firm focuses on clients who they can work with year-round. They also limit Form 1040 business to the companies they already work with. He added that the longest they work in any week is 50 hours, which is more manageable than the 80 hours per week or more many accounting professionals work during peak tax season. 

Additionally, “The current recruiting landscape in the accounting world is highly competitive, and it can be a challenge to find the right people,” said Sam North, a managing principal at Washington-based Sweeney Conrad, in Accounting Today.  

What the future holds is also uncertain for many CPAs. The majority of multiowner accounting firms in the 2020 CPA Firm Succession Planning Survey (membership required to download full report), said they expect to face succession planning challenges in the next decade. The report is released every four years. 

Getting people interested in joining your firm and keeping them there is a good thing. Giving employees the ability to sell additional products, such as payroll services, might give them the opportunity to improve their income without having to deal with additional bandwidth PRESSURES from having to bring on more clients to generate more revenue. 

PRESSURE No. 3: Technology 

As a CPA firm, you have likely heard about all the new tech coming down the pike from artificial intelligence (AI) to virtual assistants, etc., to improve efficiency and productivity for tax-related matters.  

It’s not too surprising to learn that 90% of accountants believe tech will drive future growth in the industry, according to an Intuit study from last year. “In fact,” according to the survey, “86% of respondents agree that technology will play a significant role in the growth and expansion of their practices in the next year.” 

While survey respondents, might have had more conventional CPA solutions on their minds when they answered that question, what if that growth came from an unlikely source instead? Like payroll technology designed to help relieve some of that bottom-line PRESSURE? 

With 50 years of experience in the payroll space, Execupay can help your business grow through full-service payroll functionality that gives you and your employees an opportunity to generate additional revenue without additional PRESSURE.  

Execupay manages the Payroll & HR and Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions for you and supports you and your clients through a full-service option. If you prefer to keep those services in-house, there is a self-service option as well. It’s the same state-of-the-art tech, just a different administrator. Either way, the platform is designed to help your company grow through previously unexplored opportunities that could lead to:   

• New revenue generation  
• New employee retention and recruiting strategies  
• New ways to help and retain your clients 

With white-labeling capability, your clients will have a trusted brand available to them to help them stay in payroll compliance while ensuring their workers are paid accurately and on time. Execupay offers a complete suite of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions to help your clients handle payroll, manage benefits and stay in compliance without any additional PRESSURE on you to handle anything you don’t want to. 

That’s one proven way to handle PRESSURE.