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CAS is providing big opportunities to forward-thinking firms
If you are an accounting firm owner/ partner, you do not want to miss the emerging, growing and profitable opportunities in client accounting services. Before we get to why, let us agree to a description of what CAS is.
The types of services offered under CAS can vary; just for the purposes of this article, let us agree that there are three main categories of CAS offerings:
1. After-the-fact financial statement preparation. Also called "write-up," where the client has already written their checks, issued invoices, and taken cash receipts. A member of the accounting firm's staff enters the data into a general ledger to produce a financial statement.
2. Transaction processing. This is where the accounting firm issues invoices for a client, processes accounts payable, and cuts checks (or processes electronic payments), processes payroll, pays employees, pays payroll taxes and more.
3. Outsourced CFO and/or controller services. This work entails a higher-level CPA/accountant (often a partner) meeting with the client's management on a regular basis to review financial performance and provide input on strategies to improve business. It includes regular, frequent interactions with the client to support financial and business decision-making, in near-real-time with after-the-fact, but certainly not just or only after-the-fact.
The why before the why
Before we get to why firms can't miss out on CAS, we need to know why business owners buy accounting software, even when their core business is not accounting. In the years prior to the internet, obviously accounting software was only desktop software. Businesses used it to run their business processes - to issue checks, to record income, and for some other processes. Business owners predominantly did transaction processing, leaving the financial accounting, and compliance, to professional...