Increasing Hourly Rates of Accountants – I

We all are taught one thing that is EXCELLENCE… Give Your Best… Put 100%.

As a consultant, advisor, accountant, service provider, we have always tried our best to provide the best of what we can to our clients.

Do we get paid commensurately for providing the best what we can?

Over and over, I have got answer to this question in negative from CPAs, consultants, advisors and now virtual CFOs.

There could be one of the three possibilities concerning this.

  1. Fairly paid: It is human psychology to always think what we perceive ‘is the best’, is the best and should be valued very highly. That is not true in most cases. There are many other people on this planet providing similar or even better services to their clients at comparable prices. And believe me, your clients tend to compare you with them. It is not you v/s yourself. It is you v/s many brilliant service providers.

 

This is true for any service profession and not only CPA practice. I have, in my consulting practice, many service industry clients. All of them have the same feeling and accounting profession is not the only one facing this issue.

 

  1. Underpaid: Another possibility is, actually, you are providing really great service to your client if not the best on the planet. And yet, you are underpaid to a great extent for such services.

 

  1. Overpaid: Third possibility is, actually, you think you are underpaid for the kind of services you are providing. However, you are overpaid when compared to what other similar level people are providing. Because, that is what the industry standard is.

 

In all of the above scenarios, you can get paid more than what you are right now.

In my coming posts, I will try to address the above scenarios one by one and explore possible solutions that can be adopted by the CPA firms.

Hint: In profession, it is not necessary to provide the best. However, it is necessary to provide the best perceived value to the clients.

Why accounting firms should hire offshore team members

CPAs ask me why should I hire somebody offshore?

I have been working in offshore industry since last 13 years now. I have interacted with 200+ CPA firm owners. Though every CPA firm should consider hiring somebody offshore, it requires you to make some considerations and then decide.

First and foremost being COST SAVINGS. Let us be honest, all of us compare the costs. And in accounting industry, the cost gap is as high as 2.5X or in some cases 4X for comparable team members. When CPA firms find comparably skilled team members offshore, which otherwise they would have hired onshore, it is all about the mindset.

Yes, it is all about the MINDSET. It is all about getting adjusted to that mindset that I would not be able to see someone sitting in front of me.

There are many advantages (and of course few disadvantages), which you should consider while making a decision of hiring someone offshore. You can book a free consultation call with one of our offshore staffing consultants to see whether offshore staffing fits your requirements.

Altobooks specializes in providing offshore staffing and outsourcing solutions to accounting firms. And we are always eager to help CPAs and accounting firms.