Consulting Services

As Michael Gerber points out in his book, The E Myth – Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It, “Most people work IN their business. The secret is NOT to work in it, it’s to work ON it so that you don’t have to work IN it.” Sure, you’ve heard it all before but the truth is, most principals and partners are stuck on a treadmill and they struggle to find time to work on their business. Speak to us today about our consultancy services and let’s get to work ON your business so it is more profitable, valuable and saleable.

Our services to the profession are both broad and deep. They include general consultancy, marketing consultancy, profitability diagnostics and benchmarking. On a more practical level we help accountants develop websites that generate new business, provide a vehicle and equipment finance referral service plus provide advice and assistance to accountants looking to sell their practice, merge, buy fees and identify partnership opportunities.

We find most firms are busy but many of them are just drifting with no real sense of direction. The partners lack a shared vision and in some cases, they are just sharing space, software and personnel. Success for accounting firms comes down to strategically thinking about the future and you can’t run the practice looking in the rear view mirror because the client needs keep changing. The standard tax and accounting services menu is not enough anymore and our consultancy services can help you develop a plan that could involve re-engineering the practice, focusing on more value added services, actively pursuing niche markets or adding additional income streams to the practice.

Our consultancy services are unbiased and independent. We are not influenced by prior events or personalities and we bring a fresh pair of eyes to the table. Our knowledge of the profession, the trends and the tools are all current to help you sit at the cutting edge. Combining our knowledge of the profession and your practice with our expertise and consulting tools will help you achieve more than you imagined possible. We develop strategies that are success driven and provide software, systems and processes to ensure your marketing generates a better return and more referrals. We use a range of tools and techniques to help you increase client fees as well as improve your productivity and profitability. For example, you need to be in constant communication with clients using a cost-effective electronic newsletter (On The Money) to provide business owners with regular, timely advice for trimming costs, increasing revenue and growing their business.

Pat Camm is uniquely qualified to help you build a better practice and his consulting services provide you with the ‘why and what to do’ while our unique tools give you the ‘how to do’. These practical tools are designed to help you streamline your processes, market your practice, open the referral flood gates and deliver consistent and quality advice to your clients. You can read all about these tools under the products tab or download The Essential Product Catalogue for Tax and Accounting Professionals.

When you work with us, you work with a partner committed to your results. We work with firms of all sizes and understand the issues that confront small and medium sized accounting practices. We recognise the need to deliver cost effective strategies and solutions and our approach is personal so you enjoy support, guidance and accessibility. Here at P J Camm & Associates we are committed to “Helping Accountants Succeed.”

Benchmarking

Knowledge is power and if you know how your business is performing you can take control of your results. Have you ever wondered how your practice is performing compared to your colleagues? How do your fees per full time employee compare to other firms? Are your staff costs too high? How does your bottom line compare to practices of a similar size?

Most accountants compare financial results with budgets and historical data, usually last month or last year. But all these comparisons are internal. On the other hand, benchmarking compares your performance with other firms in the profession so you can measure yourself against the best, average and poorer performers.

We can provide you with accurate, timely and informative benchmarking reports allowing you to:

-  See how your business compares against similar size firms  
-  Understand how the rest of the profession works
-  Understand and analyse the ‘Key Performance Indicators’ in your practice

Benchmarking your operating performance over time and then comparing the results against similar firms helps identify key strengths and weaknesses which in turn allows us to develop strategies to improve the operating performance of the practice. You can only measure what you monitor and comparing your KPI’s against prior periods and available industry data is invaluable. Benchmarking allows you to assess where other firms are doing things differently which may help you to improve your own business practices and results.

Our comparative reports are easy to understand and we spend time with you to make sure that you understand the analysis. We work with you to improve your profitability and business value using a combination of value-added consulting services and business intelligence software that lets us produce an action plan to achieve these objectives.

Talk with us today about how we can benchmark your firm and use the data to improve your results because our mission is Helping Accountants Grow and Succeed.