Peeling Back the Curtain on the Vendor/Firm Relationship

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Late spring to early summer is an excellent time to consider what changes you would like to see in your practice. As busy season closes and you have the space to work through upcoming adjustments and advancements, or test new technology tools, working more closely with your technology vendors may be in your future.

Having been on both sides, first leading a Client Advisory Services practice and now having the opportunity to lead an Intuit team, I am privileged to see from both perspectives how technology changes can benefit an accounting practice. As advancements continue, it is increasingly essential for firms to work closely with–I like the term technology consultants–to reach solutions that can ultimately help clients and employees.

One of the most crucial aspects of successful consultant/firm interaction is the shared vision and goals between the two parties. Imagine deciding to train for a marathon, but not telling anyone. It is significantly harder to reach such a massive goal without a support system, and it is especially difficult if that support system does not know your specific goals and how they can help. This is true of the partnership between a tech consultant and a firm. A shared vision and aligned goals can provide the necessary support to help the accounting practice use technology to its fullest potential.

4 ways technology consultants can help you

In the spirit of tackling this metaphorical accounting marathon together, I want to share our vision from a technology advisor perspective. Here are four ways we sincerely want to help you.

1. Every practice is different. Understanding your practice is the ultimate goal.

Understanding your firm, goals, structure, clients, and employees will, in the spirit of Jerry Maguire, help us help you. Generic solutions may be fast but are rarely the best. To help your practice, we want to know your practice. This takes time, back-and-forth, questions, and answers. Our ultimate goal is to understand you better to help you reach your goals.

You know how your team is using technology. You know how you want and need to use technology. You know your clients’ needs. Sharing your knowledge of these pieces with your vendors can help make connections that could be missing.

2. We want to support your growth.

We also want to understand how you want to grow. Some practices want to scale by adding more clients, while others do not want huge rosters, but more depth or breadth of services per client. Others want to add talent to their practice, while some are focused on technology standardization. All are growth strategies and all require different motions and planning.

3. We want to add value to your practice

As you seek technology solutions, make improvements, or begin a difficult change management process, the natural tendency might be to be fearful of the process. Don’t take the hard road! Instead, let your vendors know where you stand, so we can help. Here’s an example: You need to keep stakeholders informed on key parts of a software upgrade process. Ask your consultant to help you provide monthly information to include in your reports. Don’t chase the information on your own. We want to give you the assistance you need to succeed.

4. We want to be a coach

My favorite part of working with firms is seeing the lightbulb moment, where a challenge, whether implementing value pricing, explaining margins to partners who don’t work in CAS, or advocating with risk for a new technology, is solved because we worked through the problem. At Intuit, we have internal team members, consultants, and other firm leaders we connect with our firms to help them tackle their biggest challenges.

Help us understand your practice

Gaining a thorough understanding of your practice is important because we can help you make better business decisions. Here are a few ways you can help us better understand your practice.

Tell us about your clients.

One thing that is true for all accountants, from large to small firms, and CPAs to bookkeepers, is that your clients are your primary focus. Serving your clients well is your North Star. It is also true that clients can present specific needs depending on their lifecycles, industry, and other factors and characteristics. How you serve your clients can also change as you adapt to what they need from you.

If technology consultants understand who your clients are and how you are serving them, they can serve you better and create opportunities for you to accomplish your goals through product development or resource deployment. For example, your construction clients may need the ability to track time on construction sites, but your brick-and-mortar small business clients would find that not beneficial and want something else instead. Vendors can help you tailor solutions for both.

Tell us your firm’s decision-making and/or change management process.

Every firm is different in how they approach technology changes. Share your unique processes so we can support your success in advocacy. If technology changes and decisions need to be considered by multiple people in the firm, let us know if we can provide the information that will make it easier for you to communicate with this team. Let us know if you need specific information on data privacy or cybersecurity compliance to pass on to your internal or outsourced IT professionals. It may take time to get stakeholders involved. We understand and want to help equip you to have the most effective conversations about technology changes.

Bring the vendor in early in your process.

It’s okay to request a meeting with us early in your process. You do not have to have all the details worked out or all your questions formulated. An understanding of the challenges you are addressing will eventually help the vendor keep options off the table that are not the best fit and offer solutions that can be the most beneficial. It may take some time to tailor the best solutions, but hearing the problem early on will give the vendor the needed context to assist you.

Ask for the moon.

One of my regrets as a practice leader was that I didn’t ask for more resourcing, beyond capacity needs, for marketing support, onboarding, coaching, and other areas. Vendors may not be able to accommodate every request, but will often try to provide as many solutions much as possible. If a vendor can say “yes,” everyone wins. But if a firm leader never asks, the vendor will never know how they can assist you further.

Be honest about what you know and what you do not know.

Involving vendors early in your technology change management process will of course, mean there will be pieces of information that are known and those that are unknown. Be candid with your vendor about what you know will be true; maybe this is timing, budget, or the number of employees or clients this change will impact. But also be specific about what you have not completely nailed down. Both are important in ensuring the consultant can help you reach the best solution for your practice, while respecting the process you are working through at your firm.

Let’s work together

Transparency from both parties is essential to building trust in the vendor-firm relationship. While it is true that vendors are seeking to sell their solutions, they are also passionate about supporting the firm’s growth, and believe they can help you connect resources either their own or external to accomplish your goals.

The conventional approach is siloed with vendors in one corner and firms in the other, with each rarely contacting the other. Let’s work to change this. When consultants and firms work hand-in-hand in a relationship based on transparency and shared goals with a clear understanding of the challenges, both parties benefit. Not only does this approach enable firms to achieve their goals, but technology consultants also gain by providing tailored solutions that are market-ready and able to address a wide range of needs.

In the end, do vendors have sales goals? Yes, but those goals are meaningless if they are not helping you reach yours, and our top priority is to provide an amazing experience to the firm and its clients. We want to be closely connected to make that happen. For more information on how we can help you at Intuit, please feel free to reach out. A member of our team will be happy to see how we can work together with your firm.

Ashleigh Sutter

Ashleigh’s divergent career brings empathy for small and mid-size business owners from experience in family-owned franchises and international accounting firm audits to top 40 accounting firm consulting and accounting advisory. She strives to always keep people, processes, and technology as the critical components for success - visualizing the future can be different and creating a realistic plan to reach that future.

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