My team at Accountingfly, the accounting recruiting platform, started in 2012 with a mission to help accounting firms hire the right staff to build thriving, profitable, and meaningful firms.
Our job was to match accountants and bookkeepers with CPA firms. We even acquired Going Concern, read by 70% of millennial CPAs to be a pipeline to fill our jobs. Despite the massive CPA candidate reach, applications to traditional CPA jobs were slower than expected. Why?
Candidates were the canaries in the coal mine, telling us there was change coming. Candidates were losing interest in traditional, location-based public accounting jobs, yet they were applying in droves to gigs, remote jobs and firms that offered Client Accounting Services (CAS) and especially to firms that embraced online accounting technology. These jobs were created by accounting entrepreneurs who, by embracing cloud tools, remote talent, flexible work schedules and scalable business models, were delivering big client value. It inspired us to be the recruiting company that matched amazing bookkeepers and accountants with these innovative, progressive, high-growth firms.
But we face two problems:
- There aren’t enough CAS-ready accountants and bookkeepers to satisfy the growing demand of innovative accounting practices.
- Traditional firms looking to add cloud accounting services aren’t wired for hiring the specialized or remote talent they need and they don’t have resources to train current staff.
I firmly believe that in ten years, the accounting firm model will look completely different than it does today.