Client Advisory Services (CAS) are one of the newest and fastest growing services areas for firms today. According to our last CPA.com and AICPA PCPS Benchmark Survey, CAS practices are growing more than three times the median CPA firm growth rate. But CAS brings unique considerations and challenges for firms as they build their CAS practices, and each firm is approaching it differently. In fact, the definition of CAS itself varies widely because of the enormous effort firms have undertaken to pull together existing work under the label of CAS.
In light of this growing demand and the opportunity that CAS offers firms, it’s critical to understand the broad landscape of what’s happening in this area across the profession and best practices that go into building a successful CAS practice. To do this... we need you!
We’re pleased to share that the 2022 CAS Benchmark survey is now open through August 5th, and we are seeking firms of all sizes to share insights from their CAS practices. Through your participation, you’ll contribute to the advancement of the profession by helping shed light on recent growth in the CAS area, the impact of the pandemic on the demand and how practitioners are evolving. Plus, once the report is released in December, participating firms will get access to a detailed firm comparison to survey data and an exclusive invitation to a special early access webinar to learn how to use the data to benchmark your own practices.
The survey and subsequent report will cover a number of key areas, including:
- Pricing models. While CAS differs from other firm service lines in several ways, pricing may be the most stark among them. The survey will dive into the firm’s approach to pricing, including the distribution of firms still using “by the hour” billing services versus those priced as fixed fee or value based, as well as upfront pricing and pricing for onboarding services.
- Technology. CAS is built on the foundation of a cloud-based tech stack that allows firms to build repeatable processes and shift compliance tasks to technology, freeing time to focus on the advisory services clients are demanding. The survey will address firms’ service offerings, categories of technology use and shifts happening to optimize client advisory service practices.
- Key Performance Indicators. KPIs for CAS are radically different from other areas of the firm; the traditional realization and utilization metrics can’t be accurately calculated when a CAS practice has shifted all or most of its client billing to a value-based model. The survey covers insights around clients served, CAS revenue, staff FTE and CAS costs to calculate net client fees, net client fees per professional, margin % and profitability.
- Staffing. How do you staff your CAS practice? The survey aims to correlate dedicated CAS staffing to CAS success, while understanding the impact of the CPA and CGMA designations for staff. It will help firms understand how to recruit and train staff to deliver on new technologies and skills needed to support clients.
This is also a great opportunity for you to work on your CAS practice by reviewing your practice data in preparation for entering it into the survey platform.
Ready to get started?
You can access the survey or learn more at www.cpa.com/cas-benchmark-survey. It will only be open until August 5th, so you’ll want to get started now by:
- Selecting a point person to coordinate participation from your firm.
- Downloading the 2022 question set at casbenchmarksurvey.com.
- Working with your CAS practice and firm to gather the data and enter by late July.
If you have any questions about the registration process, the survey platform, questions or more, please email our team at assessments@hq.cpa.com.
