Accounting Market Threat - Do you have a Staff Shortage?

Accounting Market Threats

Today I would like to welcome you to another one of our Covisory Deskside Chats. (Note this video was recorded during the second half 2021 lockdown)

I want to talk to you about the greatest threat in the accounting market at present.

With the borders closed the greatest threat is the inability to get labour. I am talking to accountants every day that are telling me they don’t just need one new staff member they need 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 more staff. They are attracting clients, but they are increasingly finding it harder to service them.

Naturally, there is the opportunity to outsource work to overseas providers and that can be a very good option for some of your work. Remember if you are going to take up those opportunities you are going to need to make sure you have a management system in place to handle the sending of the work out to those foreign countries, the management of questions back to your clients and the transfer of information between them. You will need a different system to handle that than perhaps you have used in the past.

The problem now is with the shortage of qualified and experienced CA staff, both CA practices and the corporate world are going to start offering silly money to entice people to change jobs.  Strangely enough, the ones that change jobs are often those least qualified to do so. So, we tend to see people paying silly money for people that aren’t actually that good. All it will cause is an increase in wages and an increase in costs as a result.

For a CA practice, this then leads to the question that with accounting becoming increasingly a commoditised business can you actually increase your charge outs and recover that money?

So, think very carefully about what you are going to do with your business going forward because in real terms staff are your greatest opportunity and threat. Make sure you can service well what you have got.

Nigel Smith