Top Challenges Faced By Young CPAs

The accounting process is the heart and soul of any organization. Keeping this mind, the CPAs are considered as a vital cog in the wheel that is the business process.

However, as with any other profession, as the time passes and the mode of operation evolve, the professionals too, have to transform with it.

The ability to adapt to constant change in the industry is paramount for a CPA’s success. Technological innovations and amplifying economic growth feed their hunger to thrive in the business environment.

However, as the accounting landscape changes, the CPA are subject to various challenges which they need to overcome in order to gain traction in the competitive market.

The changes in the accounting industry, whether technological or operational, can pose a challenge for even the most experienced CPAs. However, this situation is even more dire for young CPAs who have recently started practicing.

Here are a few tips and techniques for young CPAs to identify the rising challenges and how they can be transformed into opportunities.

Challenge 1: Handling Client Expectations

As the technological advancements and the scale of business process elevate, so does the client expectation level. They have the means to pay any amount of revenue to get the desired services. They can switch to other accounting professionals if they find your services unsatisfactory.

Clients expect stellar services – and to be very precise, they look forward to solutions for their problems instantly. Instant resolution to their problems improves the client retention rate.

Opportunity:  Sorting out which type of client can help you succeed best can aid in dealing with the challenge appropriately. Accordingly, a program can be developed to secure the sorted clients. Constantly communicating with the clients working in the same domain can help to strengthen the client base as needed.

Challenge 2: Generational Gap

There are various generations of people that work simultaneously with each other for the accomplishment of business goals. The difference in opinion of the people of different generations causes friction between them.

The generation gap often arises because the upper management does not share their experience and knowledge with the younger generation. This leads to ineffective communication among the workforce, which in turn gives birth to reduced productivity.

Opportunity: Understanding the set of beliefs, cross-generation meetings and taking feedback from the concerned resources narrows down the generational gap.

Addressing this issue effectively can bridge the gap between the workforce and can lead to enhancement in the overall performance of the business.

The young CPAs need to realize the value of the experience that the senior CPAs bring to the table and try to get valuable insights from them. It can help them to optimize their productivity in the long run.

Challenge 3: Expanding Network

An old saying “In the business world, whom you know matters more than what you know” stands true, especially when the demand to expand the client base or frame your career plan arises.

Due to geographical constraints, developing client engagements, contacting service firm owners and valuation experts become a big concern for the young CPAs.

As the young CPAs may not have as many connections as the senior ones, they have to adopt the new-age ways of reaching out to prospective clients than the traditional ones.

Opportunity: With the advancements in the digital world, the world is as connected as it has ever been. Understanding the complexities associated with networking can be resolved by capitalizing on social networking platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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Such networking platforms can aid in spreading what you know and seek career guidance. Moreover, these are essential marketing tools to showcase your expertise and identify potential customers by looking in the right direction.

Challenge 4: Influx of Overloaded Information

Staying up-to-date with loads of information coming up in the headlines, social media, and radio can be a tedious task. Moreover, the young CPAs also have to be in sync with the changes in the tax laws.

The success factor of the CPAs strongly depends on the ability to stay in touch with industry experts. Determining the substantial information out of the huge mass of information can be a daunting task.

Opportunity: A plethora of opportunities holds within new regulations, laws and other relevant information coming up in the market. Effective engagement on social media platforms, forum discussions can help in filtering the data and analyzing information efficiently.

Challenge 5: Growing Social Media Networks

A way to steal user account details and information – ‘Social Networking Phishing’ in which hackers and online scammers send messages offering updates on security applications/feature is a challenge growing simultaneously with the pace of advancement in social networking. This leads to a loss of confidentiality and identity theft.

Opportunity: Carefully examining fraudulent messages comprising links asking to submit confidential information such as credit card details must be checked out. Understanding social media usage policies can help to stay away from such identity theft tactics and implement social media tools as a privileged instrument to enhance the efficiency of communications and brand reputation.

Challenge 6: Use of Technology in Accounting

It is one of the major areas where the young CPAs find themselves stuck as the various software available in the market keep updating themselves regularly.

Hence, the young CPAs have to keep up with the latest developments in the field of accounting. For instance, cloud accounting is a domain that the young CPAs can leverage to optimize their accounting process.

Opportunity: With technological challenges comes opportunity. The young CPAs can become well-versed with the latest accounting technologies such as cloud accounting, which helps in automating tasks and save a lot of their time.

The Gist of It

To get established successfully in the business world, young CPAs need to embrace new challenges, exchange ideas and communicate effectively. And the pace at which business complexities are growing, CPAs need to be proactive, global-minded, tech-savvy and need to balance in order to maintain their competitive edge.

So, the people who can grasp things faster than the rate of change will win at last.