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Welcome to June 2007, the month of the 06/07 financial year and the start of winter! June is a month that signifies the 12th month of our financial year and tax planning time for most Accounting Firms around the country. As we look to close off the financial year, we should also be looking to open up a new financial year full of fun and challenges! As apart of your Operational & Strategic Planning for 07/08 I encourage you to map out your resource plan, structure and challenge yourself to invest in your people. Your people will provide you with the greatest return on your investment (your business) if you invest in them. Therefore break down your current training & mentoring program and set yourself a plan of continuous improvement so you can start to recover more, therefore as the Partner and/or Director you do less chargeable work. Working with more than 500 firms this financial year, GPL Network continues to be challenged by the needs and goals of firms that have a clear focus on where they want to be and how they are going to get there. Our role as Coaches is to challenge the Partners and/or Directors along the way to ensure they are on the right path to a more profitable, valuable and successful business. This quarter I will share my thoughts to how you can change your training & mentoring program that will deliver you greater results in performance, culture and happiness. Finally, I will also share with you a brand new series of Growth Workshops and how you can set your growth path for the new financial year with workshops around the country later this month. Enjoy the read!
Paul Jansz
Over the past 12 months GPL Network has Coached 45 Accounting firms and Trained just over 300 Accounting firms, therefore the research I’m about to share with you comes with a very clear knowledge of our industry to what is lacking and the steps you need to take to ensure your firm is different to the rest of the firms in our industry. If it’s one common trait I have discovered in our industry, it’s the lack of Training & Mentoring for all levels of Accountants. The main reason for this is a lack of planning and more than likely a lack of time. I am going to focus on our Graduates and Under Graduates… But, let me start with senior team members. For the past 3 – 4 years our industry has been starved of good Accountants, and the skill shortage has lead to a higher turnover in team members largely due to higher salaries being offered. Let me share, that salaries alone are not the sole reason for team members leaving your Accounting Firm. Yes, while it may be a factor, it’s also more than likely a combination of lack of direction, lack of communication of the Firms direction, lack of mentoring and management by the Partners and/or Directors of Accounting Firms. While most of you may read this and agree, only a few of you will read this and say, “yep, that’s me, and I need to make a positive shift of mindset for the new financial year!” Due the turn over of team members, our industry has been forced to take on more & more under graduates and graduates, so I ask you. What is your training, mentoring & induction plan for your new team members just out of University or still studying? Who is their mentor, who is going to take responsibility for their training and recoverable time in the first 12 months of their employment? This must form apart of your Business and Strategic Plan (HR Plan) moving forward as your team must be the driver of your fees, not you as the Partners and/or Directors of your Accounting Firm. I can talk to you about several GPL Network Coaching Clients that have adopted a different style of thinking and built a model that continues to grow and be profitable without their day to day management. The problem with our industry is that 5 and 6 Partner Accounting firms continue to operate as Sole Practicioners with separate silos a part of one business. Due to the lack of good mid to senior level Accountants our industry our industry is being forced to hire Client Service Assistants to take away the administrative tasks of our higher chargeable team members to leverage our time and increase the level of service and communication with our clients. In turn as our workload increases, there is less time to train and mentor graduates and under graduates. Once again I ask you, do you have a detailed plan for training, mentoring & inducting your new team members out of University? If you don’t, let me introduce you to a new initiate we have introduced to the industry. Over the past 18 months, we have conducted our research and identified the need for a very detailed Graduate Training Program. This program can either be for new graduates or under graduates about to commence with your Accounting Firm, or existing graduates that need to be trained and their level of expertise assessed. The course is four days in duration, case study based and is deliberately very practical so your recruits can actually put into action the concepts and skills they learn. Each participant is allocated a computer and works to create a set of financial statements, tax return and reconciled file. This sort of training is designed to be far more enduring than a straight technical lecture. The case study is designed to mirror a normal small business client, the like of whom most accounting firms would consider their bread and butter. The client provides an unreconciled MYOB file and a heap of work papers. Using a series of mini lectures throughout the course, each technical topic is explained, the work papers to support the resulting balances are discussed and the practical tests for each balance that should be considered are re-iterated. From the unreconciled MYOB file, the recruit has to reconcile and support each item in the balance sheet together with significant and material items in the profit and loss and construct a fully referenced file that easy to navigate and review. The issues they will need to address to complete the file include:
The file itself is based on a standard index to working papers although similar to the use of the MYOB software, the concepts learned can be easily transferred to a different medium (index or accounting software). The course also includes practical theory regarding the importance of timesheet maintenance and chargeable time together with workflow management and productivity targets. This ensures the concept of recovering time is understood as the goal. The benefits of the program include:
We have done the research and know that it costs about $5,000 to fully induct and provide this type of training in-house, not to mention the opportunity cost lost by having senior staff shadow their movements to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. That is why we know this program will be successful and should be included in your budgets for the new financial year. Log on to www.gplnetwork.com for more details about the session scheduled in your state or the possibility of conducting a session for your firm only at your premises. Or to register for one of our FREE information webinars e-mail Don McLennan at don@gplnetwork.com Having presented at a recent CPA Conference ‘resourcing and training’ continues to a growing problem in our industry. Creating capacity is the ‘goal’ and your strategies should be working around your goal to find the solution. Outsourcing your resourcing and training is one way of creating capacity and should be viewed as an investment. Always think investment and always think bigger picture as this will guarantee you the return on your investment. Upcoming Events… GROWTH WORKSHOP SERIES
Our guest presenters (GPL Network Coaching Firms) will take you on a journey to revitalize the way you think to transform your Accounting Firm to a successful business! In the 3 hours we will cover;
Tickets are $275 per person and seats are strictly limited at each venue. New Coach joining our team
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GPL's Top Performing Accounting Firms Steven Jones –
SRJ (Brisbane) Richard Munro Jason Cunningham
– The Practice (Melbourne) Bernadette Pitcher
– BMP Accounting Services (Melbourne) Michael Papandrea
– Wilson Watt Papandrea (Canberra) |
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