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In the past, advances in technology have primarily helped accountants perform client engagements faster and easier. Now, for the first time, new technology – the cloud- is actually creating new revenue-generating opportunities for accountants.

Capitalizing on these opportunities lets you offer services that not only raise your bottom line, but also add value to your clients’ businesses and foster client loyalty. It’s a win-win for both you and your clients.

Here are three ways cloud technology can help increase the amount of money you make – without increasing the needed time, effort or staff.

Offer Existing Services More Profitably

Utilize automated bank feeds: Most cloud solutions enable you to download bank and credit card transactions directly from providers to reduce data entry for write-up clients who write manual checks by 70% - 80%, minimize data entry errors, and make bank reconciliation faster and easier.

Reduce client errors: Client bookkeeping errors are the largest drain on productive time for most accountants. A truly professional cloud-based accounting system lets you work collaboratively with your clients, enabling you to customize the system for each client to give them access only to the functions they can perform, thus minimizing client errors.

Regain Services Lost to Competing Forces

Payroll services: Payroll has been taken over by payroll service bureaus. They’ve had access to processing centers with massive computers that could automate complex payroll processing tasks. Accountants had no such tools.

But now, the cloud has leveled the playing field. Cloud-based professional payroll systems created exclusively for accountants have completely automated payroll processing, and even eliminated the need for accountants to do data entry or print checks in their offices. Accountants can now make payroll processing one of their most profitable services, and one that, unlike tax and accounting, requires little professional time and generates a perennial revenue stream.

Offer Services Clients Need and Value

Bookkeeping and bill payment services: Ask your business clients if they like doing accounting. Given the choice, a significant percentage of small businesses would gladly outsource all of their accounting work to their accountants, provided it was cost-effective to do so. In the desktop era, it was difficult (and unprofitable) for accountants to do bookkeeping and bill payments for their clients.

Today, the cloud makes offering bookkeeping and bill payment services highly profitable for accountants, because, with the right cloud-based accounting system, your staff can do what your clients’ staff currently does - only faster and more accurately, without leaving your office.

By offering bookkeeping and bill payment services, you can generate 3 -5 times more revenue from many of your clients for whom you currently only prepare financial statements - with even higher profit margins.

Advisory services: Many small business clients are not very astute when it comes to managing their business finances. But until now, you couldn’t provide them with the help they need to manage their cash flow and finances because you didn’t have access to their real-time accounting data. Today, cloud solutions make it possible to access client data in real time, and professional cloud-based accounting systems offer many analytical tools, such as Alerts, Snapshots, Dashboards, and Performance Analysis features, to help you prepare budgets and manage clients’ cash flow, A/R, A/P, and other important business drivers. Clients will gladly pay a premium fee for such advisory services.

A word about fees

If you want to grow, it’s imperative that you switch to a simple fixed fee model, if you haven’t already done so. That’s the only way you can monetize the increase in productivity and efficiency you’ll realize. It’s easy to do, and your clients will love it.

No Need for More Staff or New Clients

The best part is that you can generate this additional revenue without increasing staff - you do it by performing existing services more efficiently to make time for additional services. Another advantage is that most of these services need little of your scarce professional time. In addition, because the best candidates for these additional services are your existing accounting clients, you can grow your practice without acquiring any new clients.

The cloud is enabling this once-in-a-generation growth opportunity, so don’t miss it.

As the thousands of accountants who have already taken advantage of these opportunities will confirm – today, making more money is easier than ever.