Paul Anka wrote it. Frank Sinatra sang it. Jon Bon Jovi quoted it. The song, of course, is My Way – and niche accounting firms should take the song’s words and sentiment to heart.
Niche firms, by definition, specialize. They build subject matter expertise in a specific area or industry and leverage that knowledge to acquire new clients and grow.
The biggest obstacle to niche firms is in technology. The off the shelf tax, audit and workflow solutions don’t work well in the niche accounting environment. They can’t fit into the “box” of the “out of the box” solutions. They need to create processes for their niche AND their firm’s way of doing business.
For example:
Content: Content is one of the biggest challenges for niche firms. They need forms, checklists and other content that is highly targeted. The off the shelf content solutions don’t work because they are too generic in nature and difficult to customize.
Methodology: In the niche firm the audit and tax methodology must reflect their expertise and approach. A streamlined methodology that is repeatable across client engagements is critical to ensuring the work is performed accurately and allows the firm to scale.
This is nearly impossible to accomplish with the commercially available solutions on the market today.
Knowledgebase: Capturing and leveraging the institutional knowledge in the firm can make the niche firm better in their specific areas of expertise. Unfortunately, the generic platforms do not effectively provide this type of functionality.
Niche firms needs it done one way – their way. And here’s how they can do it.