WTF 🤬 is CAS, CAAS, CAS 2.0?!

Read Time: 2:23 minutes

✋Welcome to the first issue of The CAS Cache! This newsletter is designed to grow CAS offerings in accounting firms. I will give my take on a topic to grow your CAS offering in each issue.

In addition, I will provide you with takes from gurus on the topic that I am listening to 👂, reading📚, or watching 👀 and one thing I am talking🗣 to my clients about. Please feel free to R&D (rip off and duplicate) the Client Cache. 

Disclaimer: Some of the links below support me in writing this newsletter, and some give you a deal too.

Let's get one thing out of the way first. Call CAS what you want: Client Accounting Services, Client Advisory Services, Client Automation Services, Client Accounting & Advisory Services, CAS 2.0, etc. However, please DO NOT call your services any of these to your clients. 

Here is why. I introduced myself to Greg Crabtree as a fractional CFO. Greg is the author of Simple Numbers (side note: I use Greg's dLER & mLER KPIs with clients; more on this in a future issue). Greg immediately informed me that I would be better off calling myself a business coach.

He told me that a business coach is more holistic and can help business owners solve a wider array of problems. The more I think about it, the more he is right. For example, I am not a sales expert, but I can identify a 💩sale process. Once I do, I have a network of people to solve the problem, and some will pay me for the referral.

Chad Davis of LiveCA says it best. He calls his team problem solvers. They are there to solve their client's hairiest problems. So, instead of worrying about WTF CAS means, start worrying about what problem your CAS offering is solving. For example:  

• Automation services = saving your clients x hours per week

• Bookkeeping services = accurate near real-time financials for the business owner to make more informed business decisions

• Controller services = managing the accounting team so the owner can focus on the highest and best use of their time

• CFO services = guide the owner on growing their business to exit

Do you still need to figure out what problem your CAS offering is solving? Here are two questions to ask. 

• Ask prospects - What do you hope to accomplish by engaging our firm?

• Ask current clients - What is one pain point or challenge we solve for you?

These questions will lead to a wide array of answers, but in my experience, a few will be similar. Start using them and modify them as you go.  

So, from here on out I will refer to it as CAS, and you can paint in whatever 🤬 meaning you want. 😜

Guru Cache 👂📚👀

👀 Botkeeper's take on the evolution of CAS

📚 CPA.com, AICPA PCPS 2022 CAS Benchmark Survey

👂What does CAS mean to you? by The CPA Advisory Show podcast

Issue Sponsor 😎

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Client Cache 🗣

📚 Most partnerships start with equal ownership because that is the easy route. However, we have rarely seen an equal partnership in the real world. And the equal partnership typically leads to what one entrepreneur coined as a "partner death trap" because one partner usually feels like they are doing more.  Avoid the partner death trap by using this recipe for Founders’ pie. Click here to read more.

Thanks for reading, Luke Templin!

P.S. There are 2 ways I can help you grow your CAS offerings when you are ready:

1. Mini courses on CAS

2. Book a 1-hour CAS consulting call