Accountable business planning.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy

Thinking ahead with help from your accountant

Sometimes it takes an outsider to fuel new ideas, add spark to strategizing sessions or fire up ho-hum operations. Motivational speakers have long capitalized on the power of a good cheerleader. Before you book a rah-rah kingpin, however, you might want to talk to your accountant.

What could number crunchers know about forward-thinking strategies? Plenty, say Indiana accounting firms who are positioning themselves as gurus for growth as they shatter stereotypes about their own profession.

"Accountants have typically looked at the past and seen what a business has done. Now, we want to look to the future," says Curt Vander Meer of Indianapolis' Dunbar, Cook & Shepard. "Accountants more and more are becoming consultants rather than doing just compliance work, crunching numbers, crossing t's and dotting i's. We want to be involved at the initial stages so clients know the pros and cons of a decision before they make it.

"We want to see the role of an accountant become less pencil-and-paper oriented and more focused on ideas, know-how and implementation," he adds. "We want to look more at, 'These are some of your options. This is what the future can hold,' rather than 'This is how last year was.'"

One of the greatest skills accountants need for their new role is listening ability, says Ron Baden of Fort Wayne's Baden, Gage & Schroeder. Developing a strategic plan means paying close attention to a client's "wants, needs and desires," he says.

Baden uses a menu approach to strategic planning, setting up focus groups and selecting options based on the client, its personnel and desired results.

Accounting's changing role is probably best described by one of Baden's clients, who recently told him, "Our old accountants strictly were accountants, and you guys are more like business consultants."

"That is what we try to do," Baden confirms.

Another firm taking that direction is Kemper CPA Group in Terre Haute, where advising outnumbers number crunching, Eric Leggitt says. "Computers are doing the pencil pushing, and most people are now doing bookkeeping themselves. What we can do is things they can't do on their own, like asking, 'If I do this, what kind of benefits will I get?'

"It used to be that on February 15th, we got a box dumped on us, and the client would say, 'This is what I did in the last year,'" Leggitt says. "Now, they come to us at the end of October saying, 'Here's where we are so far. What...