How to avoid getting stuck in the compliance loop

The compliance loop is a real issue amongst accountants and is one that needs to be addressed within the industry to combat burnout and garner long-term success. This isn’t a happy accident either. Compliance has been a cornerstone of accounting professionals for eons and can be a comfortable spot to find yourself looped into. Your systems, mindset, pricing, and compliance-forward thinking can leave you feeling stuck. The only way to move out of the daily grind is to break the cycle and look outside of your comfort zone to truly make the shift.

Jump to:

While the majority of your clients may initially approach you seeking compliance work, your role is to supply high-quality results while providing them with a broad range of offerings. Stop treating compliance as the ‘main event’ and reframe your worth to your clients as more than someone to touch base with during tax time. Approach your client with their tax return and use the moment to complete a comprehensive health-check of their business.

Use compliance to spark conversation

Relying solely on compliance based services is keeping your accounting firm frozen. Instead of only providing numbers based results, use this opportunity to chat to your client about how their financial data is impacting the future of their business. This moment is a pivotal way to diagnose elements of their finances instead of just delivering the base results. Identify the following pain points for them:

Are there any financial leaks?
Where can we revise expensive purchases?
What risks could form in the future?
Are there any decisions that are being delayed?

If your client has a high tax bill, use this as a way to help them plan or restructure their cashflow to prevent panic. Perhaps they exceeded their predicted sales and need help to review their pricing against competitors or scale their business. If they are consistently late paying their BAS, work with them to define cashflow forecasting and help them plan for key payment dates. This keeps you from being stuck in the same loop that leaves your firm feeling one-dimensional.

Shift your focus to business advisory services

Highly-successful firms will always use compliance as a jumping point to sell their business advisory services. Why this works so seamlessly is because you can apply value to the data you receive by completing their tax or BAS and upsell your services subtly. Attach a few questions when going through their report with them that opens up the conversation to gather more information to find out how you can assert yourself. As their trusted advisor, you can spot pain points and patterns that your client is not trained to see. Some examples are:

If they have struggled with thin margins over the last 12 months, you can advise them on how to tighten their belt with pricing analysis versus cost.
Your client might be dismayed at the high cost of their tax bill. You can guide them on small steps to take over the course of the next year to alleviate future stress like inputting data into DEXT or work with them to grow their investment portfolio.
They may have not been aware of the strong revenue growth their business has garnered. You can provide them with expert advice on how to manage this growth and where to put their money so they can gain the best results come tax time.

If you are thinking about taking the plunge into business advisory services for your firm, make sure you still have time for compliance. Many Australian businesses have been combatting issues within the recruitment sector of the industry by reaching out to trusted outsourcing partners who are trained to take on your work and leave you with more time to invest in advisory.

Battle the burnout

If you prioritise compliance work over all else, the risk of burnout can rise. Busy season means focusing on tax returns, BAS filings, and fielding demands from clients. This naturally creates tension on professionals throughout the firm and can lead to higher instances of stress. Repetition, low reward tasks, pressure from clients, tight deadlines - you name it! You have to maintain a high level of self-awareness and make time for a healthy work/life balance.

In order to properly combat compliance burnout, you need to manage the decision-fatigue that comes along with it. This involves:

Use software like Asana to keep track of tasks and minimise avoidable errors
Assess where you can implement AI processes that make your job easier during busy seasons. Automate admin tasks, create templates for emailing, and use AI to analyse data to present to your clients which can lead into offering business advisory services
Stay true to your boundaries. Setting expectations with your clients early will help alleviate burnout. Create a set boundary for exceptions, and try not to overextend where possible.

Price your compliance work to reflect your worth

Underpriced services can lead to a packed calendar of tasks that are not worth your time. You need to properly reflect the services you’re offering and the time it takes to complete them. If you have clients who are consistently inflammatory or hard to work with, it is within your reach to reassess if you make a good match professionally. Communicate kindly and clearly to them and offer alternative services to them so you can part ways amicably.

If you’re spending all of your time working within the compliance sector, this naturally leaves no time for business advisory services. If you plan on scaling your firm to include these, scale pricing for both business advisory and your compliance work so that they are sitting within an even playing field. This also means the clients you want to work with will see your worth and engage your services knowing that they are paying for high-quality expertise over cheaper high-quantity results.