Digital transformation and technological innovation, over the past two decades, has revolutionized how accounting and audit firms do business. RAiN has also undergone significant changes in how it operates and provides core services, as well as reimagining the role tax practitioners play in meeting clients’ ever-increasing advisory and consulting expectations. The industry is in a state of flux. This dynamic has motivated RAiN to implement formal, direct engagement with its clients on a regular advisory basis. Business is getting more competitive by the day. Tax practices must strike a balance to survive: Keeping pace with disruptive technological innovation – at the systemic, sectoral and operational levels – whilst remaining relevant in providing core professional accounting, audit and advisory services. In this milieu, where practices and professionals’ expanded capabilities results in increased efficiencies, RAiN seizes the opportunity to meet (and exceed) the concomitant expansion in client expectations. RAiN offers more – organic, comprehensive wide-ranging professional services while embracing the latest in cloud accounting, AI, machine learning and systems integrations solutions – so our clients want more. They want more time and more in-depth, specialized business advice from industry experts. As clients’ expectations grow, RAiN recognizes the imperative to expand its reporting and advisory capacities to meet these new needs. As such, RAiN engages in the “quarterly catch up meeting or appointment” were clients can gain deeper insights into their businesses, to enrich and expand upon the conventional bi/annual (tax) meeting which focuses predominantly on compliance.
In today’s globalised and digitised business environment, RAiN appreciates that as tax practitioners we are often the trusted business advisors for many of their clients. As such, the RAiN team of dedicated and specialized professionals bring to bear an expansive and robust professional services knowledge, skills and networking base. RAiN is able to offer comprehensive advisory and consultancy services to clients, who no longer want (or require) the bare compliance essentials’ presentation on a “silver spreadsheet”. In fact, RAiN understands that for clients’ annual tax planning, meetings are more dynamic, engaging and beneficial to business owners, owing to the data interpretation and advice they receive on tax savings and payment scheduling. Compliance, by comparison, is far more predictable and static.
RAiN’s multi-sectoral exposure and accessible, real-time data provides clients with a valuable, and veritable fountain of knowledge as well as applicable experience. Clients can (and want to) learn more about (their) business from their trusted tax practitioners at RAiN, whose experienced eye can identify and address individual business needs, challenges and potential. At RAiN we consider it a duty to offer clients, who want to tap in to this priceless information resource, the professional, all-round advisory service they need to run a better business on the one hand and to remain relevant in pursuit of longevity and continuity as a businesses.
With rapid, changeable and disruptive developments in commerce, communications, finance and economics globally, clients do not expect RAiN to “have all the answers”. However, they do want accounting and audit firms, like RAiN, to offer more: more engagement and interest, more innovation and acumen to manage clients’ business challenges and facilitate growth.
As peers and partners to business owners, RAiN understands that clients confide in their tax professional, as opposed to employees, fellow business partners or even friends and family. As such, we appreciate – and do not underestimate – that ours is a respected and valued opinion as a trusted advisor to clients. It is not uncommon for business owners to only share/brainstorm/sound board their hopes, fears, new ideas, strategic, operational or even HR plans with a RAiN consultant, auditors or accountant – considered as the perfect confidant who knows their business and back story.
The quarterly meetings regime, with clients at RAiN, is structured, intentional and addresses issues unique to each client’s business. At RAiN we meet with clients quarterly, at scheduled appointments set 12 months in advance. Clients look forward to the meeting and are interested in the insights RAiN provides to “diagnose” how their businesses are doing, and how they can improve.
RAiN uses a standard agenda for every client quarterly meeting. It does have scope to vary and add items for each client/meeting. Clients may have specific questions and RAiN has a system in place where clients can submit questions for consideration ahead of time for consideration. The goal for RAiN is to provide as much insight on the health of clients’ businesses as possible and enhancing the overall experience of the quarterly reporting meeting.
Moreover, RAiN remains engaged with clients throughout the review process and holds clients to account about what they undertook to do at the last quarterly meeting. Each of RAiN’s client accounting reports is tailored to their particular business wherever possible, particularly as related to expenditure and provide meaningful comparisons against budget and previous periods. RAiN has found that benchmark data, including (only) visual data representations that are relevant and necessary, to be an excellent means to provide context in a manner which clients can learn a lot from. In the commentary, focus is placed on breaking down clients’ revenue and gross margins – before detailing their expenses- which we find is of great assistance in helping clients to uncover the underlying issues that determine their future.
At RAiN, we engage with clients directly and ask questions they may have unique knowledge and insight into, particularly as pertains to average sale and conversion rates. RAiN’s compliance expertise in keeping accurate data records is generally of interest (and importance) to clients. As such, RAiN has formed b.rain, our sister company specialising in solutions integrations, that reimagines how businesses can succeed and e.g. helps clients to set up and implement systems to capture this data and provide a dashboard on how their revenue indicators are tracking.
RAiN’s clients generally attend reporting meetings for their businesses (not about their businesses tax compliance issues) and we therefor aim to provide guidance and the advice clients really want about making their business more saleable. For example, describing means to maximize super contributions, and thus clients’ retirement aspirations integrally linked to that or the annual budgeting process so clients can set meaningful projections for expected profit and separately for cash flow. Provide real-time examples from individual clients’ operations to emphasize the importance of their managing working capital. RAiN REIMAGINES how clients run their businesses and does its utmost to optimize and help our clients grow, RAiN appreciates that ours is a work of infinite value to clients. Hence, RAiN advises clients on the service packages available, recommends one that would suit them and arranges for clients to pay in monthly instalments. RAiN does more so its clients can expect more!
