How to Put Your Team and Clients First as Your Accounting Firm Changes

Start With Flexibility and a Simple Weekly Check-In

When Rachel asked Matt what helps his team thrive, his first answer was flexibility. Most of his team works remotely and sets its own hours. The one exception is the phone: the firm assigns set times for answering calls, and team members coordinate with each other to make sure those times are covered.

That kind of freedom works best when people still feel connected, which is why Matt holds a weekly team check-in. Each person shares the best part of their week and any challenges they’re running into. The firm’s CPA work and Matt’s financial planning work involve different people and different tools, so the meeting also gives both groups a regular look at what the other side is working on.

If your team is remote or spread across different services, a check-in like this is an easy place to start. Asking the same two questions each week gives people room to raise problems early, and it gives everyone a few minutes to feel like part of the same team.

How to Get Your Accounting Team Excited About AI

Many owners introduce AI and find that the team sees it as one more thing on an already full plate. Matt’s firm took a different approach with a standing weekly “innovation meeting” for anything related to AI. He put the team in charge of finding their own pain points, since they’re closer to the day-to-day work than he is. He also made the benefits clear from the start: if someone found a way to save time, they could work less, and if the firm could take on more work, the team’s profitability-based bonus would grow with it.

Once team members fixed one or two of their own frustrations, the momentum took care of itself. “They are building way more than I am at this point,” Matt says.

DBA’s leadership team has seen similar energy, with team members demoing the skills they’ve built in weekly team meetings and sharing them in chats throughout the week. As a firm grows, though, rolling a tool out to everyone becomes a different job than one person experimenting. Matt points out that a tool used by two or three people can be fixed as you go, because the person using it will notice when something breaks, while a tool rolled out firmwide has to work consistently from day one. If your firm is larger, consider keeping personal experiments separate from firmwide rollouts and giving each firmwide tool a set testing period and a clear owner. For help deciding which processes to tackle first, see how DBA chose what to automate.

Recognize Your Accounting Team Often and Out Loud

For Matt, the most effective form of appreciation is also the simplest. “I think the biggest thing is just telling them that you appreciate them,” he says. During tax season, he tries to tell someone every day that they’re doing good work and that he knows how hard the season is.

As Rachel puts it, appreciation “doesn’t even have to cost anything. It just has to be intentional.” Staying intentional gets harder as a team grows and spreads out, so DBA builds appreciation into the calendar. Weekly check-ins give team members a regular place to share wins and concerns. Scheduled one-on-ones and quick direct messages make sure nobody goes too long without hearing how they’re doing.

Marcus also recommends expressing appreciation in front of the people a team member cares about, like a spouse or parent at a firm event. If your team is remote, a handwritten card sent to that person can have the same effect.

Time together outside of work helps, too. Matt took his team to a Detroit Tigers game this year. Marcus suggests a simple test for the relationships you’re building: would you go to a ballgame with this person, sit on a beach with them, or share a drink after work? When the answer is yes, appreciation tends to come more naturally.

Benefits matter as well. Matt’s firm offers both maternity and paternity leave, which is unusual for a firm its size, and it has shared profits with the team. In Matt’s experience, though, people forget about benefits fairly quickly, which is why the everyday words of thanks carry so much weight.

Give Feedback Quickly, in Both Directions

Appreciation builds trust, and so does addressing problems while they’re still fresh. If you wait months to raise an issue, the team member has lost the chance to fix it, and the conversation can feel like an ambush.

Feedback also has to run upward. Matt credits his firm’s collaborative structure, where he listens to concerns even when he doesn’t agree and team members feel free to challenge each other and him. In his view, being open to criticism “builds trust and a desire to stay just as much as showing appreciation.” Larger firms need more formal structure, but the same openness can still show up in how leaders respond when someone disagrees.

Decide Which Client Relationships to Invest In

Putting people first applies to clients too, but that doesn’t mean giving every client the same attention. Marcus describes the shift many firms are making as “moving from compliance to community,” which means building a client base of people you want to work with over the long term. It’s okay if some clients don’t fit that picture. Some will decide to move on, and others you can help find a firm that fits them better.

Matt is candid about where his own time goes. He reserves in-person meetings for his top CPA clients and his financial planning clients, and he stacks those meetings into a few full days instead of commuting to the office each week.

Use Low-Cost Client Events to Stay Connected

Clients outside that top group still hear from the firm. Matt’s firm uses low-cost events to stay visible, like a tax day party at a nearby pub and a shred day with a food truck. Matt calls it a shotgun approach. Not every guest becomes a bigger client, but the team enjoys the events and the cost stays modest.

For clients who work with the firm once a year, the goal is a simple touch point, so that when a life event like retirement comes up, they can put a face to a name. Events can also pay off in a less direct way. “The great prospect is going to be friends with that person or related to that person,” Rachel says. A smaller client who enjoyed your event may bring a friend next year or mention your firm when someone asks for a recommendation.

Match Your Client Appreciation to the Relationship

Matt has noticed that financial planning relationships feel different from CPA work. On the CPA side, you usually work with the business owner, and the relationship stays fairly business-focused. In financial planning, you often work with both spouses and the conversations get more personal, so small gestures like a thoughtful holiday gift tend to mean more.

With that in mind, Matt’s firm sends holiday gifts to the clients it’s investing in most. After tax season, those clients also get a handwritten thank-you card with a photo of the team and their families, which helps them see who’s behind their work.

Timing matters, too. DBA has found that gifts sent in May or early November stand out more than December gifts, which can get lost in the holiday rush.

Start With the Accounting Clients You Enjoy Most

When asked what he’d encourage other firm owners to start doing, Matt kept it simple. “Figure out who the clients are that you really enjoy working with, and then figure out what services they need beyond what you’re currently offering,” he says.

For his firm, that meant financial planning. His client base didn’t need much business advisory work, but many clients did need help with their personal finances. Once the firm added that service, Matt went back to offices he hadn’t visited in years, invited clients in for check-ins, and took them to lunch. You don’t have to drop the clients outside that group, but you also don’t have to put extra time into them.

Rachel points out that this makes everything else in this post easier. When you enjoy the clients and team around you, investing in those relationships doesn’t feel forced, because it’s how you’d want to spend your time anyway.

Get Help Building a Firm Your Team and Clients Want to Stay With

If you’re trying to adopt AI without losing sight of your team and your best clients, you don’t have to sort out the priorities alone. Collective by DBA’s advisors work one-on-one with firm owners on culture, team structure, and client strategy. The goal is for new tools to support the firm you want to build. Schedule a call with Collective by DBA to talk through your plans.