Four Nontraditional Duties of a CPA

How many of you know everyone on your team, department or company? A lot can be said for a business leader who makes the effort to genuinely know and interact with their staff and employees—especially their staff CPAs. In fact, your staff CPAs may kn

ow more about the business you’re in than you do, at least financially.

You may scoff at the idea, but staff CPAs have intimate knowledge about the financial workings of your business and are best suited to provide suggestions on how to control costs and make improvements. Your staff CPA is also your first line of defense in case of an audit and prepares the documents needed for regulatory filings. With so much information and knowledge at their fingertips, it is only logical that a business leader utilize their insight in ways that are widely unconsidered. Below, we’ll discuss some of the nontraditional duties in which CPAs can be of assistance.

Nontraditional CPA Duty 1: Strategic Performance Management Planning

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Providing a strategic performance management plan is a strong part of a staff CPA’s knowledge. Performance management needs an intensive understanding of the context, a diagnosis of the problems, assessment of various choices and creation or adaptation of an acceptable performance management solution. This process requires an inventive and innovative method, which is more than just importing a solution that has proven to be effective elsewhere. Ideally, a strategic management plan is entrusted to those who have the right mix of analytical skills, problem analysis and creativity in developing solutions.

Nontraditional CPA Duty 2: Fraud and Risk Identification

Many CPAs are also trained to spot fraud and identify risk in an organization. Despite the serious risk that fraud represents to business, many still do not have a system in place to detect it. Your staff CPA can assist in the planning and implementation of such a system. Whether it is inflated expense reports or metrics, a staff CPA has the skills and knowledge to spot the fraud and prevent it going forward. Staff CPAs are also well-versed in risk management. They can identify and present to your executive team the potential financial, strategic and data risks that exist in your business, as well as suggestions on how to mitigate that risk.

Nontraditional CPA Duty 3: Ethical Decision-Making

CPAs have core values that identify them as a professional and a valuable member of any business team. CPAs value integrity, independence and objectivity the most. This means they maintain high standards of ethics and can help your business team understand ethical dilemmas. They can also provide valuable insight to business decisions and evaluate any impact those decisions may have on the business ethically and socially. Never hesitate to discuss ethical dilemmas with your CPA.

Nontraditional CPA Duty 4: Non-financial Data Evaluation

Staff CPAs, often referred to as managerial accountants, can also evaluate the non-financial data of your business. Many businesses are now taking into consideration the human dimension of business, including sustainable reporting, human capital management and other corporate social responsibility initiatives. Additionally, CPAs know where your financials are weakest. They can propose different accounting methods and tactics to position your company better financially while taking these things into account.

Don’t Forget the Standard Duties

Of course, staff CPAs can also tackle the typical job functions, such as establishing a budget process and overall structural components of the budget. Their knowledge and skills will help your business implement best practices for improving effectiveness in developing and managing a well-conceived budget, including:

• How to make the budget controllable
• Improving the quality and accuracy of the budget
• Increasing the level of accountability in the budget process
• Formulating a meaningful cost analysis
• Eliminating the concept of allocations

Hiring the right CPA can help with a more efficient and effective budget process.

It’s important to look at your business processes and financials with a keen eye, as sometimes business leaders can develop “financial or business blindness.” New ideas or “eyes” from a staff CPA may be just the thing to reignite your creativity and business savvy. A staff CPA will have the specific knowledge needed to make relevant and quality suggestions for improving upon the financial status of just about any area of the business.