Data analytics will be increasingly important for CPA firms as it can reveal various ways to add value through various strategies. These may include identifying investment opportunities that can lead to tax savings, assisting clients with required minimum distributions or retirement planning, working with business owners to take advantage of special opportunities, and expanding and improving the firm’s services by partnering with a professional advisor

Manually managing this process is inefficient. By organizing client data in a standardized way, accounting firms can create a centralized knowledge base that enables them to serve clients based on their location or the specific partner they work with, and provide more personalized financial and client service transformation initiatives. This will require technology specifically designed to align the accounting firms’ data with the expertise of a highly qualified tax planner or financial advisor. Such alignment will also require interfacing key client data from income tax forms, importing income tax data into a confidential contact management program, analyzing the data to identify clients who may have specific financial needs, and generating targeted solutions.