Tax expertise opens the door to wealth advisory careers

Accounting firms are expanding rapidly into wealth management. But can tax and audit experts transition to financial advisory careers?

A lot of accountants — 300,000 or more — are looking for fresh career options. And wealth management operations are rapidly expanding parallel practices at CPA firms. But it’s not as easy to transition from accounting to planning as one might think. Accounting is all about documenting and analyzing what happened. Planning is designing and enacting a strategy to make the plan a reality.

Three key skills transfer from accounting to planning. Accountants seeking a change and financial advisory firms hoping to recruit tax and audit experts need to look “under the lid” for these capabilities, which smooth the way for successful lateral career moves among adjacent professions.

First, look for an aptitude and appetite for connecting with individuals, beyond corporate connections. Every business development opportunity is a chance for an accountant who aspires to move into financial advisory to cultivate relationships with people who can become clients in their own right.

Last year, the Accounting MOVE Project report, which annually tracks the status of women at accounting and advisory firms, found that 39% of participating firms collaborate with local business groups for women and minority entrepreneurs. Such events create a wide-open door (thanks to marketing efforts) for accountants to break out of their usual circles and make meaningful connections with business owners and local investors. Business owners, of course, build wealth. And business ownership itself invokes complicated estate, tax and retirement planning topics. It’s a matter of translating knowledge of an industry to the specifics of a business owner within that industry. And not incidentally, combining understanding of a practice area with the needs of business owners in that industry automatically creates a financial planning specialty that can become a marketing magnet.

Second, keep an eye out for accountants who coach and who are coachable. Mastery of personal finance and investing is notoriously uneven, regardless of how much money a client has or how they made it. Only 21% of Americans feel confident that they know enough to plan for their own retirements. No financial advisor can assume any level of financial acumen of any new client.

That’s why the skill of coaching clients through unfamiliar concepts is essential. And accountants who have successfully collaborated with coaches are likely to, in turn, apply those tactics to advisory clients. Fortunately, as many as 83% of accounting firms pull in outside coaches to work with rising professionals. Confidential reports from those coaches about the accountants they work with can be a gold mine for detecting overlooked affinities for transitioning the intimate work of financial advisory.

Finally, accountants with a strong collaborative bent demonstrate a superpower that’s fundamental to building a financial advisory practice.

Often, accountants aim for their audits and decisions to be validated by other experts in the same vertical, such as compliance officers.

But the opposite is true for financial advisors. Of course, they must have a healthy relationship with compliance officers. But they also must collaborate horizontally, with estate and trust lawyers, investment specialists, insurance agents, and sometimes, counselors, to provide a multidimensional context for the financial plan they recommend to clients.

Accountants who work well across practices and offices know the value of peer collaboration. They know how to ask the right questions of complementary professionals and how to present a holistic plan to advisory clients.

The public already trusts accountants: according to a Gallup poll, 41% of respondents rank accountants as high, or higher, in trust than bankers, lawyers and business executives. Restless accountants bring credibility with them. It’s up to advisory firms to draw them in and make the most of their skills and experience.

Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk is the owner of bbr cos., where she serves as a marketing and DEI consultant for professional services firms.