I have heard this word ‘deliverable’ over and over in the years I have worked in business and with accountants and bookkeepers. For business owners and individuals, the word corresponds to Financials, Tax returns and Audit reports. When I started my first business in the early 1980s, I learned the hard way. Back in the 80s pre-PC’s you got printed deliverables. We got one every quarter in the mail that showed us the prior quarter. And we walked the 1.5 blocks to that same CPA that gave us those financials to pay for our tax return and then pick it up. All very manual. But that was what it WAS!
That business was started from my tip jar given to an awesome salesman. It took him one year, but he did finally sell me. Within 2 months we hired an accountant for those ‘deliverables.’ From the back of his Ford dual tank pickup, we sold used office furniture in the oil fields of Wyoming. Those tips continued and kept us housed and fed and all monies gained from the sale of office furniture went back into the business. In six months, we rented a warehouse, and people could come to us. Whew… it could get flipping cold out on those oil fields. Seven months after that we had a storefront on the main street Casper. AKA ‘The Oil City.”
Soon we had, tongue firmly in cheek here, brilliant ideas to buy our own semi and pick up furniture ourselves from Southern California and North Carolina. One high end and one low to mid-range. Yeah, brilliant and dumb at the same time. All the while that CPA 1.5 blocks away snail mailed us ‘Financials aka Deliverables.
The new high-end furniture was brought into our new store front. We moved all the mid-range to the back of the store and low-end to that warehouse that we kept. Some items were pegged to be moved to our second location just opening in Gillette. On the big move day, we had a few friends helping. It was exciting and we were all young and the sun was shining.
Driving back down from the hill where the warehouse was, after the last load, we noticed a large plume of smoke. Not unusual in a town the 3 refineries on the outskirts but certainly odd considering the location of the plume was from downtown. As we got closer it became apparent that it was a fire in town, and we commented on how difficult it was for both the businesses and homes. Then we got about three blocks away and we realized it was our store.
There were three of us in that 3 on the column pickup. My partner was frantic. He jumped with the truck in gear and went running to the fire. I was in the middle of the bench seat and reached over to stop the truck and direct it to the side of the road. My friend rolled down the window and warned the sheriffs that the owner was running to the building. After some rough altercations they got him down and the EMTs gave him IV valium. We did a head count and were concerned about our missing delivery person until he came running down the street from the other direction. Ok, getting a bit calm, all humans are safe. My partner sat on the curb somewhat calmer due to the drugs, but the EMTs were not leaving and law enforcement stood next to him. I am also standing next to him watching everything we built burn to the ground. Who comes walking up? That CPA from a block and half away. Hmm he could walk and verbally communicate. “Boy that is bad, I sure hope you increased your business insurance!” I just looked at him and gaped? WTF? “Those financials I sent you, shows that you should have.”
I would say those deliverables we received each quarter were lacking. Lacking proper communication. We were insured, we did that as soon as we opened the warehouse. But in the short time our 70000.00 insurance did not cover the 250000.00 in damages. I was not angry with the CPA. This should have also been our responsibility. To understand those financials and reach out if we did not understand something that was sent to us. To ask what he thought about the truck purchase, the new store, the expansion into newer furniture lines. We should have been in contact with our insurance agent as we changed the dynamics of the business. Guess some people are not born to understand the intricacies of managing the finances of a business. The insurance agent turned out to be our saving grace in the end. We at least got the 70000.00 even after it was deemed arson. It took over a year and by that time my first child was born.
We had suspicions as to who set the fire but due to the age of the person it was kept under wraps. Several years later I was moose hunting in Lander, Wyoming with a close friend who happened to be a US Marshall. She told me about a ‘real nut case’ she had to transport earlier that year. As the only female Marshall in the Northern Rockies at the time she was part of all transports for federal prisoners in the area. This one had committed arson, “you know Penny, the hardware store in Riverton, where the owner was killed?” You guessed it. Federal rap now as an adult. Yes, it was a hard lesson but not a life ending one for us at least.
Why tell this story? Because we all have stories and many of them as adults revolve around money, how to handle it, when to adjust, what to look out for, making plans for the worst and hoping for the best. Now in the 70’s,80’s and even into the 90’s having a team attitude with your CPA/Accountant or Bookkeeper was not always promoted and even seen as doable. However, in comes the PC then shared data and then the cloud.
No longer a need to wait for snail mail or hand delivered statements. Feeds, auto delivery of source documents, knowledge at your fingertips, (hopefully through reputable sources) a drive to CAS (can you define your CAS?) Communications via text, email, DMs in TEAMS, Slack, and almost any Practice Management workflow you like.
But the deliverables are still the same. What gives? I manage an outsourcing company. We close lots of books in a variety of GLs and provide Tax and audit prep. I find it fascinating that we are given the same due date for all the books we must close within a given firm. Lately I have been asking these firm owners what happens on Date 00/00/000, effectively the day after we confirm our soft close?
Ahhh, that wonderful deliverable that your client sees as a financial statement. I cringe… for a myriad of reasons. One of which is thinking of standing on 2nd Street in Casper Wyoming watching a massive fire. You know how you can tell if your client values that ‘deliverable?’
Take a look at how long your client takes to:
- Send you source documents
- Responds to questions as to ‘what did you spend that on?
As the person at the end of the line who gets called to task for NOT meeting those dues dates, you can bet I track it on our side. Guess what, your better workflows will allow you to track it too if you set them up properly. Wonder what a good firm would do with that data? Maybe use one of those new-fangled tech tools to reach out? Perhaps define different pricing for those clients that appreciate those ‘deliverables’ you and your team groan about how hard they are to get done on time for uncaring clients?
A few months ago, I was asked by one of our client firms to assist her team in developing a new ‘deliverable.’ I asked her what they did now. The same thing that was given to me in the 1980’s only using new tech for delivery and a bit more speed. Oh, and she said, ‘don’t design anything that requires us to call them.’
We were at a conference when she asked me this, and she had her whole team there. While she was in another session, I showed her team in 15 minutes how to use AI to assist in the deliverables. For the demo I used Perplexity but mentioned you could use Chat-GPT or Claude also.
Just make sure:
- You are not on the free version
- Don’t expect you don’t have to edit
- Know your client
- And have fun with the image generator
I took my own financials, provided to me by this firm, the CPA that had prepared my tax return that year was at this little gathering. Posted a question and asked for some specific feedback I had into the Perplexity prompt and then uploaded the financials.
A few minutes later standing at a cocktail table in the back of an empty meeting room Perplexity answered my query. Defined my business based on the financials and gave me three recommendations based on my queries. I turned my laptop to the CPA and asked her, if that’s what she thought too? She smiled and said yep! I then asked perplexity to give me an image of one of the solutions. I put it all in a pdf with the image as the cover, wrote an email to prep the delivery and added at the end, please feel free to use my calendar link to set up a time for anything you would like to discuss. Total time including me having to explain different AI, LLM, and image generators to 5 people is various positions within this firm, 20 minutes.
The office manager just said, when can we set a time to do this in more detail when we get back next week? Sure, I would do that, because I knew something they did not. I have the anticipatory set for my own business. I knew some specifics I was focused on. This group wanted deliverables; they learned in the next meeting they did not even know the questions.
Here is what occurred. In the initial 20 minutes everyone was there. But when I had the TEAMS meeting with them two key people did not show up. Another person that I felt should be in attendance was the owner. She did have an out, she had covid. No doubt from the conference we had attended. But two others were not in the meeting, the salesperson for the firm and one of the people that finalized the financials before delivery.
The CPA that did my return did have a question that I knew was going to come. How do you know which questions to ask? That is when I told them you asked me to discuss deliverables with you but are starting at the end.
First, I mentioned you folks are in a vertical so we can focus on those items, issues, industry standards and concerns that are typical in your vertical. They all agreed that it is a good place to start. Ok so we have a starting point.
Question: Who takes the incoming call when someone is interested in bookkeeping or tax? One of them said that would be me, the front office person. So, when these folks call in, are their books perfect, are they just starting out and know they need to get someone to help BEFORE they start transacting anything? There were quite a few laughs. Of course not, most are coming in because they are behind on some compliance, have done little to track anything, need to get a clean set of financials and a myriad of other issues related to bookkeeping, accounting and tax.
Ok so front takes the call and handles the incoming forms from the website. What is covered? Do you take any notes? Do you have a set script to follow? No? Ok then what is done?
The front office says, well I take the name, phone and email. Set an appointment on the calendar of the salesperson and assign the task through our workflow. They are a very tech friendly firm.
Oh yes, the one not in this meeting? And what does she do? No one really knows. They threw out some assumptions based on where they saw the task in the workflow go next. They know an engagement letter is sent out and that the owner partner sends that after speaking with the new client. Ok and where are the details of all these conversations held? What are you aware of when you are handed your piece of the work back to you in the workflow? Well, we fix, convert, do the clean-up and then the monthly or quarterly books. Then we do the tax return at the end of the year.
So only one person knows the client’s actual needs, desires and hopes? The firm owner? Well not really if you are working on a set of books or an individual’s financials you do get a feel for things. But you still do not have a full picture of how the client feels. The partner owner has that relationship. Hence, we give a financial statement as the deliverable. Yikes and I call myself commitment phobic?
What if there is a shared communication in the workflow as to the client’s needs, then, the bookkeeper who is in the file most often and the account manager who looks at it at least once a month can also contribute to what should be in any given deliverable each month. Start at the beginning to create your deliverable. What do you want to do? What does the client need? Before you define a deliverable, you must define the former two questions. And note this, as you work towards satisfying those needs, goals, desires, new ones will arise. This is not a static function. As per the first part of the story; tip jar, pickup truck, warehouse, semi, storefront, two storefronts…..
Blake Oliver did a fantastic presentation at Intuit Connect about how to use technology tools for deliverables. They could also be used to begin the process of onboarding and getting to know the client. I believe he has turned it into a CPE course on Earmark. He went through a similar process for deliverables but showed how you can do it all automatically with workflow, AI and Zaps. How you can teach AI the format you want to produce and template it to happen automatically with little human oversight. As with all things AI it would be foolish to send anything without a human review. Preferrable one with the anticipatory set for the client receiving that ‘deliverable.’
Koury at STRMS can do all the PIA work of connecting the zaps and managing their continued functions. He is the app connecting king. Technology and Large corporations can take away some of the work. But they can never replace your ability to understand your client’s anticipatory set, dreams, fears, desires and changes. Sorry, you may have to pick up the phone, go to lunch, meet for coffee. The more technology we use the more we need human contact and understanding.
anticipatory set
(noun) A brief portion of a lesson given at the very beginning to get students’ attention, activate prior knowledge, and prepare them for the day’s learning. Also known as advance organizer, hook, or set induction.
