Agenda

It’s not enough to simply want to be modern. You must first understand why being modern matters. During his session, Darren will provide deep insight into the challenges firms continue to face in our ever-changing profession. He will also offer insight into the new mindset and the new set of skills required to build and sustain a Modern Firm.

Your vision is the starting point in the journey to building a Modern Firm—helping you understand where you are now and where you want to end up. In this working session, Ben will guide you through three exercises:

• Defining your vision—Your vision is at the center of everything you do and every choice you make as you build your Modern Firm.
• Finding clarity around your firm’s core values—Core values power your firm’s culture.
• Defining your ideal clients—The right clients, supported by the right technologies, and purchasing the right products from your firm drives efficiency and profitability.

Darren will explain the importance of productizing your services into easy-to-manage and easy-to-understand product bundles. He offers a simplified product model that brings much-needed clarity to staff and clients...as well as allows your firm to increase efficiency and profitability. He will also step you through the tools required—including Client View (Rootworks’ client tracking solution), sales presentations, proposals, education materials and deliverables—for each of the following products:

• Outsourced client accounting
• Tax preparation and planning
• Hybrid payroll
• Business advisory services

Business advisory services represent a huge and lucrative opportunity to provide clients with higher value advisory support—within a repeatable, highly efficient model. You don’t want to miss this session!

Leveraging the right technology makes processing payroll easier and more profitable than ever before. Darren will discuss the process and effectiveness of using a modern cloud-based payroll tool like Run Wholesale Powered by ADP®. You will learn about the ease of the back-office component as well as the value of the mobile app, which clients and their employees greatly appreciate.

Learn how adopting cloud technologies (like CCH Axcess) can drive efficient and effective back-office operations, with special attention on centralized client data and document management in the cloud.

Continued session that covers other cloud-based firm operations tools including tax, practice management and workflow.

Culture is everything in a Modern Firm! Without a healthy human culture, you can’t attract and retain the right team members. Without the right technology culture, you won’t attract and retain the right clients. And without the right security culture, you risk losing it all to cybercriminals. In this must-attend session, you will learn about the 4 Cs of a healthy culture—Clarity, Candor, Connection and Consistency—and why every C is critical to the Modern Firm.